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.

March 9, 2011 ~ Day 90 Both Paths Are Worthy

I realized something very interesting while walking recently with a friend I have known for 2/3 of my 35 years.

He is a wonderful person, someone kind and hard working that deserves only the best in life. Still single, he has a lot to offer and I look forward to meeting the lucky lady who will end up with him someday.

In any event, many years ago we used to walk all of the time and talk at length about life, love and the pursuit of happiness. We rarely see each other more than once or twice a year these days but I will always consider him to be a dear friend.

He caught me up on everything happening right now in his career (exciting stuff!) and I caught him up on my life as a stay-at-home mother of three.

"Well, what about YOU?" he asked. "What are YOU into these days? Outside of the family?"

It was a fair question, and a very sweet one. It is always so nice to have a person genuinely care and want to know what your dreams and feelings are - apart from the day to day grind.

"Well," I answered, "The truth is, there really IS no me right now. The kids are pretty much my life ~ taking care of them takes a lot of time and energy."

"That's too bad," he responded, and I could tell that he sincerely felt sorry to hear it. He fell silent for a time.

My friend was not judging me, nor was he pitying me. I think he was surprised or maybe a little saddened to hear that a person with my intelligence and potential wasn't doing 'more' with my time and talent. After all, he has known me since I was a scrawny kid with stars in my eyes dreaming of the Peace Corps, international trade law, politics and running for president someday. LOL!

Sometimes I feel that way too, a little bit amazed that vast parts of me which were once so important have simply fallen away.

I've now reflected on our conversation at length and come up with this cliched epiphany: Without meaning to, we are often drawn to the type of life that we grew up with and to emulating the role models that we looked up to as children.

My friend was raised by a phenomenal woman who managed to have a fantastic career while raising her two kids. His elder sister is now also a phenomenal woman who is a college professor while raising her son. These are strong, capable, loving, career-minded women. I realize now, in reflecting on our conversation, that for him the ideal woman or mother would be a motivated and successful career woman, giving her child a great example to look up to.

I myself was raised by a phenomenal woman who ended her career and stayed at home throughout my childhood in order to raise me, take care of my father, and work on projects like writing, sewing, painting and crafting on the side. My mother was and is to this day a brilliant woman... and I remember as a child bemoaning her fate. "How did you end up a stay at home mother when you have so much potential?" I would ask her, and I really meant it. I swore that I would not end up that way.

The irony is, even though I prepared my brain and my resume for a rich and rewarding career in the world, my heart is really at home. I love the life of a stay at home mother, where my children take precedence over just about everything. I don't know how to explain to anyone without children how much your priorities shift when you have a baby (or three) and that suddenly nothing really matters except whether they are healthy and reasonably happy.

I don't really feel like I have sacrificed the best of myself to be their mother. I really feel like I have *become* the best of myself as their mother. I am so much less selfish and egotistical than I used to be. Life has humbled me to the point where I am simply grateful for a day in which no-one is sick and my children get along with each other.

I have read a lot of books and essays written by mothers, for mothers, about the tension of stay-at-home motherhood vs. career motherhood. I have personally tried it both ways, first working 60 hours a week from the time my eldest child was 6 weeks old until he was 18 months old. Then staying at home for the past four years.

For me, hands down, staying at home is the way to go. While working I was a distracted mother, a frustrated mother. I always wanted my child to be quiet so I could get my grading done, to nap so I could clean the house. I wanted him to be less of a burden so I could concentrate on my "real" work. Is it any wonder that after a year and a half of this, he felt closer to our nanny than he did to me?

The sacrifice at home wasn't reciprocated with glory and fabulousness on the work front. I worked hard but found myself falling behind the childless people at work who didn't have evening and weekend responsibilities. I fell asleep at my desk in my office, so tired from awakening every two hours to feed my child. I was curt and caustic with my husband because he was the one person I knew I could let it all hang out with, and he would not leave or abandon me.

When I finally quit that job I was replaced quickly and with great ease, by someone greatly skilled and educated. It turned out (as I know I have mentioned before) that I was entirely replaceable on the work front.

However, at home I am irreplaceable. Even were something to happen to me (death, divorce, etc.) and my husband were to remarry, there is NO ONE in the world that will ever be my children's mother but me.

I am their mother. They are my kids. There is no job, no achievement, no dream that could ever possibly be bigger than that.

While talking with my friend I also realized that we gravitate toward what we are comfortable with and accustomed to. My husband (who has a brilliant and capable mother who was actually a dean of four different departments at our local college) experienced a childhood with a mother who stayed at home with his siblings and him until he was 16 years old. She went back to work when his little sister was eight, and then kicked some serious butt in the workplace.

So my man is more comfortable with a wife that stays home and puts the kids first, because that is what he grew up with.

Just as I am more comfortable BEING a wife that stays home and puts our kids first, because that is what I grew up with.

In this way, we are very well matched.

My friend on the other hand will probably find and thrive with a wife who feels comfortable as a working mother. This is what he grew up with, and what he feels most comfortable with. I'm sure she'll be sensational, and that I'll love hearing about her work.

I learned something on our walk, which is that my choices in motherhood may alter the way people see me. Those who believe in the virtue of staying at home will admire my choice and understand its crucial importance to me, and those who believe in the virtue of working may think I am wasting myself and will probably encourage me to reconsider professional opportunities.

In the end, both routes are equally worthy and all mothers are doing the best they can. Lots of mothers don't even have the option of whether to stay at home or work. I am so blessed to have the choice.

Staying at home with my three kids just happens to be ~ for now ~ the right path for me.