Today’s guest blog post is by Toni. If you’d like to guest blog on the Work It, Mom! Blog, please email your post to nataly@workitmom.com. It should be somewhere around 300-400 words and on a topic relevant and interesting to working moms.
I often daydream about things I am passionate about such as photography and creative writing. I would love to be able to take a photography class and get involved in a writing group. I’ve even considered joining National Novel Writing Month, but again I am putting it off until next year. Why is it so difficult to make creative dreams come true simply because I am a working mom? Is it due to the fact that the little time I do get outside of work is too valuable because it’s the only time I spend with my family?

I know there are women out there that make it happen. They take on the entire world and somehow fit it all into the mere twenty-four hours that God gives us each day, but I really don’t see how they do it without sacrificing quality time with their loved ones. I see my kids for about an hour, if I’m lucky, before I go to work and then another hour to ninety minutes when I get home from work before they head off to bed. Who am I to take that time away from them just to fulfill my own selfish desires? Not only would I feel guilty because I was taking their mother away from them even more often than I already do, but I would truly miss them even if I was absent only an extra hour each week.

I suppose that is why my creative dreams continue to sit on the back of the dusty “to do” shelf. I just find it too difficult at this time to indulge in something that isn’t necessary to maintain our lives. Work is one thing; it puts food on the table and a roof over our heads. Creative desire is something that I think can wait, but for how long? Will I ever actually do it or will I continue to make excuses until it’s too late? I guess only time will tell.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a whiner. I don’t ever complain about this type of thing. This is something I usually keep to myself and wonder only inside my own head. I know if I really wanted to put my desires before my family, I could pull this off. I could take one class an hour a week before or after work and somehow manage to balance my already chaotic life, but my children are only young once. They need their mom and I need them. Before I know it they’ll be running off to college or getting married. They are only one and nine years old right now, but we all know how fast that time goes by.

Apparently my only quandary is that my desire to be a good mother and wife outweighs my desire to be a photographer or a writer. At the end of the day, I would have to say that my priorities are in the right place. I still have my daydreams for the time being and that is good enough for me.

Toni LeSatz is a 34 year-old mom, wife, blogger and game. Please visit her blog at www.neptunebaby.com.