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I recently came to a realization that for the first two or so years of my daughter’s life I basically denied that my life had changed in any significant way.
Yes, I loved her tremendously and yes, I got a lot less sleep and was a lot more tired, but after my three-month long maternity leave was over I went back to work and continued to live pretty much my old life. I went off to my job at the office, worked until 5:30, and then rushed home to see my daughter for an hour before she went to bed. (Leaving at 5:30 is an unheard-of situation in the industry where I worked but I was the only senior woman at the office and while I got dirty looks, I made it clear that that was the deal. Period.) I worked from home at night to get things done, but I’d done that before as well.
We had a wonderful nanny and my daughter was really happy and well taken care of by her. The nanny also cooked and I’d often come home to a fully-cooked meal plus some. I juggled, it was harder than before we were parents, but I was out of the house and away from my daughter a lot more than I was there and the juggle was concentrated to the few hours at night and on weekends.
Around the time my daughter turned two I had a moment that I’d never expected myself to have — I realized that I could not continue to be away from her for most of the day during the week, to have someone else know her teachers, her friends, her words and funny habits better than me. I’d never thought of myself as a typical maternal type but there they were, my maternal instincts, kicking in and STRONG. And so, as I’ve written about here, I decided to quit my fast-paced, secure, and too-highly paid job and change careers so I could have more flexibility. A year later we’d moved to a different city, I’d started Work It, Mom! from my home office, and my daughter went to daycare. No nanny, no full-time office job, no dinner help, no someone else to stay home with her when she is sick.
I’m now six months into this new phase of my life and I’ve learned something: Now I am really in the major leagues of juggling, what I did before was a much lighter form of it.
The benefits of flexibility are pretty awesome — I drive my daughter to and from school every day, I know her teachers and friends, I get to see her not just at night at her crankiest but during the day at her most excited. We truly have a different type of relationship, one that’s more intertwined, for the lack of a better word.
But boy, this is so much harder. I’ve had to train myself to work in short chunks of time (I am still learning and some days are better than others). My husband and I have had to come up with a whole new schedule of who stays home when to take care of our daughter when she is sick or school is closed — no nanny for backup. My organizational skills have had to kick into high gear so that I don’t end up cooking dinner when I should be working and vice versa. I am constantly feeling that I’m not doing enough as a mom and not doing enough as an entrepreneur at my job, much more than I did before.
One of the amazing things about running Work It, Mom! has been getting to know so many different women and so many different ways in which they work and juggle. I know I still have it easier than many because I have an incredibly helpful husband. But as I’m learning this new juggling act, sometimes it seriously kicks my butt.
Like this week.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 7:38 am and is filed under Balancing Act, Working Women Issues, Your life.
Tags: flexibility, husband, job, juggling act, nanny, office, working from home, working full-time, working mom, working part-time
December 19th, 2007 at 9:25 am
I don’t know how you did it for two years, but I always wanted to be a mom. I worked for about five or six months after my daughter was born and just couldn’t do it anymore. We took a major cut in income, lost our health insurance (I was the main breadwinner at the time), and life was difficult for a long time, but it was worth it.
Remember the post about marrying for money? When we had our daughter, my husband still didn’t know what he wanted to be when he grew up, and I was making more money while he temped. My quitting was the spur which led him to figure out a career, and eventually go back to school. I absolutely don’t recommend the way we went about it (making decisions on the fly), but I really don’t regret any of it.
It sounds like life is eating your lunch this week. But it also sounds like you’re doing a great job, and that all off you are benefitting from your decisions. Hang in there. Right now you’re investing in your daughter, and that’s worth 10 rounds in the ring.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Ohhh, I’ve been there, twice!! I just came back to work full time this Feburary when my son turned 16 months. I’m grateful that I was able to work from home when my kids were very small and now have the luxury of my early-retired parents to watch them during the day. I realize it’s a unique situation, but I went through everything you guys did. Now that I’m back at work full time, both kids are doing great. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything because my current job provides the flexibility to drop my daughter off at school, see my son at lunch if I want to, and my husband is wonderful with doctors’ appointments or leaving work early if one of the kids are sick.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Hang in there.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:19 am
In August, my step-daughter starting living with us full-time. She’s in 2nd grade so I suddenly went from no responsibilities besides getting myself to work to having more things going on than I can count! There’s getting her up and ready for school and making her lunch and getting her there on time and school parties and gymnastics and girl scouts and church activities!
December 20th, 2007 at 9:14 am
One of my favorite quotes is from the movie “A League of Their Own” where Geena Davis, their star player, is walking away from baseball right before the World Series to go back home with her husband who just returned from war. When asked why she’s leaving, she said “It just got too hard.”
Tom’s response is SO applicable: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, anyone could do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.” Amen. Being a mom is hard enough, but WOW - it sure is great! So is living a fulfilled life by continuing to work at something you’re passionate about…
December 20th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
What I really relate to in your post, Nataly, is the sense of what a huge adjustment it is…and that it’s a continual process. That is, it’s not just a shift that takes place when the baby is born. I find life is much tougher now than it was when my baby was born. Why? Work. I can’t just get stuff done anymore. My day has lots of tiny little slices of time in which I MUST work. It’s taken me a whole year to wise up and realize: when the baby is napping, drop everything. No phone calls. No cooking. No cleaning up. No reading. I have to use that time to work. It’s very difficult.