Mothers at Work

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Summer has hit with a BANG; I expected it to. I read an editor’s blurb the other day wherein the editor claims she loves summer time because she gets to toss out the family calendar for a few months and enjoy the lazy days. I wonder what planet she lives on. For our summer, I end up printing out our calendar and posting it on the kitchen wall. It changes on a daily basis, but I only reprint pages every week or so. I drive the 5-year-old to a wonderful day camp, but it is farther away than preschool and the trip is made on the highway at rush hour. Because there will be large blocks of time when I cannot do much outside the house (my husband will be overseas), I have had to squish doctor and other appointments into the “available” weeks. With earlier get-out-of-the-house times come earlier bedtimes – couple this with my daughter’s caregiver having summer evening classes and we have pretty significant changes to our evening routine.

I’m not complaining. I’m really glad I get to do this for everyone. It actually makes me feel really good to think that two of my kids are doing something they will really enjoy this summer, and I have a hand in making it happen.

But my days are severed into even more chunks than usual, and I’ve been finding myself sitting at my computer, scrolling up and down my “to-do” list, not finding anything I think I could actually get done. Meanwhile, my brain is complaining that it needs to find a project to get absorbed by. This is quite a dangerous state to be in – I feel like I have time because so often I’m not really doing anything. Of course, I don’t have time for any mind-absorbing projects. Children would be picked up late; I’d stumble through the days after working late into the night; My attempt to lose weight would be shot.

I tell myself that I’m just having a difficult time with the transition, and once the summer is fully underway, I’ll have figured out how to be productive. Not only do I know this is a lie because nearly every week this summer is different from the previous one, I know this is a lie because before the summer started I’d been telling myself that once I got my sleep patterns coordinated and managed my daytime sleepiness better, I’d be productive. Since I’ve been feeding myself more caffeine and going to bed at a more reasonable hour and exercising nearly every day I have, overall, been more awake than I have been in a while. True, the addition of drugs might do the trick. Then I think of The Rolling Stones – Mother’s Little Helper – “through her busy, dying day”. And it hits a bit too close to home. The days are busy, but not fulfilling. One after another after another after another after another. My brain is smart. It knows what I need. This time, though, I will try harder to not indulge it. To not look for new projects but instead to take on the old. Maybe, just maybe, if I can get my here-and-now life in shape, I can have an only-dreamed-of-life later.

My mother’s care-taking duties have ended. No more phone calls to see how he is doing. No more putting those pills in those weekly divided containers that has every single day of the week labeled. No more driving to the doctors’ appointments, to the hospital, to the nursing home or even just to bring him to the great-grandchildren’s birthday parties. My mom doesn’t have to dread the phone ringing with bad news. My grandfather, her father, died last week. So instead of worrying about him and taking care of him, she is now grieving for all those lost times with him. He will never see his four youngest great-grandchildren grow up, nor see the oldest five getting married and having their own children. He’ll never see his youngest granddaughter getting married ~~ he was unconscious when she graduated from college with honors. His time has ended.

My mother, after 11 years of surgeries, doctors’ appointments, family meals and countless times nagging him to take his medicine, to eat properly and checking up on him, is now finished with her care-taking duties. She is at a loss right now for what to do. She is so used to wrapping her schedule and time around his needs. What does she do now that she’s experiencing empty-nest syndrome again? She already admitted at the funeral home that she is still finding herself reaching for the phone to check on him. It is surreal that he isn’t around anymore.

So yes, eventually, all care taking does stop. All those hours she has spent readying his medicines, pacing the waiting room and consulting with the doctors, insurance companies and all of the other people in the huge bureaucracy of the medical corporation ~~ is over. For now.

It is sad. It is depressing. It is also a relief.

Will she ever get to reclaim those hours again? No. Will anyone else recognize all the unpaid services she has done? No. It is expected of her. Her father certainly expected it of her even though he never really showed his gratitude to her. My dad, my husband and I have supported her through this time, but she has literally shouldered this burden alone. There are other people who have been in her shoes as well. They empathize with her, and I am learning how to do it with grace and love. I aim to do it as well as she did when I have to take care of her.

While it is a sad time for our family, we can take joy in our children. We can enjoy their growing up years and know that while everything is finite in this world, love is always infinite. My grandpa sure loved all 17 of his grandchildren, his children and their spouses and they sure loved him. We can abide in those memories and cherish them as well as remembering the sacrifices that my mother has made to ensure that he was well taken care of.

It is definitely the end of the road for one chapter in our lives.

I’ve left home with my children again, not on the road this time, though my children are headed into the sunset of one school year and the dawning of a busy summer. I’ve brought my kids to another coast, to a big city to be babysat by their Uncle whilst I join my husband for — gasp — a short trip away-a work and leisure adventure. It’s been too long.

Our airplane adventure really began when my son realized he’d left his carry on of toys and goodies at home - and when my daughter realized she really hadn’t listened to me when she sweetly offered to let her brother play with her things, — she really hadn’t selected anything to bring along to pass the time. She was offering something she didn’t have and had taken no responsibility for finding before we left the house. It as one of those moments that Jim Fay and the Love and Logic facilitators dream about. A double header.

My husband and I had a moment like this ourselves just as as I sat down: our children’s car seats! Well,after contemplating the possibilities I decided that Uncle could use a booster seat of his own for these kind of trips, and well…my youngest is ready to move to a booster seat. So, I figured, what better time than now? Just get the item while away and bring it home. We’d get a base for my son - prett y reasonable, with Uncle keeping the base. And you all know my daughter’s car seat has seen better days! Despite her pleas of endless love for the thing, maybe it was time to fly up to a newer, more alluring model. Of course, I ask what Fay& Cline would suggest that I do here: and unfortunately, the life of the kids comes before doing without on this one. Cannot accept the consequences of this one, and no - I cannot roll up a towel under the little warlords and hope for the best, as my husband suggested. You know, after all -my brother will be driving.

When we reached my brother’s house, I discovered that I would have to drive into another city without a car seat to get a car seat. We’re not really talking one suburb to another suburb - but across a wide geography. It appears that although car seats are legally required, and so, highly desirable in this city and are actually encouraged and even fitted here, there are none available- though I haven’t tried to find any used ones. I can rent one, I can even have one sent by web sale to my door - but I cannot find a place that will sell me one in person. There aren’t that many kids in this City, after all - it’s a place that requires small spaces, and its loud, full of life - young adult to childless middle life kind of life. There were more dogs in the park today than children. The van I glimpsed walking home from our romp tonight said “Everything you need to care for your pet….Playgroups for your pet.” Doggie daycare.

So…I’ve decided that a one road fits all approach to work life balance isn’t the way to go: here the need for flexibility would be more about living a better life, not only having time for your children, but time for your pet. Which I think is a good thing - pets need a lot of care. Mine reminds me of that by running into me whenever he’s out of food.

Sitting on the plane with our purchased sandwiches reminded me of this need for diversity as well: once, everyone got two choices for a meal - the tri tips in barbeque sauce or the lasagna. Then just peanuts became the rage, but for the allergies - which gave way to pretzels. Now you are lucky to get a Lorna Doone cookie - which I’m not knocking, I like those crisp little shortbreads. What I mean is - Papa Plane used to take care of us. See to our needs. Now we are all kind of adrift. The guy next to me crunched on jalepeno flavored chips while he did an elaborate crossword puzzle with his kids. I at a wrap and doled out goodies to my kids while trying to escape yet another outburst of sibling rivilry. Oh, the confinement ! This was destined to be one long ride. Across the aisle, my cabim mate’s chips gave him vigor; my wrap gave me indigestion. But I was free to choose my wrap. Jalepeno chips would make fire come out of my mouth instead of just venom.

My favorite line from the ride was when my daughter began crying because of the pain in her ears which I could do nothing to abate. She looked at me and said “If I ‘d known it was going to be like this, I wouldn’t have come!” Luckily, it was time to land.

I ended the flight thinking we should all be guaranteed a minimum of food for our dollar -once again being cared for by Papa Plane. Where would the will to invest in such a program come from? Not to mention the cash? All passengers would be equal - no more first class, we’d all be in coach. We’d all get those moist towels before and after dinner. We’d have equal access to all the bathrooms.

Then I realized that maybe my wrap was more delicious than those tri-tips. It kind of sucked to be forced to eat what everyone else did, especially when the cost cutting measures reduced the dessert to a fragment of its former size and icing. Maybe it is better to have some flexibility as to what works best for you? To wrap or to pizza, for instance. How can you create such innovation within a framework that requires that some “known” amount of food will go onto the plane? Is it reasonable to aspire to be in first class, but to level the jetway so that well, yes, we all have to stand in line, but we all get treated as individuals with a life that is shared with others who require our care, pet, child, brothers and Uncles.

So maybe the analogy isn’t a total fit, but it’s fun to think about the complexity of changes we seek. One wrap might not fit all. How will we know the right combination of choice and guarantee to a better life for all? A better road and jetway?

Oh, and as always- you have only to watch parents with young babies on a plane to see the “at work” part of caregiving.

Oh, and the saga of the car seats continues - with two not really great options available, but either way, they’ll be safe in the best I can do for them. Reading this, my brother suggests a new sitcom - parents and the city.

Yeah, Moms Rock. Mothers at work. Mothers in the City.

My husband has an extraordinarily flexible job. As a professor, he only has to be “in the office” for a few hours a few days a week. The rest of his working time is devoted to class preparation and research and he can usually do these at home. This means he can come to a child’s doctor appointment with me, or pick up a child from preschool if my errands are running behind schedule. He also watches the baby while I go to my mental health appointments and when I go to the gym. (I take the 5-year-old with me, but haven’t made the effort to acclimate the baby to them yet.) On the flip side, he also works nights, weekends and holidays. He never feels he has enough time for work.

He also feels very guilty for not being a parent 100% of the time and “makes up for it” by, in my opinion, being there too much for the boys. They both have him wrapped around their little fingers. My husband wants the boys to have all the interactive playtime they want, and the 5-year-old would have this every waking moment if he could. Since I insist that I have to do my other jobs too (housekeeping, caring for my disabled daughter, etc.) I refuse to spend “enough” time playing with the boys.

So, as could be easily guessed, my husband doesn’t spend enough time on his paid work, and he often whines about it. I tell him over and over to leave the house to get work done. He argues that a) he feels guilty doing that, b) I need him around, and especially c) he gets angry that he can’t work at home because, after all, he was able to do so for the first 40 years of his life. We had this argument this morning, and I told him I was tired of being made to feel guilty whenever I left him with a child (day or night, weekend or weekday), and I’m tired of being made to feel guilty that he isn’t getting enough work done. I did wonder briefly if I was being unfair – maybe I’m the one feeling guilty. Then he said “if I have to drive to work, I’ll be using x pounds of carbon every day on the commute” (We both are Very Concerned about global warming, but he drives an efficient Toyota Corolla and works about 15 miles away. If he wanted to do something meaningful, we should convert the house to solar.)

We’ve talked about his work schedule in therapy. We’ve had this argument many times before. He wants to Have It All. I want to be sure he keeps earning the money – and not just for the money’s sake, but because so very much of his identity and self-worth is invested in his research that to loose funding for it would surely send him into a severe depression.

I just can’t seem to convince him that most days are better for both of us when he is working outside the home. We had a horrible morning, but after he slammed out to drive to the office, things have been pretty good, even with all 4 kids at home alone with me. (The older kids have been more helpful than usual though).

As my husband’s difficulties demonstrate, even with the best flexibility, it can be extremely difficult to balance a full-time job and family. I’m not at all sure where he got the impression that he could “Do It All”, but he can’t. And it is hard to watch because he is a great dad and he should be able to spend more time with his kids. And I am not always a great mom and I should be able to spend less time with the kids. Our lives could be better for all of us if his employers allowed an option of reduced course loads for reduced pay. Of course, I’d have to find an employer that allowed me to work part time for reasonable pay to make up for his lost income. But we would both be so much happier.

I look at our lives and I feel really lucky that my husband can be at home so much; so few of them can. Where do I get off complaining that what I have isn’t enough when I have so much more than so many others do? I complain because I believe we are being sold a load of changing-table mess when the media and our employers try to make us feel lucky for being able to go to work an hour later or for allowing us to telecommute one day a week as though these small measures are enough. They help, they are a step in the right direction, but they are not enough.

In another email exchange with a friend of mine, we were talking about career choices and why we opted out ~~ which is such a banal way of expressing it, in my opinion. I like to believe it’s because life intervenes and sometimes, our employment choices just don’t fit quite right. She (my friend) has a Masters’ in Athletic training. She still renews her license in hopes that someday she will be able to return to work after her youngest is in school full-time. This is what she wrote:

“As of 2000 woman make up at least 45% of the athletic trainers (may be more now). Although studies still show women make, on average, about $10,000 less than men. In a study that polled both men and women ~ about 97% of women feel men are given preference when it comes to professional teams or higher “profile” positions and 97% of men agree. Many women feel that obstacles in their personal lives create issues with pursuing an Athletic Training career to their fullest potential. (IE: motherhood).

“Athletic Training revolves around sports, in most cases, and therefore ~~ late or long hours (weekends, too) that come from practices and games are not conducive to finding childcare. In our town, it is hard pressed to find a job in “just” the clinical setting (IE: doctor’s offices or physical therapy facilities), since the “money” made off Athletic Trainers comes from recruiting injured patients from the athletic field into the doctor’s office or PT department ~~ where the real money can be made.

“I had a very difficult time working out my schedule with childcare when C was little. I was working 20 hrs in the PT clinic and about 30-40 in the high school. I can assure you that when my husband’s assistant Athletic Trainer at the college has kids ~~ her life is not going to be that easy as well. Her job required some overnight trips. It will be interesting when she feels she is ready for children.”

My friend lives in the same area as I do ~~ a rural college town and she, too, has no family around to provide support. She now baby-sits for another one of the moms in our chapter who is working full time at the same clinic that my friend used to work at. When her first child was born, she was working about fifty to sixty hours a week and never had any time for her child other than that six weeks’ maternity leave. She finished out the school year before quitting. She does get frustrated too since she really loved her job and her husband is the head athletic trainer at our college. If they both worked, who would be home to take care of the kids?

This is just one of many examples I have heard over the last few weeks of why women who tried to combine their jobs with raising children. Sometimes, it’s just not feasible. Sometimes, it is possible, but hard. Sometimes, there is no choice but to work because a family can’t live on just one salary. Women should have the right to choose when they come to that fork in the road where we have to decide whether or not to keep on working or staying home with the children. I know that there are organizations out there that have been working on women’s behalves to address these issues. But knowing how slow change can be, we have to figure out a way that works best for us today. At the same time, it leaves us hope that the future will be better for our children because we’re striving to make those changes now.

At least that is what I think today.

I know that Mother’s Day has already come and gone but to be really honest, I don’t really buy into the Hallmark version of Mother’s Day. I believe that mothers should be honored every day of the year but that isn’t going to happen, simply because we are human. A friend of mine wrote the following during an email exchange and it really hit close to home.

“Sleep is over rated, HAHA. My Mom worked 6-7 nights a week 3rd shift ever since I was 10 and she never missed a thing. Made it to all games, concerts, and practices. She was even a Girl Scout leader, went on school field trips, and volunteered once a week at the school.

“I figured, if she could do that and raise 5 kids, I surely could do that raising 2 kids and only working 3 nights a week. Women pour their heart and soul into everything they do, that is why we put up with all the crap, laziness, and heart ache from husbands and children. My Mom has the biggest heart and I want A and R to feel the same about me when they look back and wonder ‘How did she do that?’ ”

Yes, how did she do that?

I believe that women are more capable of doing anything that they set their minds to. Today’s mothers are offered more opportunities to do more things than our mothers were able to do. However, it shows that when it comes to push to shove, we women are more than able to do it because we have been shown the way by our very own mothers, if we are fortunate. There isn’t a lot I can add to my friend’s admiration for her mother as I feel the same way. Our mothers have made many sacrifices and believed in us so we can have the opportunities to make a lot of choices. The very least we can do is to ensure that our children ~~ both male and female ~~ have the same opportunities or more for their future.

The other day I suddenly realized that I couldn’t return to work until I’d dealt with all the piles of junk sitting around my house. It is completely delusional to think I’ll have more time to deal with them after becoming employed. So twice since then I have had dreams of trying to clean out my closets – in these dreams I very much want to do it and look forward to the freedom the clean closets will mean, but, of course, for myriad only-in-dreams reasons my closets stay as disorganized as ever.

Yesterday and today have been hard days for everyone, and it seems like the source of the problem is my inability to be awake and alert. I don’t know what has brought on a vicious renewal of my frequent problems with wakefulness, but here we are, trying to deal with a mommy who is barely functioning. I sleep more than my 11-month old does. My best accomplishment of the day is running the dishwasher. Coffee doesn’t stop me from napping and napping doesn’t wake me up. I am not pregnant (not only has there been close to zero opportunity, but I am in the 3rd day of my cycle). Years ago I went from doctor to doctor hunting for an answer. The best answer I got was from a sleep specialist, who diagnosed me with narcolepsy. I don’t think the diagnosis is completely right, but it isn’t completely wrong either and it is all I have to go on. Once the baby is completely weaned I can try drugs again; they help, but they do not cure.

I don’t know what made me be like this. I strongly suspect that pushing myself so hard while I was working and single has a lot to do with it. Stress kills. Or maybe it is simply the result of the anesthesia I had for my jaw surgery. But it seems here to stay, yet another obstacle to doing everything I am responsible for .

So who am I kidding by thinking that I can ever go back to work? Even if I had the cleanest closets on the planet I have needs for flexibility that go beyond what any job my brain would love could offer. Yet I can’t help but think that allowing myself to feel that sense of power, intelligence, and worth again could help solve my problems. Delusional or not, I’ll keep hoping.

My co-leader forwarded an email where you calculate your job’s worth as a stay-at-home mom. I can honestly tell you that if I was actually getting paid on what I am worth, my husband will be able to retire on what I make in a single week ~~ by just being a mom. It is meant to be an ego-booster, but really, it is depressing. I love being a stay-at-home mom. I am pretty good at it. I have managed to be busy and finding new things that I didn’t know that I could do. But there are times when I lay in bed at night and worry about how I can afford to support us four if something should happen to my husband.

My husband is able to provide for us quite comfortably. We figured out that if I worked, my salary would just go to providing day care for the boys. It just didn’t make sense to work when all that money would go to daycare and not for anything else. So I was quite happy to stay home and take care of the boys. Now that they’re getting a bit more independent and school is looming in the near future, it’s time for me to reassess what I need to do to contribute to the finances around here. I will never make as much as he does in one week. Compared to my last job, we’d be in the poverty level for a family of four. I don’t even want to go back to what I was doing before I quit. I don’t even know what I want to do when I grow up. There are no good paying jobs in my field around this area at all. I am not the only one with that problem. It comes with the territory of living in a rural community.

Some of the moms in the Power Loop discussions have mentioned that they gave up their career for several reasons. It got me to thinking. People would think my husband, who is a white-collar professional working in a blue-collar field, is not ambitious. In fact, his colleagues at work scoff at him constantly because he’s working there when he should be working somewhere else, using his college degrees. Do you know why he’s working in a blue-collar field? The pay is great. The health insurance is even better. He is willing to sacrifice his goals to make sure that the kids and I have decent health insurance and have a nice home over our heads. He misses being in his field but his field didn’t even pay him half as much as he’s earning now. Sad, isn’t it? But that’s the reality around here.

If I would to make more money than he was, he would gladly retire and stay home to raise our sons. Sometimes, I don’t think that is a bad idea since he is older than I am. I think he would offer a lot more to our sons than I ever would. He’s more patient than I am. He likes being with them and he has always been a hands-on father with them from the time they were born. But I am not going to make as much as he does. No matter what I do, I will never make the same amount of money as he does. Nor will I ever find the same kind of health benefits, which we desperately need. And when I do go back to work, I will not be working full time in my career. I have no idea yet what I am going to do but have a few more years to start looking for it, and in the meantime, I have been keeping my resume updated.

Not all of us are cut out to be CEOs of a company or advance to the top in our fields. It’s not that I am not ambitious ~~ I just want to get satisfaction in just getting the job done and done well. I want to enjoy my job and come home and enjoy my children and spouse. That’s all. I may not be as smart as people claim that they are ~~ but that’s ok. I am not in the business of being smarter than everyone else is. I am in the business of raising my children and making sure that there is food on the table to feed them. And if I am lucky, I’ll be able to retire and live quite comfortably. My husband feels the same way too.
My husband has been offered several times to be a manager at his job. He turned it down because he didn’t want to spend all of his time working, especially now that he has a wife and two kids at home. If he took on a management position, he would never be home. The little extra money would be nice but he feels that life is too short to spend it all at work. Does that make him any less of a man? I don’t think so. His father turned down promotions at work too because he believed in spending time with the kids. People look at them strangely because they have made choices that are not on par with the rest of the working world.

So while he’s at work, my job is to take care of the kids and create a home for the four of us. Yes, it’s tedious sometimes. Yes, it’s mundane. I mean, come on, who really wants to do laundry and the dishes every single day? I like a clean house just as much as everyone else, but there are more interesting things out there than housework (at least there are to me!). But I maintain the home and take care of the kids because someone has to do it. Yes, it’s not recognized as a paying job, according to the mainstream media. I recognize that it has its own rewards and frustrations, just like any other job out there. I am fortunate enough to have a husband who believes in me and encourages me and actually helps me out with everything around here.

If I am lucky, in a couple of years, I will have figured out what I plan on doing for the rest of my working life. Hopefully, it’ll be as fulfilling as I’d like it to be. It may not be a full time job at first because my husband works second shift and it will be up to me to have a job that has more flexibility in it. I may not make, as much money as he does, but the money I earn will help us out in the long run. I can hope. Till then, we both would live on a tighter budget and enjoy our children’s fleeting childhood.

A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend about occupational therapy for our kids. She mentioned she just pays the bills and stuffs the paperwork away and assumes it is fine. I have been known to create a spreadsheet to keep track of visit dates, the amount insurance was billed, what I was billed, and what insurance has paid, because I’ve found a lot of billing errors for OT.

I spend about 4 hours every 3 months filing paperwork with insurance companies in order to get reimbursements. (And I am not even allowed to sign the darn forms – my husband must do that). These are for mental health (3 providers at the moment) and dental (1 provider, 3 kids). It isn’t hard work so much as work that needs a clear dining room table, a copy machine, and at least a little bit of concentration. Because I don’t own a copy machine, driving is involved.

This kind of work is pure-and-simple-no-one-thinks-it-is-fun work. I mean, I don’t agree with the argument that since mothering is fun, we shouldn’t be whining about it not being fulfilling enough – but I do understand why some people think that way. Where I often feel most unrecognized and invisible is when I do this type of work. After all, it is work that many people get paid to do. I do the work for doctors who have decided that they don’t want to pay for it and if I am to see them, I must take on the burden myself. My efforts are financially beneficial to those doctors. I am in essence an unpaid insurance claims contractor.

No, I’m not alone. Most parents lucky enough to have health insurance have to do this, although not perhaps to the extent I do. But here is an interesting difference between parents who are employed outside the home and those who are not: parents who do this during their lunch hour or use the office copy machine or even manage to do the whole thing while on-the-clock get to do this work while their children are in preschool. Not only can they get child-free time for this personal work, they can count this time toward the child and dependent care credit. I know, I know, the government wouldn’t agree, and the childcare credit is miniscule – employed parents might get a penny or so in tax savings for their time spent filing insurance claims. But I have no access to even this small benefit (much less an office copying machine).

Why shouldn’t I get some sort of childcare credit for having my child in preschool so I can get this kind of work completed? The doctor’s offices and the insurance companies save money on employees because of the work I do, and it is quite hard to do it right with children underfoot. Yet for some reason I am not worthy of any of the benefits an employee gets. (The benefit I personally want most is to be able to purchase disability insurance for me).

I am, instead, being asked to take on more and more work that companies don’t feel like paying their employees to do, and it is harder for me than for a paid employee with children elsewhere. (Navigating voice-automated phone systems with highly vocal children at my feet comes to mind.) Yet another way corporate America refuses to recognize that the demands of parenting must be accommodated.

Mother’s Day, May 14, 2006

My child remarked to me the other day when I did something pertaining to my previous professional life (a favor to a friend and not for pay): how did you know how to do that?

I have to admit I was taken aback by this comment. My kids see me doing “work,” of various kinds all of the time. They also see me not cleaning up after a lot of it until more of it piles up, but they do see me work on a consistent basis. But, I think, because I don’t put on the business suit, dress up, and pull out of the driveway each day, they don’t see my “work” as work: I am just Mom.

Every so often I like to astound them with factoids from my prior existence. I like them to know that I lived a bi-coastal life before settling down with their Dad, that I graduated Cum Laude, and worked three jobs to put myself through school, and that I was a teacher in a previous incarnation. Maybe they don’t yet care, but I want them to know that I’m a person with a history too, as well as their mother, and that they are part of my story, just as my mother and her life are part of mine.

My son was wandering the house singing the other night before bed, looking for something. I replied to him with the soprano part of the song he was giving voice to, a choir tune about ringing bells – “ding, dong, ding, dong.” He came into the kitchen and stared at me for a second: how did you know that, Mom? Another secret about me – I spent many, many years singing in choirs all through my schooling. I really enjoyed that moment of mutual sharing, that recognition of shared experience across space and time.

Years after my pre-k days, my mother told me that she’d gone to the same school as a youngster when my grandparents had first moved to our small town –I’d had no idea, and was stunned and amazed. It somehow made sense – the connection that I’d felt for the place, the affection that she had for it. I also realize how necessary and important my mother believed education to be because she sent all four of us to this school in an age when not many parents could or would have considered preschool an option: she worked at her own business as well as the family’s, and that was one reason. I also think she needed time alone, or with the newest addition to the family.

In the New York Times’ editorial page today there is a piece by Deborah Tannen about the relationship between mothers and daughters. Tannen’s sister asked her when her mother became ill, “have you settled your emotional account with her?” To which Tannen replied that the attention she’d bestowed upon her Mom had made up for the tension and anger between them when she was a young woman. No, her sister replied: “What about the suffering she caused you?” Our relationships with our mothers are full of tangles, regrets, stories of neglect, anger. My mother and I have had our share of differences.

Ms. Mechham’s Preschool is one of the countless ways I remember my mother caring for us. Maybe you can relate to the lyrics of this song, too.

PART OF YOUR OWN, words & lyrics by John Gorka

I wish you could live forever
And that I could be there too
And that there’d be generations
To look after me and you.

But I know that isn’t likely
So I guess I’ll say it now
That I’ll love you past the boundaries
That time and breath allow

You were my first memory
We were playing in the grass
Like the colors of your Apron
Love was colored in to last

(chorus)
I’m glad the light still hits your face
And I’m glad each time you answer the phone
For you, life and home have never been an easy place
And I’m glad to be part of your own

You were the foundation
that I built my life upon
First with Dad and Cass and Mary
Then one was sick and one was gone.

People only get one family
And a lot of them are rough
I’m glad the one I got was one
That wasn’t hard to love.

I hope I have your toughness
Along with your will to be kind
And know as I am one of yours
That you are one of mine.

(repeat chorus)

I could not say it any better than this…
Happy Mothers Day.

I didn’t want to write this post. Although it was percolating through my mind as I made breakfast and fed the kids, I thought I’d decided that I complain too much and you out there don’t need to read my constantly negative observations.

Then when I was showering, before my 17-year-old stole all the hot water while I was all soapy, I had a thought that made me realize that I must write. And if I’m going to write, I may as well post it for all to read, because I know I am not the only one out there who has such a hard time on mother’s day.

Ironically, I was trying to be positive. I thought that what I should try to do was to see my mother in a more positive light. It had to have been very hard on her to decide to leave my father; she was always quite depressed and had very low self-esteem and I have been in that boat too. But then I simply couldn’t help it – I stopped trying to get inside my mother’s head and started feeling what it was like when she moved away. When I left my ex, I moved to a part of town that was closer to my work but not too far away from him. My mother, however, moved from North Carolina to New York. When I left my ex, I took both kids. My mother, however, took only my 14-year-old sister, leaving 9-year-old me and my 7-year-old brother with my father. Note that my mother felt my father was such a bad person she had to get completely away from him. I think she knew by then that he was a misogynist. Yet I was left with him … OK, maybe she didn’t think she could handle the responsibilities of being a mother while she was trying to figure out how to live on her own (something she had never done). Yet she took my older sister with her. I was closest to my brother, but I’d looked up to my sister. Mom always clearly liked my older sister best. Dad always clearly liked my younger brother best. I was nobody’s favorite.

Even though I was crying by now, I still tried to see if I could understand my mother. I thought of all the times I’ve been tempted to run, and I thought of all the details I’d had to deal with (including secrecy) when I left my ex. Then I remembered that she had months of planning this. Before she left, my dad bought a new house for him and the two of us to live in. They enrolled us in a sleep-away summer camp for 8 weeks and told us when we left that when we got back we’d be living in the new house and mom wouldn’t be there. I don’t remember any efforts on my mother’s part to be close to me before she abandoned me. No, I take that back. She did sit me on the porch of the new house and talk with me a little about piano lessons. I’d thought that very odd because she seemed to actually listen to what I had to say, and she never talked to me or wanted to hear what I had to say.

A year later, my mother moved my brother and me up to New York. In retrospect, I think life with my dad was better than life with my mother. After a few years, my brother moved back to North Carolina and my sister went off to college. And when I was 17, my mom took a vacation to visit her father in California and never came back.

Every year at mother’s day I feel guilty because I just can’t muster what it takes to call my mom and wish her “happy mother’s day”. I can understand that it wasn’t her fault that she was so mentally goofed up. One of these years I will have worked through enough of the pain that perhaps I can let mother’s day simply be like any other day (as my husband can do with great ease). Until then, it is a very hard day to live through, and I wish it would go away.

For those of you who had / have great mothers, cherish your memories. For those of you who are mothers, there is great value in what you do – not just at the social and economic level, but at the personal and emotional level. The best we can do is try, and if you see a mother in need, lend a hand. You are not just helping her, but also those who depend on her.

Just recently, my Mothers & More chapter hosted a Mother’s Day Tea. I did not have a daughter but I went anyway. I am a daughter and even though my mother lives an hour away, I went to have some fun times with the girls. There were two questions that the hostesses asked the group just before we left. When did you first know that you were a mother? Now that you are a mother, how do you feel about your mother? Tough questions, that’s for sure. I know that I flubbed my answers on the spot as I was stammering out my answers. But it was food for thought and with Mother’s Day just around the corner ~~ I thought I could write a piece.

When did I first know that I was a mother? I don’t think I ever had that epiphany where you sat there and looked at your newborn and heard the angels singing. I wanted that moment and have dreamed for it all of my life. But I never got it. I even feel weird being called Mrs. B or my sons’ mom. I keep looking over my shoulders to see if my mother-in-law is standing behind me.

The boys were born eight weeks early and by a scheduled c-section. I was terrified of the procedure and a little bit worried about the boys, but I had a feeling deep inside of me that they would be all right. I did have high hopes that I would instantly bond with my children right after birth but that didn’t happen. They were brought over to me in bundles of blankets and I got a blurred look at their faces before they were whisked away to NICU. I didn’t get to hold them or meet them till two hours later after I was out of the recovery room.

When I finally did get to hold Number Two Son, his brother was under a heating lamp with a breathing mask over his face. If it weren’t for pictures, I seriously doubt that I would remember any of my first moments with my children. I was so out of it. I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. Even when I was holding both of them a few minutes later and even later on that night, I felt absolutely nothing. Those two tiny beings are mine but I didn’t feel like I was a mom. All day long, visitors came and gone in my hospital room, talking about how adorable the babies were ~~ I would just lie there pumping the medicine pump and pretended to know what they were talking about.

The next night, after waiting all day to see my children, my husband wheeled me down to the NICU. I think it was nine-thirty in the evening and by then, I was starting to become a little bit more aware of what’s going on. He wheeled me into the room up to their incubators. There was a nurse standing there fiddling with their heart monitors and I said, “I am ready to hold them now.” The nurse turned to me and said sternly, “I have been picking them up and in and out of their incubators all day long. I don’t think you should see them.” I sat up straighter in my chair and said very firmly, “I am their mother. I haven’t seen them all day today and I want to hold my babies.” (The NICU at my hometown hospital were really good about encouraging parents bonding with their babies ~~ and honestly, that nurse was an exception to the nurses in there. In fact, she wasn’t even a regular NICU nurse ~~ just a float.) My husband later told me that I was getting a little bit hysterical when I was told that I couldn’t hold the babies. I politely reminded him that it’s bad enough that I never got the birth experiences where they lay the babies on your chest and you look at them in the eyes and know instantly that you are their mother and they are your children. I barely got to see my children at all during their first few weeks of life.

How dare anyone deny me my rights to see my children? They weren’t sick or having breathing problems ~~ they were just tiny. When I stood up to that nurse, I finally knew that I was their mother. I didn’t feel that epiphany that I wanted to feel as that came later on when both of them were home with me. But I stood my ground and made it clear that no one was going to come between my sons and me. Those little babies in the incubators needed their mom just as much as any newborn. Just because they were separated from me by half a hospital wing and later on, by several miles, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t need their mom when I was gone. I needed to be with them too. Even now when they’re running all over the place and discovering their independence, we still need each other.

Do I respect my mother more? Oh yes. Has our relationship changed? Yes and for the better. How do I feel about my mother? Got a year or a lifetime? That will be how long it will take for me to even accurately describe my feelings. I don’t even bother to try explaining that deep connection that I feel with my mother. It’s there. She knows and I know how we feel. Yes, we still are two different women and sometimes, we don’t agree on the same things.

My mom is my hero. I have a lot of heroes, but she ranks at the top. She raised three children with my dad and wanted every single one of us with a passion. She believes in us. She cries over us and she loves us from the time she discovered our existence to today. I honestly cannot ask for a better mom. I know that if I am anywhere half to being what she is as a mother and as a woman, then I know that I am a good mom. I have a long ways to go in following her footsteps.

It wasn’t till last summer that I started to get more of a glimmer of what she has gone through raising us kids. When we started to look for help and answers to our perplexed questions on why both boys aren’t talking like they should, we got the complete runaround by the doctors, nurses, social services agencies ~~ you name it. We literally had to fight to get one of them diagnosed with a hearing loss as we suspected that he did have some hearing loss. Once we got the diagnosis (he had a complete hearing loss in one ear and perfect hearing in the other), we had to fight to get him the help he needed as well as for his brother, who lagged behind in his speech. My mom (my dad too) was a rock for us during this time. It was when I heard about their struggles thirty-some years ago to get me the help I needed. My mom never gave up, not even when all the doors slammed in her face. In fact, it just made her even more determined to get me the help I needed. How can I not follow in her footsteps?

My dad got laid off during the Reagan years and my mom just rolled up her sleeves and went back to work. She worked a lot of minimum wage jobs while my dad stood in the unemployment lines trying to find work. I never heard my mom complained about having to go back to work. She just did it. It wasn’t till later that she mentioned to me that she wished that she could have stayed home a little bit longer with us kids, but it wasn’t meant to be.
My mom has always done the unpleasant jobs of cutting my great-grandmothers’ toe nails or giving them a bath when they needed it; she has always taken care of my great-grandmothers when they’re sick, took care of her mother and held her hand when she died. Now she’s taking care of my grandpa, her dad, while running a business. She has always taken care of us kids when we needed her there. What amazes me is that she never once toots her own horn. She never complains. She just does it. Like I said if I could be half the person she is, it would be an achievement on my part. I don’t idolize my mother because I have seen her humanness, but she is one heck of a lady and I aim to follow in her footsteps.

Yes, my feelings and respect for my mother have changed since I became a mother. I have a mere glimpse of what it was like for her while I was growing up. I can better understand her frustrations with us kids, her desire to be with my dad no matter what, and her desire to be her own person. Now that I have children of my own, I can’t think of a role model better than she.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

Mothers. Such a small word for all the meaning she holds. When I was a young single busy with my business and very naïve in regards to a lot of things, especially with motherhood. I was so ignorant in what being a mother even entails. Yes, I did buy into that lovely idea that all mothering is being pregnant and holding your newborn baby, gazing into her/his eyes with love and utmost devotion. Yes, I did buy into the idea that there is nothing else more honorable in this world other than to be someone’s mother. I had it all planned out. My children will be the most perfectly behaved children ever and they will graduate with honors from high school and move onto the best jobs in the world. And I was going to do it all for them. I was going to give up my entire life, my identity and everything else just for them. I was never going to be like anyone else who let their kids run amok in living rooms or run wild or eat whatever they want. I was going to be the best mom.

Thank goodness for reality checks.

I am writing an apology to all of the moms in my life and the moms out there. When I first became a mom, I would look at my best friend in bewilderment. How could she just leave her darling babies (her children were three years and a year older than mine) and just go back to work? How could she leave them with her parents and sell Mary Kay in the evenings? How could she even go shopping or do all-girls only weekends without her children? How could she even think that?

And why was I judging her in the first place? I was ignorant. I really did think I had all the answers. This is before I realized that Motherhood is a winding road with lots of speed humps, dead ends, one-way streets and lots of unanswered questions. This is before I realized that life is not like a Hallmark commercial. This is before I realized that there are choices to be made and the answers aren’t always in black and white.

I have a friend who is a single mother who went back to work because her ex-husband was laid off. She once told me that it would do me a world of good if I went back to work, so that way my brain wouldn’t rot while taking care of the kids. Ok, she didn’t put it quite like that, but it was the meaning she implied. I still have vivid memories of the weekend my single and childless girlfriend was here and the kids were watching TV. It was an hour before their bedtime (they went to bed at 7 p.m. at that time) when she told me that it’s time for them to go to bed so we could talk. It didn’t matter that we would have the rest of the evening to talk. I remember sitting there both times with my mouth hanging open and thinking, was I ever that ignorant? Was I ever that judgmental?

Yep. I was. There you have it. I was an ignorant woman who had no clue to what being a mother really was. I never doubted that any of my friends love their children ~~ they all do. They all just cope the best way they know how in keeping the best of all worlds they live in. Some of us chose to stay home to raise our children, even long after they’re in school and even after they have moved out of the house. Some of us have chosen to keep our jobs after our six-weeks’ maternity leave is up. Some of us have to work. Some of us want to work because it is what we want to do. Some of us need to work because it is an essential part of who we are. Some of us decide to leave our jobs for several years so we can be home when the kids are younger. When they go back to school, then we go back to work.

Whatever our reasons are, we all are mothers. We all are in the long haul of raising our children. How we do it doesn’t really matter. Not really. We all have to do it in our own way and in the best way we know how. Sometimes, we don’t even know what is the right way to raise our children or if our choices are the right choices. We all are mothers and we all are raising children to be productive members of our society. Whether we are employed or staying at home, our jobs as mothers are valuable. It may not be recognized by society at large and it may not even be recognized by the very people we are taking care of ~~ but without mothers, this world would have stopped spinning a long time ago.

So to my best friend who I didn’t understand four years ago ~~ I owe you an apology. Now that I am a mother faced with different situations of my own, I understand better now who you are. To my single friend, thank you for reminding me of how naïve I was years ago. To my single mom friend, thank you for presenting me with the challenge to think beyond diaper duties and cleaning out the diaper pail. To all of the moms in my life, thank you for sharing with me your hearts and souls and lives in regards to motherhood and beyond.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you!

I am currently reading Anne Crittenden’s “The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued.” It is a very fascinating book even though I am not very far into it. I am getting an education on the feminism movement and its beginnings. I keep thinking of those Virginia Slim ads when I was a teenager, where it says, “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby.” And I wonder, have we?

The topic this week has to do with: Mothers have the right to fulfill their care giving responsibilities without incurring social and economic penalties. When we become parents, our first responsibilities (among others) are to our children. They depend on us to take care of them and do everything for them till they are of age to move off onto their own. We are raising the next generation of productive workers (I actually retained something from I read!). That doesn’t mean our responsibility ends when we go back to work. If anything, it provides an example to our children what it is we do to remain a part of society. We just shouldn’t be punished for it.

I have a friend who works full time and she has shared with me some of her frustrations as an employee. Her son burned his hand and she had to take him to the emergency room. Her colleague offered to help her out and did something for her while she went to the ER. Her boss yelled at her and told her that she just couldn’t leave. She also couldn’t expect anyone else to do her job. She has to be there to do her job, regardless. She mentioned that since her husband changed jobs and his hours are not as flexible as they used to be, her boss isn’t as tolerant when she has to deal with doctors and schools and other occasions that arise in a child’s life. She is now finds it hard to go to work when she knows that she’ll have grief from her boss especially if someone calls for her to come and take care of her son. She is torn between working full time because she needs to and wants to and between taking care of her child especially in the moments he needs her more than her boss does.

I also had a friend who gave up her job simply because her boss cut her pay severely. She went back to work after her first child was born. In fact, she just couldn’t wait to go back to work since her first child was colicky and screamed all the time. The entire six weeks of her maternity leave, she said her yard never looked better in her life since she spent it weeding. She went back to work full time and by the time her child was a year old, she and her husband sat down to figure out if they could afford for her to work part time, based on her salary. She went in and asked to work part time for three days a week. Her boss said, of course and cut her hourly rate almost in half. When asked why she wasn’t being paid at her normal salary rate, the boss said, “You’re not working 45 hours a week. Your pay was pro-rated on those hours. Since you’re working half that, your pay should be cut.” My friend disagreed because she was doing the exact same job she has been doing for the last three years and even with her reduced hours, she was still performing all of her job duties. But she still got penalized for wanting to see her child more than just on the weekends.

Another friend worked in a field that does not make it feasible for women who want to raise children. Before her first child was born, she was working twenty hours at the local clinic then another forty hours at one of the local high schools as an athletic trainer. She gave up her job when she realized that she wasn’t seeing her baby at all. She finished out the school season. Even today, she still keeps her license current in hopes that she can work something out when the youngest is in school and she can work part time. I just asked her recently if she was able to go back to work part time and she said, in this rural community, it’s just not feasible. Her job requires that she works twenty hours a week at the local clinic and work 40 hours as an athletic trainer at the high school. She now takes care of a family on five on just one salary (her husband is an athletic trainer and works at the local college) and while she’s home, she’s not making any money to save towards retirement or for Social Security. She baby-sits other people’s children to earn a little extra cash but she still misses the challenges of her old job.

On the other side of the coin, there are several of my friends who love their jobs. They love their flexibility of their hours. Several of them work only one or two days a week. One of them works five days a week and she just had a baby in October. One of them work third shift three days a week as a nurse and she wouldn’t trade her hours for the world because it works for her. The one thing they all said to me was that they have very understanding bosses. Their bosses let them work their schedules out without making them feel guilty that they can’t work certain days for whatever reasons. One of them says that she has to work for financial reasons and would like to stay home without having to work at all, but fortunately, she likes her job. She also likes the mental challenges it provides her. In fact, just about every mom I know who works outside the home says that she loves the mental stimulation that her job provides her.

In today’s society, we all get bombarded with the “way it should be” ~~ working and raising children and yet, our government have done little to help us. On political platforms, they praise family values but yet in reality, they do little to make it feasible for the rest of us. We do need more choices out there to help parents do both ~~ provide for the family and raise their family without getting penalized for their choices. Our first responsibility is our children. Yes, we are responsible for our jobs and making sure it gets done to our bosses’ satisfaction, but like my friends say, we all would be more productive workers if our responsibilities at home are recognized and we don’t get punished for them.

For as much as politicians and the media preach about family being a top priority, they really should practice what they preach. They should offer services and flexibility for all parents in their jobs and hours. Like what, I don’t know. I do know that attitudes start at the top of the company. If the head of the company demands that you give it all up and devote your life to the company, chances are high that you won’t have a lot of employees that are willing to stick around. If the head of the company is more willing to work with people who want to do both ~~ raise a family and have a productive career, then chances are high that he’ll have more employees sticking around for the long term.

Like a friend of mine said, “I know I only work one day a week, but she (my boss) does this for all the nurses ~~ lets them go for kids softball games, doctor’s appointments, etc. We all really appreciate this and because she is so flexible, we are all the more willing to work that much harder for her.” If all bosses were like my friend’s boss, I think the country will have more productive workers and benefit more from happier citizens.

So have we come a long way? That is up to each of us to decide. I don’t think that we’ve come far enough, but that is my personal opinion.

I’ve always looked at mothers’ work as having social and economic value in a quite literal sense. Maybe it’s a throwback to Ethics class.

We, as mothers, are raising our children to become upstanding members of society. What happens if we don’t feed, clothe, and shelter our children? What if we don’t love and nurture them? Or teach them right from wrong?

Social value comes about by producing human beings who can live within the social structure. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, but for the most part children whose basic needs are met and who feel love and protected can function within their environment. They are less likely to turn to a life of crime and become a burden on society.

Now the economic value: Theoretically, if these requirements aren’t met society should intervene in the form of social services or others and either provide or oversee the basic needs of food, shelter, and safety for children. The responsibility is then shifted from the individual to society. This costs something. And if A=B and B=C, then we can conclude that A=C. Mothers’ work has social and economic value.

Just the other day, one of the moms sent an email to our chapter’s social loop and the first line was a husband coming home from work and said, “Hi honey. What did you do all day?” I hate it when people ask me that because it makes it sound like that I really don’t do anything at all. So I decided for one day to log my movements from the time I got up to the time my head touched the pillows at night in sheer exhaustion.

6:30 a.m.: Woken up by Son Number One. He crawls in bed with us. (I had fallen asleep by 1:30 a.m. ~~ hubby is a second shifter and I usually wait up for him. I am not awake yet.)
6:45 a.m.: Son Number Two comes and shoves his brother to climb in bed with us. I said in my sleep, why are you up already? Son Number Two gets mad and runs back to his bed, pouting. I go chasing after him to bring him to bed but he didn’t want to. So I get a potty break and come back for him. By that time, he’s wailing his head off because he wants to be with mom. I bring him to bed with me. By then, it’s 6:55 a.m.
7:30 a.m.: the alarm goes off. I pound on the snooze button.
7:40 a.m.: the alarm goes off again. This time, hubby and the boys get up to get ready for exercise class at the Y.
7:45 a.m.: I stumble into the shower.
8:10 a.m.: I am dressed and ready to go. Pop the bagel in the toaster. Overlooked two water bottles filled for class and grabbed two more bottles from the freezer to fill up. Get the kids’ coat on. Grab my backpack and put in clean clothes for after class. Hubby’s running around to get the kids off to the car and get the dog outside. Bagel pops up and I spread cream cheese on it while dumping the water from two extra water bottles. Get the kids out in the car and loaded it all up. Got the kids strapped in. Hubby forgets his money for the Y’s babysitter. Runs back in. Comes out in time to help me fasten second wiggling kid. (Kids had been running around in the back of the car.)
8:30 a.m.: Leaves for workout class. Get stuck behind some slow-moving utility workers and their big vehicles, making a fifteen-minute drive a twenty-minute drive across town.
8:50 a.m.: Make it to the Y. Get the kids out of the car and into the babysitter station. I jot down a note to their gymnastics’ instructor telling them that they won’t be in gymnastics for another three weeks. I head to the gym when babysitter comes running out to me and points out Son Number Two’s ear. He has a tick on his ear lobe. GROSS. Feeling sick and like a bad mommy ~~ runs into the gym to get hubby who is very competent in any kind of medical emergency. Spends the next fifteen minutes trying to get the tick off Son’s ear. (He was a model patient through this whole thing! He didn’t cry or fuss. He didn’t even wiggle or whine. Just sat on mom’s lap and held still so Daddy can get the bug out of his ear. I am so proud of him! Son Number One just looked on and made the funniest faces while helping brother relax.)
9:10 - 10:15 a.m.: Worked out. Used every single muscle in the body in hopes to lose those last fifteen-twenty pounds from carrying twins. (Wish me luck, ok?)
10:20 a.m. - 10:40 a.m.: Get changed into street clothes and made small chit chat with the Y’s receptionists and babysitter. Get the kids out and drag them to the car since they wanted to go swimming.
10:40 a.m. -11 a.m.: Head to the local airport for the Mothers & More tour of the airport.
11-11:45 a.m.: Took pictures of lots of little kids in awe of the two-seater planes, watched after the kids to make sure they didn’t get in the mechanics’ ways, listened to an awesome speech about the airport and watched a plane take off and landing again. And again.
11:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.: Head off to home when got sidetracked by a garage sale sign. Hubby and I bought some books to read. Head on home.
12:15 p.m.: Unpacked the gym bags, made two PB&J sandwiches (which Son Number Two calls it: Jell-O), turned on the computer, throw a load of laundry in the washer, checked answering machine for messages, while Hubby brings in the gym bags, water bottles, take the dog outside and listened to two little boys chattering at him. I also got the stuff out to make dessert for tonight.
1:15 p.m.: I am sitting here typing this blog, wishing that I could take a nap with hubby and the boys. But Grandma and Grandpa are coming tonight to watch Son Number Two while we take Son Number One to hospital for surgery tomorrow. So this means I have to do the dishes, clean the kitchen, make a dessert and a main dish and a side dish. More work to do. No rest for the wicked. I am determined to ignore the family room as it’s overfilled with toys galore. At least I cleaned the bathrooms (except mine and we have four) and dusted downstairs yesterday. Oops. The phone is ringing. Will be back.
1:20 p.m.: Boys in bed. Time to write the other blog while I work on this one all day.
1:50 p.m.: Time for lunch, pack hubby’s lunch and do the dishes. I might as well as make the dessert and shredded chicken sandwiches. Only half an hour to write! Yikes!
1:50-2:45 p.m.: Made my lunch, read the mail, packed hubby’s lunch (ok supper), talked to hubby while reading the paper, dump the dead lilacs into our burn pile outside, kiss hubby goodbye, debating whether or not to take a nap. Yep. I think I’ll go for it. I am moving in slow motion. Kids better not wake up for at least half an hour. Dishes still piled up, clothes in the washing machine, blog half written, food still need to be fixed, hoping that the grandparents will be late and off to take a nap.
2:55 -3:55 p.m.: Boys awake. Fighting loud enough to be heard across the highway. So no nap for this mom. Get them out of the room, folded the clothes in the dryer and throw in wet clothes and another load in the dryer while trying not to trip over Number One Son. Get Number Two Son up and start the dishes after turning on the oven. Take care of Number Two Son who wants a vitamin but I can’t give it to him since Number One Son will want one too and he can’t have any till after his T&A and tubes surgery tomorrow. Comforted him with strawberry milk. Begging them to go off and play so I can take a nap. Nope. They discovered the Teddy Grahams, sent them downstairs to watch a movie before Grandma and Grandpa comes. “Monsters, Inc.” inserted in the DVD player and I take a few seconds to type in this blog ~~ only to hold Number One Son’s hand during the opening scenes. The dog starts barking asking to go out. So after snuggling with both boys, I take the dog out. Found another tick flying off his neck onto my foot. Got rid of that one. Dog’s not allowed outside for a long time if I can help it. Back upstairs to finish dishes, make chocolate chip cookie cheese bars and start on making chicken sandwiches, hoping for a chance to write more blogs today. Seriously doubt it.
4 p.m.: I take the clothes out of the dryer, fold them and put them in the laundry basket. I put the wet clothes in the dryer and start a load of towels. The boys are playing while watching their movie. I get the dishes done, made the dessert and got the chicken started. Take the dog outside again. Put Number One Son in a time-out because he hit his brother over a toy spade. Get Number One Son out of time-out and had a few minutes of hugging him.
5 p.m.: My in-laws arrive. Spent half an hour talking to them, setting the table, getting the food out and chasing the kids, finally got everyone to the table to eat.
6-8 p.m.: Spent an hour eating and talking. Then after supper, the kids go off and play while my mother-in-law and I did the dishes ~~ washing and putting them away. I made up banana cream pudding and lime Jell-O for Number One Son as he’s having surgery tomorrow.
8 p.m.: It was bath time. Spent half an hour giving them a bath. After bath, both boys went downstairs to play with Grandma and Grandpa. I took the dog out again.
9 p.m.: Bedtime. It was quarter till ten when both boys are finally settled in bed ~~ had to rock them and snuggle with them and talk to them.
10p.m. to midnight: Came downstairs, talked to my in-laws till Number Two Son fell out of bed and hurt himself. It turns out that he had climbed in bed with his brother, rolled over and fell. Spent fifteen minutes comforting him. Put him back to bed. Back downstairs to talk to my company. Number Two Son is crying again. So back upstairs I went to comfort him. Turns out hubby’s going to be home in three minutes, so I brought him back downstairs to see his daddy. Put him back to bed. Talked to hubby for a few minutes and now, I am finishing this blog.

This is just a day in the life of an ordinary mom. Boring, to some people yes. To me, no. This is my life for the moment.

I have a very traditional marriage. This is really a very odd situation for me, as I never thought I’d be doing this. I excelled in high school. I went to a top-rated university to get my Bachelor’s of Science. My score on the GRE’s qualifies me to apply for Mensa membership. Despite a horrible marriage and having two kids when I was in my 20’s, I was able to forge a career that I was very happy with.

I was working in that career when I met my now-husband. He wanted children of his own; I was very willing to have more kids, but only if I could be at home with them this time. I admit, I didn’t really think that through – I just knew that I felt miserable about how little time I’d been able to spend with my older two, and that, for me, it would simply not be right to have another child and not be there. My husband-to-be was amazed to find someone like me – intelligent yet willing to stay home. He thought women like me had gone the way of the dinosaurs. He earned enough money to support us (even my older two kids). So a few years later I found myself happily with child, yet overwhelmed with realizing how much I hated housekeeping! My husband had been very clear and honest from the start. He would not be doing any housekeeping. His biggest reason is because in order to earn the money he does, he needs to work whenever his brain is “turned on”. (And since housework is not something he’s ever done, he can’t do it without thinking = brain on = work on wage-earning tasks).

But I am also very lucky. My husband understands why I hate housework, and he understands why it is necessary. So “his” portion of the housework is done by a maid; he does not complain that since I am “at home” I should be willing and able to do it all myself. Also, he clearly understands that what I do has economic value to us. If he had to do it, he would be putting his job in jeopardy. And if neither of us do it, we have to pay someone else. Certainly, there are some things I feel are necessary and he isn’t so sure (like cleaning the bathroom sink) but the opposite also holds true (like serving a carb, protein and veggies at every meal).

Emotionally, it is still very tricky for me. I have a hard time getting a self-esteem boost from doing this job well. But I really understand that what I do is very necessary. I want him to keep his job; he is very good at it and it does pay well. I admit I am often envious and I keep hoping that “someday” I’ll be back at a fabulous job. But right now, this is where I need to be.

There is one more very important piece to this arrangement. We have a pre-nuptial agreement that protects both of us. In case of divorce, the assets he had coming into the marriage are protected from me and my older children. But since I gave up a good career and good money to raise his children, we agreed that I would receive alimony and “re-training” costs until I am back on my feet. Since I was in an industry that changes rapidly and have been out for 5 years, it may easily take years to re-train and find a good job. Or I may decide to change careers — and I would need education for that. It gives me incredible peace of mind to know that I won’t have to work at a horrible job and go to night school and parent all at the same time. (Yes, I am aware that if the pre-nup were ever put to the test, these provisions may not hold; I can’t help how the legal system works.)

I wish everyone (especially our lawmakers and corporate bosses) understood how important it is that someone do the parenting and housekeeping work. The incredibly diverse tasks involved in parenting and running a household have economic value to our households and to our national GDP. We’ve got to know this, understand it, talk about it, act on it, and eventually others will come to see the truth of it too.

This week’s campaign topic is “All the work mothers do - -whether paid or unpaid – has social and economic value.”

I’ve thought about this week’s theme a lot over the past few days. And I have decided that I do not completely agree with the statement.

My problem is with the word “all”. I also have a lot of problems understanding what “social value” is.

First, “social value”. To me, it seems that something with social value is something that benefits society. So education, in general, has social value. But if I dig a little deeper, does all education have social value? Say you go to a school that teaches you how to build home-made bombs. I wager most people will not think that has social value – but if you are the one doing it, you’ve got a reason, and you probably see that reason as having value for the society you would like to live in. I know that Mothers and More wants to be all-inclusive and respectful of the choices a woman makes, yet I see a huge difference in supporting a woman’s decisions about income (no matter what the motivation), and supporting everyone’s view of what society should be by saying all their work has social value.

Another very relevant example to me is that if I accept this statement, then I would have to believe that the effort made by someone who chooses to drive a gas-guzzler 20 miles each way with the A/C on in order to get a child into a “better” sports program is doing something that has social and economic value. But I believe this effort is extremely detrimental to both society and to our economy in the long run.

Note that I don’t dispute that in the examples above, work is being done. But just because something is work does not mean it has value. This is true inside and outside the workforce. Is there social and economic value in a print run on the wrong color paper? Is there social and economic value in a chemistry experiment ruined by human error? Lessons are learned, yes, but that isn’t the issue. In the same way, is there social and economic value in ironing the towels? Is there social and economic value in changing the color of your bathroom every year? I feel that saying there is value in all work diminishes the value of the truly necessary work. Much of what we do, as mothers and caregivers, is necessary. But some of what we do, no matter how hard we sweat, has value to no one but ourselves.

I believe it is very important to recognize that a significant portion of the work mothers do has social and economic value. Because of this, she is entitled to a share of the family’s earned income and retirement accounts. She should be able to purchase disability insurance. She should not be penalized in her old age for “not contributing”.

Sorry for not towing the line, but I found I simply could not write in support of something that just didn’t make sense when I looked at it hard.