Mommy Wars

Having a mother that stayed home with me and my sisters, and never worked outside our home after I was 2, I've had to deal with all kinds of guilt issues about having a career. I can tell you that I have the utmost respect for what my mom did and still does. After working part time for six months, I was relieved when I started working (almost) full time.

Working in an office is much easier (for me at least) then staying at home with two kids under three. This realization is what causes me much of my guilt. The other major guilt provider is my mom, who believed that people shouldn't have children if they're not going to raise them themselves and that daycare is evil. (She has come around some, since on Chase's bad days she too is convinced that Cory is much safer in daycare.)

Brought up the way that I was, I had never been to daycare, had never come home to an empty house, and been able to stay at our cottage for most of the summer, since we didn't have to be home for my mom to go to work. How could I not be that same kind of mom? I've struggled with this for three whole years, and finally, I feel that I'm at peace with the fact that I'm just not that kind of mom and probably won't ever be.

I enjoy my job. I enjoy being out of the house. I enjoy the validation from other people that I do a good job on my work (which is not something that a stay at home mom gets much of.).

And that's OK and my children won't be horribly messed up because I work. (Repeat)

Although, I do think that Chase is better when I'm around him and interacting with him constantly, I have even come to terms with this. I'm never going to be able to be there for him 24 hours a day for the rest of his life. He's going to have to learn how to cope with "the real world". Isn't starting now better than pushing him into it when he starts kindergarten? But I digress.

Anyway, there's an article from Newsweek written by a women who is sick of hearing all about the great "should mothers work or not" debate. I found it interesting, funny, and validating. The last line of the article is:

It's nice to read something that "gives us permission to be worse mothers," she says. Permission granted.

Thank you.

It constantly amazes me when someone that I see as super-involved with their kids says to me, "Wow. You do so much with your kids. I should do more." or "You have so much patience." or "How do you handle that?" --- Um, are you talking to me?

It seems to me that women who overdo the fight of stay home or work might be covering up their own uncertainty that they are doing the "right" thing. I know that's what I did when I was trying to convince myself, as well as whomever I was talking to, that staying at home was THE ONLY way to go.

I think that most, if not all of us, focus on our mothering shortcomings, not what we do that's good and right. Maybe today we can all try to concentrate on the good things that we do and not what things we're messing up.

Or, maybe we can just think that there's got to be worse mothers out there. That makes me feel a little better too.