On Being a Working Mom....

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Being a working mother is like a double edged sword without a handle. Sometimes, there is nowhere you can grab to hold on, and you know you're gonna get cut but you do it anyways. 

I like working. It provides for my family and my lifestyle. I feel like a productive member of society and I keep my sanity. I'm not a person who would be productive at home all the time. I would never get out of my pajamas, or do anything. I secretly want to be a hermit. Working combats that and keeps me busy. 

Andplusalso, in this economy, if you have a job, you don't quit it. Especially if you know in a few years you'll be sitting at home bored and alone and wishing you had it back. You tough it out for a few years. You keep the job, the income, the benefits. Every day isn't easy but the reward will be there. 

I do not like leaving my child. Even though our mothers keep her, I still hate it. On the bright side of that, the grandmothers get plenty of time with the baby cakes and that gives me more time with her, in a manner of speaking, because I don't have to share as much on weekends. I'm not good at sharing. 

I do not enjoy the criticism that comes with it. Family members who never left their children blame my husband for not being a good enough provider. My house is never clean and no one thinks I do enough. Forty hours a week at a job, clean dishes, clean laundry, a clean child, a fed and healthy child, none of that is enough. Some days, I look around and feel like a failure because I haven't swept the leaves off the back porch, taken out the trash or folded the laundry. And instead of doing any of those things, I'm sitting in the floor reading to my child or helping her paint. And I feel like a failure?

I'm not sure why society puts pressure  on us to do it all. I'm not sure why we feel like we have to do it all. Our husbands don't face this pressure, and as long as they aren't dead beats, they get kudos for everything they do. Daddy's playing with the baby, oh, how sweet. Oh my goodness, daddy can change a diaper, how wonderful he is. The same things we are expected to do are the things he for which he receives applause. 

Every day, I look around and think I do a good job. I tell myself I'm doing it all right, that I do everything I possibly can and I find solace and comfort in that. I tell myself because no one else is going to tell me. Not only will they not tell me how great I am, they're going to do everything in their power to tear me down. So I tell myself. And I keep going. What else is there to do? At the end of all of this, I'm not going to remember how messy my laundry pile was and neither is my child. She's not going to love me for my clean house. Nor is she going to hold it against me that I decided to keep working. In fact, I hope she does the same thing. I'd love to keep her kids one day!