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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I’ve been working like an addict since January 1, lining up freelance jobs in neat parallel rows on the table before me, and then snorting them until my brain goes numb. It wasn’t that I wanted to give up the rest of my life for two months–family, friends, sleep–but that I couldn’t say no. Extra work = extra money, and extra money = less worry. The trade-off, however (and there’s always a trade-off), has been feeling disconnected, like an outsider in my own home, in my own family. I’ve watched from afar while everyone else went to Superbowl parties and the aquarium, while Daddy read bedtime stories alone (well, with the baby), and then ate dinner and watched the Olympics without me. Other families have it far worse and for far longer, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been hard.

And then the bomb dropped.
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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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A different kind of depression is affecting women these days–economic depression. I, like everyone in America, have been hearing about this depression/recession nonstop for months, but until this week it was still something that was happening to other people, not to me. Then, on Monday afternoon, I stopped by my office to say hello and show off my little guy and discuss with my supervisors my impending return to work, and that’s when I got the bad news from a coworker: Instead of the modest end-of-year raises we’re sometimes blessed with, this year the lucky ones among us got 10 percent pay cuts–“lucky” because that means we weren’t the ones who got laid off. As my maternity leave dwindles, I’ve had all the usual jitters about getting back into the swing of things after a prolonged absence–including taking a financial hit for returning only part-time–but I never thought this would happen. 
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