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Category Archives: Work

The Working Mom’s Double-Edged Sword

January 23, 2008

When I returned to work after maternity leave and for much of the time my daughter was a baby, I fretted over how my working would impact her bond with me. Being a baby, she was unable to tell me that she loves me or misses me. I could only go on confidence and assurance from my husband..with some logic mixed in…that she loved me deeply and cared whether or not I was there. But I still was always left with doubt.

What if she didn’t feel attached to me because I was gone all day, five days in a row?

What if she loved the nanny more than me?

Some days this bothered me more than others. Usually I was most fraught with concern by Fridays, feeling like it had been way too many days since she’d had me for a full day by then. I was never sure if she was feeling the dis-connect or was it actually me that was feeling too dis-connected from her by then?

I just wanted to hear her tell me she loves me, I thought. I just can’t wait for her to let me know she missed me, I told myself! Then it will be better! Then I will know that I am #1 for her and I can go off to work care-free (well, not quite, but you see where I’m headed).

(NOTE: In case there are any KT newbies out there, I feel compelled to remind you that this is NOT about mommy guilt. I hate mommy guilt. Quit wasting your time. I’m talking about a little bit of insecurity mixed in with a baby’s inability to clearly communicate feelings verbally, mixed in with the ways that motherhood calls everything into question, whether you are working full-time or not.)

In all of those scenarios, what never occurred to me was the reality of verbal skills. Apparently they’re a two-way street and can change on a dime.

So now, I’m the mother of a 2 year old. She tells me she loves me every night, after she wishes me “Happy Halloween” when she’s going to bed (honestly, loves that holiday more than anything). She says “bye bye, daddy, miss you” when my husband leaves every morning for work.

This is the stuff I imagined, right? All of you out there with non-verbal sweet babies, your hearts are just a-flutter, this is what you are waiting for, right?

Not so fast.

Because as I learned, seems that the little ones don’t necessarily come running to the door with their arms wide open, exclaiming “mommy mommy! I missed you!” when you return home from work.

I don’t know about your house, but in my house, the opposite is actually the case.

At first, it really hurt me. I had to hide my tears and avert my eyes. Now, I’m used to it and view it as a chance to get upstairs and change before I’m wearing darling daughter’s dinner on top of my dry cleaned suit.

Here’s what happens when I come home: my daughter barely lifts her eyes from her toys and when she does make eye contact with me, she shouts “No No No!” and runs towards the nanny.

Still feeling warm and fuzzy?

Still wishing your sweet angelic babe could whisper sweet nothings in your ear?

The thing is, she does the same thing to our nanny in the mornings. She shouts “no no no!” and runs to cuddle up on my lap.

So what do I think? I think toddlers don’t like change. I think the books and the experts are right and toddlers thrive off consistency and the same every day. I think it throws off her mojo when someone else enters the house and alters her routine. I also think she realizes the pattern of the day and what happens next.

In the morning, she knows I’m leaving and she’s sad. In the evenings when I come home, she knows she’s going to bed soon, so the clock is ticking on her playtime. (You don’t really think I could stomach that she’s pissed off that I’m home, do you?)

Bottom line is this, with the wide open expanse of verbal communication comes a free-flow of feelings out of the toddler’s mouth and the complexity of heading out the door each day has not dwindled. It has just gotten more knotty.

Hearing your child express frustration that you are leaving her again is way harder on me than her saying nothing because she doesn’t know how too. Hearing her anger that you’ve arrived home is certainly not what my past self imagined when she was a sweet little fat 6 month old.

It’s just a double-edged sword.

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Motherhood, Work

The Feminine Mistake

January 16, 2008

A friend recently loaned me the controversial book “The Feminine Mistake.” I’m only a few pages into it, so it’s far too early for me to really comment on the book, specifically. That said, what’s to stop me from commenting on the overall premise?

I’m sure you all know by now that basically the author’s argument is that if women step out of the workforce to stay home full-time with their children, they are basically putting themselves in a vulnerable position. By earning no income on her own, the idea is that the woman is then putting herself in a corner should her marriage fall apart. She has then relied too heavily on her husband, financially, and she is at risk to not find the same kind of work and pay again if she needs to re-enter the workforce, and what about the care of her children? How will she be able to continue supporting them as they are used to being taken care of?

Again – without having read the book yet – on the surface it seems that the premise is a very harsh, dark cold one. Afterall, when we head down the alter to meet our groom and become husband and wife – surely no one’s thinking about what to do when the whole thing falls apart.

And when we get pregnant and deliver our first child into this world, surely no one is thinking about what we’ll do if the whole thing falls apart.

Same with when we quit our jobs to stay home full-time to tend to our children.

Bottom line is – everything we do, in terms of big, real decisions, in my view, is a leap of faith. You can’t get any assurances in this world – you have to just view it as the glass half full and move on.

So how do I take that philosophy on life and apply it against the “Feminine Mistake” premise, which is to very cautiously and conservatively, constantly plan for the worst in life and have yourself covered?

I don’t really have an answer to that. The truth is, while I think that the big decisions we make are leaps of faith and we can’t really plan for what happens when the whole thing falls apart, I think it’s naive to not consider that as an option.

We have no guarantees. We don’t know what our life is going to be in 15 years, we don’t know how we will change, how our husbands will change. How do you know that further down the road, you won’t suddenly become obsessed with skateboarding as your hobby and start spending too much time with teens at the skate park?

Sure, it might seem ludicrous right now – but it happens.

Just like affairs happen, illness happens, stress from life happens and wears on a marriage. Wears it out.

So no, you don’t think about that when you’re bounding down the aisle in a white gown, but the truth is – with the divorce rate what it is in this country, it is naive to not consider the hard horrible outcomes when making this choice.

You might be wondering why I’m bringing this up now when this book is not new. Basically a conversation I had with a friend last week over baby happy hour has been percolating in my mind since Friday and you know my rule of thumb, if I’ve thought about it for more than 2-3 days, it’s blog material.

My friend said that the discussion of the book during her book club meeting really turned contentious. There were younger moms in the room and many of them were almost offended at her suggestion that you’re naive to think that divorce and the dissolution of your marriage isn’t a possibility and so you should protect yourself with work.

Those aren’t words any of us ever want to hear but I just don’t think it’s that wrong to consider when making the decisions we make.

Even so, I still view the cup as half full.

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Husbands, Motherhood, Work

What do you hang your hat on?

November 16, 2007

Tomorrow we are hosting a 2nd birthday party for our daughter. For so many reasons, I love having a 2 year old. She is very communicative, she is tons of fun and a joker, her personality is in full blossom right now and she’ll be excited about her own party.

At the same time, I find myself thinking that I just can’t believe she’s already 2. Like how is it possible? She was born at 8:13am and on the day of her actual birthday, will I ever not stop at that time and just feel myself back in that moment – the arrival of her into this world? I mean – I am just stunned silent when I think about how much has changed in the past two years and how quickly it’s all happened. How did it fly by so fast?

Meanwhile, over in the other corner of my brain, I’ve noticed that I have been very emotional lately about working full-time. Ever since I returned to work from maternity leave, I’ve made my peace with the fact that some days are just harder than others. Sometimes it takes every ounce of strength that I have to get my foot in the car and turn the engine on and leave. Admittedly, there are other days when I am very grateful to come to work and just have a break but for whatever reason, lately it’s just been more difficult.

On days when it’s particularly hard, I get by on the fact that I still don’t yet have a choice, financially, to not work and my job provides the income and health benefits that my family needs, so I keep plugging away. But I feel like we all need something to hang our hat on, so I hang my hat on the knowledge that this won’t always be the case. That within the next few years, I will have a choice financially, of which I am very grateful, and know that I will then make a decision.

But see – what I’m wondering is this – I’ve been back to work full-time for 21 months, I came back when my daughter was 13 weeks old. So why, 21 months into this routine, am I having such trouble lately?

Well, it hit me like a ton of bricks finally this morning. Because I just cannot believe that she’s 2. I cannot believe how much she has changed and grown and I am wrapped up in how much of that I might have missed by being at work.

Yes, yes, I know that there are people who believe that it is so good for children, especially girls, to see their mom get dressed up and go to work every day. It sets an example.

And yes, I know that my time with her is precious and I am completely devoted to her when I am home and she is well-adjusted and happy and confident in her place in the world and how important she is to me and my husband. I get all that.

But it still doesn’t change the fact that 5 days a week, for too many hours a day, I am not with her and all of a sudden she is 2 and if it happened so fast already, she’ll be 4 in a blink of an eye – and is work really that important?

So at the end of the day, I continue to struggle with getting in the car and going off to work and suspect that this feeling probably never goes away. So I hang my hat on knowing that nothing is permanent, that I have no idea what I’ll be doing in another 2 years.

And while I’m hanging my hat on this future reality, I find myself wondering what other moms hang their hat on?

Whether you work full-time, part time or are a stay-at-home mom, it seems to me that the reality of parenthood is that there is always something – there is always something that is challenging us, keeping us up at night, or tugging at our heart strings – and we have to hang our hat on something knowing that in the end – it will be fine – otherwise how do you get through a day? So, what do you hang your hat on?

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Motherhood, Work

Morass of gray

November 7, 2007

Kittens – you know I always strive to give you the best of moi. Mais oui, c’est vrai. I work diligently to bring you new, late breaking information and funny tidbits to chew on. Its why you keep coming back for more.

But some topics are just central to the very core here on KT and I just can’t get away from them, no matter how hard I try. Yes, I know you are thinking we will be discussing my show-stopping beauty today. And well, we should, but instead we will focus on more serious matters.

The age-old problem of managing work with babies. Note I said “Managing” and not “Balancing” – you know how we mock pie in the sky notions here on KT. Save the “Balancing” dreams for recent college grads.

SO, managing work and life. Has anyone found the secret yet? Because yours truly is looking for one to help survive the next few weeks. The question is, what will give, and how can I wrestle with what will give?

Here’s the deal. I’ve got a second bday party for my darling daughter on the horizon, we’ll be having 20 adults and 10 sweet little ones chez moi. Then four days later we will be hosting about 12-14 adults for Thanksgiving chez moi. Mixed in there is also my husband’s birthday. Think I can just put a bow on my DD and wish him a “Happy Birthday”? Anyone?

Bueller?

Does that whole “I gave you this child as your gift” line still work two years later? Because I’m willing to suck the life blood out of that line for the next 20 if I can (Note to any husbands reading the blog, this will not suffice as a gift for moi or your wife on her birthday. We get actual gifts. Mine is in March. I accept gifts from anyone. I do not work for a Member of Congress and I do not follow any ethical guidelines on it.)

So – immediately following these large events comes another large event, a rite of passage, if you will. Indeed, darling daughter will be starting preschool. So yours truly will need to be missing quite a bit of work between the orientation, the co-opting requirements of the preschool, and of course just getting her adjusted to suddenly being deposited in a strange place without me or the nanny anywhere in sight. I’m thinking at the very least, I will need to handle dropping her off for the first few weeks, which means I will need to come into work later than usual.

And so, enter work into this scenario. Some might think that the events we are hosting and preschool adjustment, in and of itself, is a full-time job. And I don’t disagree, but I also have a full-time job outside of the home that I need to be held accountable for. Just like you do. I’ve learned to manage the emotions that come with missing work because of childcare duties – frankly you won’t find a guilty bone or ligament in my body because it’s irrelevant when DD needs me.

BUT – that being said – suddenly it seems that we might be part of a large event here at work in the next two weeks. Like of epic proportions and one in which I would be intimately involved in.

So herein lies the rub. The working pre-mom side of me is hungry for these work related things to happen because the learning curve is steep, the excitement is high and the stress would be through the roof. The old me would thrive on this stuff. It’s big league stuff we’re talking about – amazing resume additions and frankly, just great exposure.

But I’m not the pre-mom anymore.

So how, exactly, does one manage your first child’s preschool orientation coinciding on the same day, at the same time, as an epic sized work event in which you would need to be a part of?

Suddenly the black and white lines of duty and responsibility come crumbling down and all I see is a morass of gray.

Life was so simple before I had my baby. Everything was so black and white, I was so practical. There was always a clear-cut solution. Nothing could be further from the truth now and for the purposes of full disclosure, it’s one of the realities of parenthood that hit me the hardest in those early weeks.

I can tell you with absolute honesty that the idea of having any emotional struggle with returning to work after birthing a child truly never dawned on me. Until I had one. It hit me like a ton of bricks, that particular reality.

And so, what will happen? How will I be a part of a major work event and learn from it and be a critical part of the team, and pull off a bday party, hosting Thanksgiving, celebrating husband’s birthday, attending preschool orientation, being present in the classroom on the first day of preschool, and personally handling her drop-off for the first few weeks?

Because I didn’t just graduate from college last week, I’m well aware of the fact that something will give along the way and I’ll have to deal with it. It seems glaringly obvious that I’m going to miss some of the preschool milestones and will do my best to check my mommy guilt at the door with that one.

But more importantly, along the way, I continue to be amazed with how I view myself professionally since having become a mother. There is a big part of me that hopes the major work event dies a quick and sudden death and just goes away, so I can resume my intention of moving forward with all of my plans these next few weeks. The other part of me really wants the work stuff to happen because, well, I still love a challenge and want to learn.

I have no idea what will play out and what will give. Something’s gonna give and it’s anyone’s guess how I’ll feel about it. I’ll be sure to keep you posted. The truth is, I write all this today only because I know everyone one of us who is managing motherhood with careers faces these things all the time and it’s a constant battle. I always like a reminder that I’m not alone in this, so I thought maybe you would too.

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Motherhood, Work