No matter what your full-time job is....you're a great Mom

Not long ago, I shared a picture on Facebook that I found amusing. The picture features two women having coffee and one says “I hear you. Raising kids and running a house keeps me busy too. I also have this little gig on the side called a full-time job."

A few days later, I got a message from a friend who is a stay-at-home mom. She has a great sense of humour and is definitely not the kind of person who is sensitive or easily offended. But in her message, she very eloquently told me that she was bothered by the image because the joke draws a line in the sand about something she felt moms need to stop fighting about. I guess that something is “who has it harder – moms who work outside of the home, or stay at home moms?”

I found her message very enlightening and realized that it was a pretty insensitive thing to post. I’m pretty new to this whole mom gig, so I didn’t realize that moms actually competed or fought about this question. The fact is that I actually think being a stay-at-home mom is way harder!

I hope my friend won’t mind my paraphrasing but what she said was that she thinks both ways are hard. Most of the time, it’s not really a choice but a reflection of the way things are in our lives. 

For example, where I live in Quebec, daycare is extremely affordable but salaries are generally lower. So it makes it difficult financially for one parent to stay home with their children. In other parts of Canada and in the US, daycare costs are exorbitant; so many mothers have to stay home with their children. Another friend of mine once told me that if she were to go back to work and send her children to daycare, she would essentially be working to pay for daycare. At that point, why bother sending kids to daycare when you can provide them the best possible care yourself?

Then there are those of who have worked for a long time to advance our careers before having kids. There are feelings of fear associated with staying home with pre-school aged children. How will five years (minimum) out of the workforce hold me back from advancing my career? Will I still be employable after that time? Will my networks dry up? Will people forget about me? I admit that I like the idea of being a stay at home mom and while the main reason I work is financial, I would hate to lose everything I have worked for in my career so far. There is still a lot I want to do, and I definitely fear putting my career on hold for more than a typical maternity leave.

Sometimes I feel like by working outside the home full-time, I’m missing out on spending time with my son. When I first returned to work from maternity leave, I found it so hard to focus on working. I was too used to focusing on being a mother 24/7 and had a hard time remembering that anything else is important. But that’s the kind of job mothering is – full time with very few breaks. After a few months, I grew accustomed to this new schedule and I must admit - I thoroughly enjoy dropping my son off in the morning and picking him up at the end of the day. Talking to adults for the rest of the day is infinitely easier!

Juggling motherhood, a home and a career is hard work. Trust me, and read any of my previous posts. It’s not easy. I am definitely struggling with it. But I can assure you that I think focusing on motherhood and a home full-time is just as hard, if not harder.

So why are we competing with each other? Why do women feel the need to fight and one-up each other all the time? When did the realm of motherhood become this way? As my friend pointed out, whether you stay home with your children or leave the home to work, we're alike in the feelings of guilt and doubt that we allow ourselves to feel. These are the modern day results of feminism making us feel like we have to do it all instead of it all being about choices opened up for us. I suspect that even if you have a full-time nanny, housekeeper and a part-time career, chances are if you are a woman you will find something to feel guilty about.

Ladies, we are all Supermoms, no matter how we do it. On that note, I will be sure to think twice before posting that kind of picture again!

The Journey to DC… (daycare, that is)

It’s official. My son starts daycare next week! Hurray hurray! Not only is he going to daycare, it’s the amazing government subsidized daycare (Centre de la Petite Enfance for my Quebec friends) that is located onsite at my company. I am living the dream. The suburban corporate working mother dream, that is.

For six wonderful months, my amazing mother and my son’s beloved Grandmaman (or “Gaaaaa” as he calls her) has been babysitting my son while I am at work. I am so thankful that she has been able to do this. Not only did this avoid us having to send him to an expensive private daycare but it also built a wonderful bond between my son and his grandparents. She is an extraordinarily patient person who had to draw from reserves of strength and energy that she probably didn’t know existed in order to spend long days with a toddler. But she never once complained and told me often how much she enjoyed it and how much she loves him. Who could ask for anything more? I know that on the days when she had other appointments and I had to work from home to stay with him, I was ready to tear my hair out in frustration, so she is a better woman than I am.

When I got the call from the daycare a few months ago telling me they had a spot for my son in September, I was ready to throw a party to celebrate. In Quebec, there is an excellent program which subsidizes daycares to provide affordable childcare to parents. The problem is that government subsidized daycares are so popular that waiting lists are notoriously long and spots are highly coveted. I put my son on this waiting list when I first learned I was pregnant. They knew about my pregnancy before anyone else! When I wasn’t hearing from any of the dozen or so daycares on whose waiting lists we were registered, panic began to set in. I was starting to look for semi-private or home-based daycares for my son. Fortunately those spots are easier to come by, but I was still holding on to hope that he would get in to this particular daycare.

The day has almost arrived and I am so excited. I know it will be a challenging transition, but I think it will go well. By all accounts, my son is so ready to start interacting with other children and he’s desperately in need of new experiences and stimulation. When we visited the daycare last week, he was so excited it was hard to tear him away when it was time to go home! I’m sure there will be moments where the novelty will be at its peak and others where he will not want to be parted from mommy but when the routine becomes established, it will be good for everyone.

Wish me luck! Read all about it right here next week!

A quiet moment

Source: traveltips.usatoday.com via DoubleTree by Hilton on Pinterest

A few years ago, I used to travel for business fairly regularly. These days I don’t have the opportunity to travel as often, which is appealing to me as the mother of a 17-month-old child. Life is less complicated when you don’t have to leave the house at 7 am to catch an early flight from Montreal to Toronto. Today, I took my first business trip since returning to work from maternity leave. Until last night, I wasn’t too stressed about it. After all, it’s just a day trip for some meetings in Toronto, something I’ve done millions of times.

My own preparation for the trip involved absolutely nothing.  In fact, less than for a normal day at work, since I had no lunch or gym bag to pack, no errands to plan for on the way into the office. I simply needed my purse, my laptop and my boarding pass. At the last minute I threw a 3 month old issue of Today’s Parent into my bag in case I found myself with time to read on the plane.

But suddenly last night I remembered my son. Oops. My trip meant that my mother would have to come over early to babysit, I couldn’t prepare his lunch and snacks for the day in the morning like I normally do – and since I would be arriving home later than usual, what the heck was the plan for tonight’s dinner? So I scrambled to get it all done last night after coming home from doing groceries after dinner while my husband looked after putting my son to bed.  

But I’m not complaining. It’s par for the course. Business travel when you have kids requires a little extra planning. No biggie.

What I found disorienting today was the fact that I had forgotten how much time you spend waiting around when you travel. As the mom of a toddler, I just don’t spend time waiting around anymore. I have to-do lists and I am always trying to accomplish something, whether I’m working or I’m home. Idle time is normally planned and scheduled. In other words, if I sit down to watch TV for two hours at night, it’s on purpose.

Even with my blackberry and laptop on me and meetings planned for the day, I still underestimated how much time I found myself with at the airport and on the plane. The kind of time that in the past did not seem to go by as slowly. These days, I am amazed at what I can accomplish in an hour. I can zip through items on a to-do list and multitask like nobody’s business. So once I had accomplished whatever work I could possibly complete, read an entire magazine while chatting about vacation plans with the colleague who was travelling with me, I thought, what the heck am I going to do on the flight home? Especially when I found myself seated next to an empty seat (yes!).

I briefly contemplated taking a nap, which would have been so gratifying. But I’m not a pretty sleeper. I am the person whose head rolls around the seat, mouth open with a trail of drool running down my chin. Since I would like my professional integrity to remain intact for a little longer, I opted against the nap.

There was no in-flight entertainment, since I was travelling aboard a small regional jet on a short flight.

I suppose I could have sat alone with my thoughts for the hour and stared peacefully out the window at the view below, but that would have inevitably led to the abovementioned nap, so that wouldn’t have been a good idea.

So I’m blogging. And as I write this I’m truly amazed by the speed at which I now operate. How many things do I cram into my time now? How hard is it for me to disconnect, really? My mind is constantly racing, thinking, planning, plotting, working. Thinking about projects, assignments, the office, my job, my son, my home, my husband, our plans, our upcoming vacation, what we have do at home, what’s for dinner, what’s planned for the weekend,  finding time to go to the gym, what I’m going to write about in my blog, when I’m going to find the time to write my blog, what’s happening on Facebook, when will I read this month’s book club selection, and oh, I have to remember to fill in my son’s forms for daycare before August 6^th.

Whew. I’m exhausted. Maybe I will take that nap after all.

The end is near...

It's official. Next week, I will be a working mother. After a wonderful year of maternity leave, it's time to put on my big girl pants and go back to work.

People keep asking me how I feel about going back. My answer is always the same: I have mixed feelings. Some days I can't wait, some days I wish I were going to be a stay-at-home mom forever. This year has just flown by and I feel like my baby just wasn't a baby for very long! But deep down, I miss work. See? Mixed feelings!

So in order to help myself through the transition, I've compiled a list of things I will miss and things I won't miss.

I'll miss:

- A free and unlimited supply of baby hugs and kisses throughout the day

- Watching my son grow and thrive all day long, especially when he masters a new skill

- Going to the movies on Wednesday afternoons

- Playdates with other mommies

- Wearing yoga pants every day (see also below: what I won't miss)

- Rachael Ray in the mornings and Ellen in the afternoons

- Taking a more relaxed approach to life and not living according to a tightly organized schedule

- The summer! (seems so long ago now...)

What I won't miss:

- Wearing yoga pants every day

- Sometimes not brushing my teeth or changing out of my pjs before 11 am

- Struggling to get my son to nap

- Being housebound because of the weather (too hot, too cold, too snowy, too icy, too rainy)... Sometimes for days on end!

- Breastfeeding... We had a good long run but I'm glad to have my body back to myself again

I think I will miss a lot of things but the worst part of it all is that I will see my son for so few hours in the day. I may find myself sneaking into his room at night just to watch him sleep!

Oh well, as heartbreaking as it is to leave him behind every day, I must admit I look forward to seeing my colleagues again and getting a real paycheque again will feel good!

In the meantime I am getting my fill of hugs and kisses and I'm enjoying every last minute of this precious time!

See you on the flip side!