May 4, 2011 ~ Day 146 Is It Time?

When my rheumatologist told me today that my blood labs he ran in January looked worse - the autoantibodies were higher - I did not flinch at all.

I did, however, weep without warning when he told me how much the new bloodwork he needed to run today would cost our family. He also let me know that his clinic is going to have to monitor me more closely from this point forward.

Together, these things will cost $$$Beaucoup Bucks$$$.

(The January labs were run months *before* I went on antibiotic treatment though, and I have total confidence that my bloodwork is going to look much better this time around because I am feeling MUCH improved!)

This man is the finest MD I have ever met in my life, though - and my husband and I both trust him implicitly. His recommendations are worthy, based on 35 years of treating and healing patients. I know so many women and men that he personally has put into permanent remission from devastating diseases that supposedly have no cure. So, it's time for me to get serious about his treatment and stop messing around with my herbs and naturopaths.

"I'm going to have to go back to work," I murmured, swiping tears away from my face with one hand. "I won't be able to stay at home with my kids."

It's sad that the cost of high quality healthcare is so vast... when most of the "best" doctors I've seen either don't take health insurance, take only PPO insurance, or are out-of-network with our family's insurance provider.

Of course, I'm one of the lucky ones... I actually *have* health insurance.

Still, there is a real line between paying to get good care and bankrupting your own family. I'm not about to do the latter... I would work two jobs in a heartbeat before putting my husband and kids in dire straits due to my own health needs.

I had a few hours to think as I made the drive home alone this afternoon, pondering my own future and where work fits into our long range plans and dreams. What do I want from work? What kind of work do I really want to do? What do I even have to GIVE to a job these days? How will my working part-time affect my three kids?

It isn't that I haven't thought about going back to work before, for different reasons. I weigh this choice all of the time, on the teeter totter of what our family needs vs. what we actually have.

Working part-time might even be good for me, in terms of self-esteem and feeling like I'm "doing" something for the world every day. Would I be a better mother if I had something professional of my own again? Would I be a better wife?

Sometimes life whispers to you to move in a certain direction, and if you resist, it punches you in the face to wake you up and get you moving. Is this one of those moments? Has the whispering been coming at me for a while, and now suddenly I'm punched in the jaw with thousands of dollars of unexpected expenses... necessitating concrete, proactive movement on the job front?

In a way, going back to work would be a relief. Work is the one thing (besides school) that I have always been good at. I excel at being professional, at working very hard and giving my best.

Motherhood on the other hand has been by far the toughest job I've ever loved, filled with many painful chronic failures over time. Working would actually be like taking a "vacation"... I could actually use the restroom without someone holding onto my leg, or eat lunch upon occasion at a restaurant with interesting adults who talk about things other than "Poopoo chicken bumbum-heads" at the table.

Four years have passed since I last held gainful employment, that is... working for an organization not related to my husband. I've gotten used to this child-centered life where everything I do from the moment I wake until the moment I sleep is typically focused on the kids in some way.

I don't even own "work clothes" any more.

Looking back on my early education, I sincerely regret that I took Geometry instead of Home Economics. Never, never in my entire life since the 10th grade have I ever needed to prove why the angles of two triangles are congruent to each other. However there have been hundreds of times though when I've wished I knew how to keep our family on a tighter budget, find a more efficient way of doing laundry, match furniture or improve my skills as a chef.

It may sound terribly old-fashioned of me but I genuinely wish they'd taught us in high school how to figure out whether we were the working mother or the stay at home mother type - and how to manage or juggle responsibilities either way.

And what about career re-entry? Now THAT would have been a valuable skill to learn. How exactly does one dive back into the workplace seamlessly after four years out? I have to wonder if I'm even still competitive, given that kind of a gap in my resume.

My friend Lauren's* mother advised her when she got married to "Always keep one foot into your career" even when taking time out to have children, so that it would be easier to go back one day. I wish I'd had this advice too.

There is no real point or closure to this blog entry, as I anticipate that it will be merely the beginning (and not the ending) of a new chapter for our family.

At least in chronicling my own inner struggle over how to balance children, home, financial needs and personal productivity, I will leave behind for my children a true-to-life record of the fact that I do not in fact find it at all "easy" to leave them and return to work.

Nor do I find it easy to watch my husband struggle valiantly, alone, to meet all of our financial and healthcare needs in a down economy.

I don't know if there exists a solution to this dilemma that will make everyone in my family happy. If we were independently wealthy this wouldn't even be a conversation for us... my husband and I, and our three children ~ we ALL want one parent to be home full time raising the kids. We all believe in having a stay-at-home mom, and I love being that mother.

Sometimes though, it isn't possible to get everything you want. What does Mick Jagger say? "You can't always get what you want... but if you try sometimes / You might find / You get what you need!"

The coming weeks and months may bring changes to our family. Optimistically, each change may turn out in the end to answer prayers we've each sent silently into the world without knowing it. I guess only time will tell.









*Name changed to protect the identity of the person in question.

March 26, 2011 ~ Day 107 Time is the Currency of Love

It's getting to the point where I might need to go back to work, and this makes me feel really sad.

I know that we're not the only family suffering from a tough economy. Most folks we know have had to tighten their belts in one way or another in the past few years.

I don't think for a second that I deserve to whine. I have a roof over my head and food to eat, and my tap water isn't poisoned. That's a lot more than the Japanese mothers near Fukushima can say right now, and they're not complaining bitterly - just taking it all with tremendous grace.

Here are our facts though:

My husband works very hard. He is a dedicated professional and I deeply respect his dreams and ambition. He is committed to two businesses simultaneously, which means there is never a moment when he is truly "done" or up to speed on everything on listed on his seemingly endless "To Do" list. I sometimes have to pry the computer out of his hands, he is so consumed with work. He even works on Saturdays, during his weekly 'personal time'. Sometimes it begins to feel like he works all of the time, and the kids and I really miss him.

Yet despite the fact that he lives with his shoulder to the grindstone, money is painfully tight around here. We have three children, and they are getting bigger every day... which means that food bills are increasing. They need clothes, haircuts, shoes, sundries, small toys and (still) diapers. On top of this, going to school has brought new expenses - field trips, teacher gifts, fundraising drives, and enrichment activities like dance class or sports teams. Every little thing they want to do, whether it be go to the Aquarium or play T-ball, costs money.

Then there are the big ticket items... health insurance and health expenses, car stuff, private preschool tuition, and saving for a house. I'm glad to say that we have some savings for the kids' college education; at present time they are far more likely to go to college than we are to own a house in our new neighborhood.

Surprise expenses overtake us ~ "Oh wow, the transmission is going out?" or (to the old landlord) "You want $1000 to refinish the wood floors just because our kids raced their toy cars on it?" Sigh.

I hate... HATE that money is something that we as a couple have to think about on a daily basis. I am not a materialistic person, as evidenced by the fact that I have cheerfully agreed to do all of my personal shopping at thrift stores and not look in the mirror too often. When I was young I always dressed in the latest styles but these days I am reasonably contented if I manage to match and wear comfortable shoes.

Lately though despite all of our personal sacrifices, it feels like we are drowning financially. We moved into a less expensive place to live, and yet with all of the surprise costs, that still isn't really helping us save.

I visited the dentist yesterday and she presented me with a $337 bill for the 40 minute appointment, which consisted of a 5 minute consultation, some x-rays and a "half" of a cleaning. Apparently I will need to return to complete the other "half" of the cleaning as they ran out of time. Which is a first... How can you charge a person for "cleaning" their teeth if you don't even finish the job? Seems like quite a racket...

As I walked back to the car from her office I found myself choking back tears.

I know that the easiest and fastest way to alleviate this constant pressure weighing on my husband and me would be for me to go back to work. I could get a job with benefits and bring in a double income. My children would have a babysitter and see little of either parent... but they would also have more of a fun, activity filled childhood because I would be able to afford to send them to summer camp, swimming lessons, cub scouts, etc.

On the plus side, I might even be able to buy myself books or clothes ~ or get the periodontal work done that they've been urging ~ without feeling guilty!

The problem is that I really, Really, REALLY don't want to go back to work yet. I love being with my children all day, and my little daughter is not even two years old. I don't want my kids to spend the bulk of their time with teachers and babysitters. I want to be the full time parent. I want to give them the best of my best.

I worked 80 hour weeks until my eldest was 18 months old, and to this day I feel like we are catching up emotionally for that year and a half. I cannot imagine seeing him now for only for two hours a day during the school week, just at dinner and bedtime. I know that this is reality, that many of my best friends are obliged to live this reality with their kiddos every day. I have such respect for them, and often their kids seem to be thriving far more than mine. Even with that knowledge, it hurts my heart to feel pressured to go back to work before I am really ready.

Don't get me wrong - this isn't a laziness thing. I love working, and I am a very dedicated and motivated worker. Work is something that I do well, with ease. I am a brainy person, not a physical one. It is *far* easier for me to sit in front of a computer or stand in front of a classroom than it is for me to do load after load of laundry or bathe my kid for the 3rd time in a day. I'm not that good at being a full time mom, and I know it.

I just love these little people much, and I don't want to be away from any of them. I don't want someone else to pick them up from school and hear about their days, or to play with them in the back yard while I'm miles away doing something totally unrelated to them. If one of my kids gets sick at school, I want to be the mom that can come pick them up right away and bring them home for hot soup and toast. I don't want to be at work worrying about whether one of them is doing his homework or if another is eating mud in the back yard by herself. I don't want to worry about them getting into a car accident with the sitter.

My mom stayed home with me, and my husband's mother stayed home with him. (Until he was 16!) Staying at home is what feels right and natural to me.

At the dentist's office I had been chatting amiably with Lindy,* the dental hygienist who could only do 'half' of the cleaning, and she mentioned that she has two grown children and four grandchildren. I asked her, "Did you work the whole time, or did you stay at home when they were little?"

"Oh darlin'," she sighed. "That was really a different day and age. I stayed home with my children the whole time and so did all of my friends. We had that luxury back then. Times are different now ~ this economy is really terrible for young families like yours. My daughter has four small sons and she is looking at having to go back to work too. It is heartbreaking."

Even if I did decide to go back to work, I'm still not sure how much it would actually improve our finances -- at least for the short term. If both my husband and I decide to work full time, I would need to hire a sitter to watch my daughter all day and to pick up my sons from school in her car and take them back to the house until 5pm. If they have sports activities, she would need to ferry them to practice or games. The nannies I have seen advertised on Craigslist are making from $15 to $17 an hour for watching three children, so even if I could get that cost reduced to say, $12/hr, it still means that with an 8 hour workday we'd be looking at approximately $500/week or $2000 a month for childcare. At a minimum.

Were I lucky enough to get a full time teaching job in this economy, when so many highly qualified and passionate teachers are being laid off, my net income would probably be about $3300 or so. Which means that for $1300 extra dollars a month into our joint account, I would be missing out on EVERYTHING with my children. Plus having to spend my "free time" with them grading papers and planning lessons. If you divide this paycheck by 20 school days a month, it comes out to only $65 a day of net income at the devastating cost of letting someone else raise my children.

$65 a day just doesn't seem worth it... my time with the children is priceless.

Blessedly, there IS some light at the end of the tunnel. In three more years, all of our children will finally have completed private preschool and that will free up *a lot* of our monthly income. Perhaps by then they will all be out of diapers too, and when my daughter is in Kindergarten then it would make perfect sense for me to be working again since she'll be in school until 3:15 daily anyway.

Right now three years feels like a pretty long time, but I'm sure it will pass by in a flash. And, in just one more year my daughter will be attending preschool so I will have full childcare coverage daily until 12:30pm. I could start working half-time in some capacity in just one year. Hey, that's not too bad!

Now that I've hashed this all out on paper I think I've justified the deeper conviction in my heart, which is that I want to stay a SAHM at least for the coming year, and preferably until our youngest goes to Kindergarten. Their childhoods are passing by so swiftly, I am staggered to see that my first born is a tall gangly boy with feet nearly as large as mine. In only five years he will be starting middle school and he probably won't want much to do with his M.O.M. (mean old mama) for a while. I've got to take advantage of this special time while I've got it!

The meaning I take from this ongoing inner struggle is that for me, TIME is the currency of love. Time spent with my kids is worth far more to me than any paycheck.

We may be drowning a tad financially... but when it comes to love shared and time spent together, my children and I are still happily afloat. In the end, I believe that memories of a childhood spent with their mom will matter more to them than new Transformer toys and Barbie kitchens. At least, I hope so.

I know that I will never forget these precious days. I hope we can figure out how to make them last a while longer.







*Name changed to protect the privacy of the person mentioned.