Mother's Day musings - thanks, but I'll keep the guilt
So it's inevitable that before Mother's Day, you'll read the obligatory column or two from a working mom on balancing work and home life.
Today, CNN featured a column from a working mother that caught my eye, especially since, like me, she's also raising twin girls.
It's about losing the guilt and looking "at the bright side of balancing kids and career."
http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/05/pf/workingmoms/index.htm?cnn=yes
Give me a break. First of all, she cites that day care study that had most parents in a tizzy a few months back. You know, the one where it said that day care could cause more violent children who might also develop developmental problems? Conveniently, she downplays the dark side of child care, noting that the "majority of children are in a normal range."
That may be a small comfort for us working moms who handed over our children to daycare centers before they got their first tooth, but you just know the smug soccer moms are secretly gloating that the hours they've spent nourishing their youngsters on Baby Einstein and neighborhood nature walks have forever shielded their offspring from such dire fates.
The writer also conveniently works in an office "a few feet away" from her house, and muses about watching her husband's silhouette as he makes breakfast, packs lunches and gets her daughters ready for school.
She urges other women to encourage other fathers to pitch in more, like hers. Hey, I'm all for that (I would have divorced my husband long ago if he didn't share the early diapering and late-night feedings), but she doesn't seem to get that her idyllic situation (who wouldn't want to work a few feet from their house, but how many of us can really do that?) is an aberration and even I, a mother of twins near her daughters' age, don't really identify with her working mother life.
My daughters spent 12 hours a day in daycare since they were 7 months old, and the guilt I felt over that family sacrifice will probably never go away. I didn't really have too much of a choice, unless I wanted to move from our home to an apartment, and like most people, I just did what I had to do, and I've learned to live with it. Guilt hurts, but it won't kill you.
And I still feel bad sometimes when my daughters don't want to school and beg me to stay home with them. Feeling guilt isn't just the province of working mothers -- I suspect stay at home moms feel it, too. For yelling too much, for letting their kids watch too much TV, for not being as in touch with the businessworld as their working mom friends.
But the funny thing about the work/life balance is that it's like the fairytales we tell our children at night -- it doesn't really exist. Sure I took a cut in pay to leave early one day a week and that helps, but I suspect that even if I were granted my greatest wish - working three days per week for the same salary I'm making now at a company 10 minutes from my house, I'd still feel guilty. About not advancing enough in my career, about not having the patience to read "Horton Hears a Who" for the fourth time, about not having enough time for myself.
Guilt is my God-given right as a mother and as a woman, and I'll be damned if anyone's going to take that away from me.
Happy Mother's Day
Today, CNN featured a column from a working mother that caught my eye, especially since, like me, she's also raising twin girls.
It's about losing the guilt and looking "at the bright side of balancing kids and career."
http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/05/pf/workingmoms/index.htm?cnn=yes
Give me a break. First of all, she cites that day care study that had most parents in a tizzy a few months back. You know, the one where it said that day care could cause more violent children who might also develop developmental problems? Conveniently, she downplays the dark side of child care, noting that the "majority of children are in a normal range."
That may be a small comfort for us working moms who handed over our children to daycare centers before they got their first tooth, but you just know the smug soccer moms are secretly gloating that the hours they've spent nourishing their youngsters on Baby Einstein and neighborhood nature walks have forever shielded their offspring from such dire fates.
The writer also conveniently works in an office "a few feet away" from her house, and muses about watching her husband's silhouette as he makes breakfast, packs lunches and gets her daughters ready for school.
She urges other women to encourage other fathers to pitch in more, like hers. Hey, I'm all for that (I would have divorced my husband long ago if he didn't share the early diapering and late-night feedings), but she doesn't seem to get that her idyllic situation (who wouldn't want to work a few feet from their house, but how many of us can really do that?) is an aberration and even I, a mother of twins near her daughters' age, don't really identify with her working mother life.
My daughters spent 12 hours a day in daycare since they were 7 months old, and the guilt I felt over that family sacrifice will probably never go away. I didn't really have too much of a choice, unless I wanted to move from our home to an apartment, and like most people, I just did what I had to do, and I've learned to live with it. Guilt hurts, but it won't kill you.
And I still feel bad sometimes when my daughters don't want to school and beg me to stay home with them. Feeling guilt isn't just the province of working mothers -- I suspect stay at home moms feel it, too. For yelling too much, for letting their kids watch too much TV, for not being as in touch with the businessworld as their working mom friends.
But the funny thing about the work/life balance is that it's like the fairytales we tell our children at night -- it doesn't really exist. Sure I took a cut in pay to leave early one day a week and that helps, but I suspect that even if I were granted my greatest wish - working three days per week for the same salary I'm making now at a company 10 minutes from my house, I'd still feel guilty. About not advancing enough in my career, about not having the patience to read "Horton Hears a Who" for the fourth time, about not having enough time for myself.
Guilt is my God-given right as a mother and as a woman, and I'll be damned if anyone's going to take that away from me.
Happy Mother's Day
posted by workinmom at 1:22 PM
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