After a busy day of work and parenting, a lot of people like to end the night cozied up with a good book. Well, maybe not “cozied,” since recent research shows a lot more of us are choosing the cool glow of e-readers and tablets over the familiar warmth of paper books. And when I say “us,” of course, I really mean “you,” or perhaps “other people not like us old-school fogies with our quaint affinity for ‘pages’ and ‘bookmarks’/you’ll have to pry this printed book from my cold dead hands/etc.” We paper-book types are not yet a dying breed, but studies show we may be headed that way.
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My preschooler is on Spring Break this week, and while yes, it’s been great not having to start each day with the usual bleary-eyed flailing to get everyone fed and dressed and out the door before it’s time to come home again, I wouldn’t call this a “vacation” exactly, or at least not a relaxing one.
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Ever since having kids, I’ve said (and predict I will continue to say for a very long time), that my ideal working situation is part-time–whether out of the home, in the home, on a boat, with a goat…whatever. Most of my mom friends seem to feel the same way, which is why I was surprised to read that the number of mothers who say they’d prefer to work full time has risen dramatically in just the last five years. Mothers who say they’d prefer to work full time increased from 20 percent in 2007 to 32 percent in 2012, according to a Pew Research Center survey (link goes to an overview) of 2,511 working parents (both men and women) conducted at the end of last year. Are you as surprised by this as I am?
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When I was in school, I always prided myself on completing every assignment completely and being completely complete in everything I did. I thought this was all merely the functioning of a dedicated perfectionist (and certifiable nerd), but I’m wondering now if I also just had too much time on my hands.
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When you hear the label work-at-home mom, do you picture do you picture a woman who works from home and also happens to be a mom or do you think of a woman working at home while her kids are there? The label is up for grabs for anyone who wants to use it, and I certainly wouldn’t say that one definition is any more accurate or difficult or heroic than the other, but I will say, having now done both, that they definitely can be different, and at times vastly so.

I kind of hate the image I chose to accompany this post because the idea that “working mother” equals “woman on a laptop while holding a baby” is a misguided and/or uninformed interpretation of how many versions of work-at-home motherhood there are out there. And yet…here I am, the lady on a laptop while holding my baby. (We do not, however, wear matching outfits that also coordinate with the giant arrangement of fresh flowers giving a “pop of color” to our sparkling white kitchen. Right now, for instance, I am wearing green plaid pajama pants that belong to my husband, and the baby is wearing oatmeal in his hair.)
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A few months ago I read an excellent post by Liz from InnerTeub.com and I’ve been sitting on it for a while now, trying to think of something original to add to it here.
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At the top of p. 146 of Pamela Druckerman’s excellent book Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting (read it! read it!), I found myself sitting and reading and then smiling and nodding and then getting up for a pen and paper so I could leave myself a note to remember to tell you about the brilliant thing she wrote about that old familiar friend, Working-Mom Guilt. Here’s what she says:
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My mom has a bit of a wild streak. “I wish I could dye my hair purple,” she confesses. It goes without saying that a fifty-something nursing supervisor talking to a bereaved family about organ donation in a conservative suburb would not pass muster with lavender locks, and so we go without saying it. When she retires, though, look out.
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I’m not big on resolutions.

Well, what I should say is that I’m not big on following through with resolutions. A year is a long time, and the fact that I’ve usually forgotten my resolutions by the end of January is a good sign I’m not going to stick with them through the end of the year.

This time, instead of going forward with my usual carefully constructed plan for failure, I’ve resolved(!) to set smaller, more achievable goals, to be tackled within smaller, easier-to-keep-track-of amounts of time. Rather than big, sweeping lifestyle changes (cut out junk food! make the bed every single day! learn to basketweave!), I’m aiming for more modest targets, ones that will hopefully, over the coming year (and maybe the rest of my life), add up to an overall sense of success and well-being instead of a dark cloud of dissatisfaction and failure. (Not that you can be that disappointed in botching your resolutions when you can’t even remember what they were, but you know what I mean.)

Because there are so many working parts to my life, I’m also setting up a kind of framework that will hopefully allows me plenty of room to have little victories in many different areas (and a few cop-outs as well). At the wise old age of thirty-three and a half, I’ve realized that doing well in one part of my life (say, office work) doesn’t always make up for feeling less-than in other parts (say, housework), ad so setting one small goal per month in each major category of my life will, in theory, help me get closer to that ideal state of balance and fulfillment. Besides, when you have a whole bunch of resolutions (seven per month times twelve months) instead of just one or two for the whole year, chances are better that even if I don’t have a perfect record, I’ll certainly have plenty to celebrate with champagne next December 31.

My goals list for January looks something like this:

Career: Send a resume and cover letter to at least one new potential freelance client.

Home: Bake an avocado pie. (I’ve never even tried one, but I’ve always been intrigued, and I love small goals that are also delicious.)

Social: Throw a good birthday party for my husband.

Marriage: Have an at-home date night at least once a week. (Something that involves actual conversation instead of just plopping down in front of a movie.)

Motherhood: Read a chapter book with my older son, just the two of us.

Fitness: Exercise at least 15 days in January.

Hobby: Put together one photo book for a gift.

Are you a big-resolution maker or a small-resolution maker? What are some of your goals for 2013?

As far as I’m concerned, my mother has always been the gold standard of parenting. She has endless patience, inspired creativity, and a perpetual sparkle in her green eyes. Even though we might not agree on things like how much candy is too much for a four-year-old (my answer: any and all candy because he loses his fool mind), I still hold her up as a model of the best of what motherhood can be.

This all makes it really easy to explain that the reason I turn into such a useless sack of personcloth when I’m around her with my kids is because I’m simply observing her fine mothering form. I’m sitting here taking notes and absolutely not just being a total slacker because someone else is there to take care of my kids. Why would anyone even think that?!

Ahem.

Truthfully, being around my parents (especially over the holidays) always makes me feel the following things:

1. I feel lazy as all get-out, because when the grandparents are around, I tend to sit back and take full advantage of the opportunity to relax on the couch instead of play Chutes and Ladders for the three frillionth time;

2. I feel thankful to have had such great parenting role models; and

3. I feel sad that we live almost a thousand miles away and only get to see them a few times a year.

Points 2 and 3 are easy things to talk about, but I haven’t heard a lot of other people share experiences similar to mine on Point 1. Maybe it’s that I’m overly aware of how I parent in front of mine because we see each other so infrequently. Or maybe it’s that I feel like a schlub when they come visit and I eventually realize I haven’t wiped any butts besides my own for days because someone else has taken over that particularly delightful parenting chore.

Tell me: When you parent in front of your parents, how does it go? Do you feel the need to prove yourself—to be supermom, the shining beacon of put-togetherness who has everything under control? Or do you, like me, become the world’s laziest parent because someone else is available to build block castles for three hours straight, meaning you can finally sit back with a book and enjoy what it feels like to be “off the clock” from your 24/7 parenthood gig? When you watch your parents with your kids, do you become the student—asking a million questions and relying on their advice—or do you become the police officer, regulating intake of cookies and television so as not to exceed the AAP’s recommended allowance?

If you’re planning to spend time with your parents (or maybe your spouse’s parents) this holiday season, are you looking forward to it or dreading it? (It’s okay, your secret’s safe with me.)