A few weeks ago I overheard a woman telling a friend about a fight she’d had with her fiance. Apparently, this woman had done something so egregious and offensive that it had blown up into a three-hour ordeal about Respect and Commitment and Priorities and whydon’tyoulovemeanymore?.

So what was the fight about (at least ostensibly)? Twitter. TWITTER. The guy was mad that his fiancee hadn’t read every single one of his tweets.

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Okay, I admit it. I cheat at the Working Closet. (You know, the Flickr pool fashion parade version of Work It, Mom’s original “Working Closet” blog?) The basic idea is for members to upload photos of their work outfits, but beyond that, you can make it whatever you want to make it: a record of your wardrobe, a chance to show off your personal style, or, if you’re like me, an incentive to put some effort into what I wear to the office.

And that’s where I’m cheating. I only go to the office proper one day each week, and my Working Closet contributions only ever reflect that one day–the day I actually put on accessories, style my hair, and consider whether my shoes go with my belt go with my purse go with this decade. But the days I’m working from home? It’s all sweatpants and sweatshirts and sweaty armpits because I can’t be bothered to shower unless I’m actually going to go somewhere. It’s not a pretty picture, and certainly not the type of thing I’d submit to a public Flickr pool.

I’ve heard it said many times that mothers have much to gain from getting dressed each morning, whether that means shower/hairstyle/accessories or just changing out of pajama bottoms into some “nice” (or at least clean) yoga pants. One theory has it that changing clothes can help us change our mindframes; getting dressed can signal that it’s time to get down to business, whether that means wrangling kids or back-to-back conference calls–kind of like Mr. Rogers trading his shiny shoes for his canvas ones and his suit coat for a cardigan, only in the opposite direction.

I have all sorts of excuses why it’s easier to not worry about my appearance when I’m at home (it saves time, it means less laundry, it means less chance my son will use my pantleg as a napkin or drive his matchbox car across my favorite leather boots), but I’m starting to think I need to step it up a little lest the scales of Chic v. Slob tip irrevocably in the latter, sadder direction.

What do you wear when you’re working from home? Do you make a special effort to get dressed for the day, or do you just roll out of bed, grope blindly for the nearest pair of pants, and shuffle your way into the home office in your bunny slippers? Do you have a  WAHM mom uniform, and is it stylish or sloppy or somewhere in between?

While I was pregnant (and even before), I read a lot about the experiences of pregnant working women and, in particular, how they handled the Big Question: whether to continue working, either inside or outside the home, after the baby was born, and if so, in what capacity. Following maternity leave–six weeks? sixteen weeks? a whole year? however long it takes to pull your pants up and log in to your email account?–what were the experiences of women who went back to work full-time immediately, eased back into 40-hour weeks gradually, switched to part-time permanently, switched careers entirely, started working from home exclusively, or became stay-at-home moms, either putting their jobs on hold temporarily or giving them up completely? An analyst by nature, I knew that if a “right” answer was out there, I’d be able to find it, by golly.
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My son turned one on Monday (HOW?!), and over the weekend we threw him a birthday party that, against all the advice in the world, was completely out of proportion to anything a kid his age should be made to tolerate: thirty-plus guests (mostly adults) invading his house for four hours in the middle of the day, talking loudly over rock-and-roll music and pinching his cheeks whenever he toddled within pinching radius. The poor thing weathered the celebration and adoration like a champ, though, and instead of fussing his way to an early exit, he partied hardy to an acceptable naptime of 4:30, after all the guests had gone, no harm done.

The event was a success by all accounts, but the one thing that had me wringing my hands after it was over was the pile of gifts–nice gifts, too nice–that our friends had brought for a kid who, let’s face it, barely knows the difference between a brand new toy and one we’ve just hidden from him in the closet for a few months (or worse, a toy that is really just a paper grocery sack with HANDLES OMG). I just felt a little awkward sitting there opening gift after gift in front of a rapt audience while also trying to keep the star of the show focused on the task at hand when he’d clearly rather be pinching his fingers in the mail slot again and again.

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Last year, I pretty much copped out on Christmas. Okay, maybe I didn’t cop out so much as I was given a pass considering I was ten months pregnant, plump as a honeybaked ham, and wound six ways to Sunday about giving birth during the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.™ I waddled to what holiday parties I could (contributing to the potluck whatever I hadn’t eaten on the drive over), but everything else–gifts, decorations, yuletide cheer–were mere ghosts of my usual seasonal spirit. (Think caroling in the shower and sporting socks with jingle bells.)
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In the last few weeks, my son, now eleven months old, has blown us away with suddenly knowing the meanings of dozens of words, as well as the sounds and actions associated with them. We ask him what the lion says and he goes “raaaaawr”; we ask him to retrieve Goodnight Moon, and he will; we ask him what the alligator does and he opens and closes his hands like tiny snapping jaws. (That little trick earned him a sticker from the alligator docent at the aquarium today!) We’ve been using the ASL sign for “more” since we first sat him in his highchair and spooned soupy rice cereal into his toothless mouth last spring, and at last he’s signing back to us–well, his interpretation, anyway, tapping the heels of his hands together instead of the fingertips, which very well might be the sign for “Please stop, as I do not like these green beans, mother,” but I guess we’ll never know for sure, will we?, at least not until he starts forming complete sentences. Tough beans, kid! Maybe next year! (If I sound bitter, it’s because I suspect he’s been signing “milk” nonstop this week simply because he can and not because he’s STILL HUNGRY OMG MY BOOBS CAN’T TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS ABUSE SIMILAC TAKE ME AWAY.)

These new feats of personhood leave me proudly heart-swollen, of course (and also painfully chest-swollen), but they also make me go slackjawed with terror because, woah nelly, if he can understand “book” and “milk” and “shoe,” what other colorful four-letter words does he hear fly out of my mouth? My better half solidifies his better-halfness every time he catches me talking blue around our baby–”rats,” “phooey,” and “dagnabbit” will celebrate a revival in our house if he has anything to say about it–and although I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it this new church-lady language, I am trying (sometimes).
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The other day I realized how many women I know went to school to become nurses only to trade in their careers shortly thereafter to become full-time stay-at-home moms. My unenlightened knee-jerk reaction was to mourn the time and effort and money they spent going to school and jumping through hoops and suffering the trial-by-fire of on-the-job medical training only to end up doing something that requires no training, no degree, not even a basic skills test or competency exam. What a waste! And then I slapped myself upside the head because, hello, going to nursing school before becoming a mother is downright genius. What better background to have as a mom than expertise in bandaging wounds, bringing down fevers, and kissing owies (although I don’t think that last bit’s part of the standard nursing school curriculum).
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Growing up, I always knew I would work for a living, even after getting married, and even after having children. I got my first job when I was fourteen, and from that moment on I’ve taken pride in earning a paycheck, interacting with coworkers and customers, and applying my skills, even if I didn’t always love my job and some days the only skill I applied was deftly stuffing hundreds of envelopes with nary a papercut. When I got pregnant last year, returning to work after my son’s birth was never a question; I would work, I had to work, I wanted to work. I didn’t start questioning this non-decision decision until after I became a mother and I realized that, for all the good having a job does to my bank account and my psyche, it’s also really, really HARD.
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I never thought I’d become one of those women whose priorities so obviously shifted once I became a mother. Of course I’d want my family to think they were my top priority (because they are), but I also thought I could make my bosses and coworkers feel like work was my top priority, even if common sense told them it couldn’t possibly be. I just thought that in the best of all possible worlds I could be everything to everyone—the best mom, the best employee—and no one would feel like they were getting the short end of the me stick (except maybe myself, but oh, isn’t martyrdom the curse of the modern mommy?).

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You’ve read all the parenting books, you’ve talked to every mother on your street, you’ve surfed mommyblogs until your eyes crossed..and you still don’t know what the heck you’re doing half the time. We talk about parenting by “instinct,” but it’s time we call it like it is: mostly we’re all just parenting by accident, some of them bad, some of them good.
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