Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Working Mom

Many moms think that the title of this blog entry is an oxymoron because moms are always working - raising, teaching and bringing up their children. This is completely true. What, then, is a good way to represent a mom who has to go to work outside of the home? A non-home working mom? I'm sure there are tons of good titles and representations out there.

However this blog post is about my personal experience of being a non-home-working mom. Actually, for a while I would occasionally be a home working mom except that I wasn't being a mom at the very moment I was home. I was working from home and I was a mom. Even in those brief moments of being home, it was great to see my daughter for a few minutes here and there - when she woke up, having lunch with her or just being able to shut down my computer and  spend after work time with her.

In recent months, I have changed jobs and the ability to work from home has been on hold. I often get home from work with just a few minutes to spare to read a few books or spend some time with my daughter before she goes to bed. Honestly, it sucks so tremendously that there are no words to describe that empty feeling of not getting on an earlier subway to enjoy time with my daughter. You take what you can get and you enjoy it. That empty feeling is guilt. The resentment and frustration of having to work for a living and to provide the basics for my daughter. The aggravation of how times have changed so much that many moms can't stay home and raise their kids. The feeling that you will never get that time back no matter what you do. Yes, it's quality over quantity but it stinks when the quantity is spent with a bunch of ridiculous adults who are beyond help in so many ways.

On top of all those emotions is the wish that people in certain industries would understand how important a mom is to a child - their first and primary socialization model. You can 'lean in' all you want but so many women don't have the luxury or option of having a nanny in the office with them. Work needs to get done and deadlines need to be met. So many people don't care how you do it, you just do it.

Like the time a mom had to work an extensive period of 18 hours days working a time zone in another part of the world and their own because the boss wouldn't let the mom have any down time during the day. Even though she was up at 5 in the morning to take calls and up until 11 taking other calls. Not to mention that said mother had a 4 month old baby at home who still wasn't on a fixed sleep schedule. Somehow this bosses' wife got to stay home and raise his children but this mom wasn't allowed to do that. Some people's blinders are amazingly big.

Then you hear talk of how a working mom is paid and respected less than a working dad. Seriously, who carried that baby in the first place? Last time I looked, no man every gave birth to a baby! Why are we still hearing this nonsense? How far have we really come?

I always knew I'd have to work. I always wanted to be a mom. Working has it's pros but a lot more cons. Being a mom is one of the best things that happened to me. Seeing the direct impact I have on my daughter is so rewarding. (Yes, diaper changes and smells are relentless but isn't this the same kind of poop I deal with at work? At least in this manifestation, it comes from something I love dearly.) Very little at work is rewarding because I never see that direct impact. I don't see the value of any of the things I do. I know other mothers don't feel the way I do; it's just my two cents. Being a mom is fantastic  while being a working mom is annoying and unrewarding except in a financial sense.