Baby Squared : being a working mother

Parent Shock

Roper — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:40:00 GMT

This weekend, we went up to Maine to introduce the girls to their new cousin, Deklan, who has now attained the ripe old age of three and a half weeks. He's a cute little dude. On Saturday night, my brother and his wife went out for a few hours, and my mother, Alastair and I babysat for him. I was reminded of how simultaneously sweet, exhausting and dull the newborn weeks are. It also made me think back on the surreal-ness of going from being childless to suddenly being a parent.

Once, when the girls were just a couple of weeks old, and my parents were in town, Alastair and I snuck out for a quick dinner at a Thai restaurant. It was the strangest thing to be suddenly back out in the world, doing something we might have done on a typical weekend night just months before. Since our babies were born, our lives had changed dramatically, but we hadn't yet made the full psychological shift. It was as if we were in a strange, prolonged dream, so that this -- being alone together in a restaurant, surrounded by mostly twenty- and thirty-somethings -- felt more like reality.

In general, the dawning of parenthood has been much slower than I expected it to be. The first year was challenging to be sure: exhausting, bewildering, etc. But it was also something of a honeymoon, in a way: Look at me! I'm a mom! I've got babies! Isn't this crazy? It's crazy!

In the two years since then -- as the girls have embedded themselves more deeply into my mind and my heart, as they (and their stuff) have started taking up more physical space, and as they've gone from babies to little people with their own desires and demands -- being a parent has become more woven into my sense of self. There's nothing surreal about it anymore. I feel about a thousand times more like a mother now than I did on December, 28, 2006 when I first became one.

Mostly, I think I'm pretty good at Mom-ing. And the great majority of the time I like it. Wouldn't trade it for anything. But the past month or two, I've found myself grieving a bit for my pre-parenting life. And it's not just because potty training the girls has been intense, or because Clio won't nap, or because Elsa won't poop, or because both of them can and do throw tantrums like nobody's business. I mean, it is because of those things, sort of.

But I think it's also that I haven't had the time -- or maybe I haven't made the time -- to recharge myself adequately so that the "being a mom" part of my life doesn't feel all-encompassing (when I'm not at work, that is). In fact, both Alastair and I have been feeling lately like we need a break --- a weekend away, or something, either separately or together, so we can re-collect and check back in with ourselves.

Interestingly several of my friends with kids around the same age as ours have expressed similar feelings of late. It's this sense of "Whoa, when did this being a parent thing suddenly take over our entire life??" Perhaps this is the point at which the novelty of becoming a parent wears off, and you're faced with the reality (both lovely and frightening) that this is for real and it ain't gonna stop. You're a person with kids. Just like your parents!! Yikes!

I'm not exactly sure what the answer is to resolving this feeling of "parent shock" -- or even if there is one. Maybe trying to take a bit more time for myself would help. Maybe I need to make some larger changes in my life. Or maybe it's a matter of accepting and adjusting my expectations and sense of self. In any case, talking (writing) through it to sympathetic ears (well, eyes) helps a lot. So, thanks in advance for being that.

And as you know, I don't think any of us should be afraid to air our struggles and even our occasional conflictedness about being parents, so feel free to do ye likewise.

PS -- Elsa pooped in the potty last night. I'm not getting too excited, as this may have been a fluke, but I attribute part of it to letting her run around with no pants on, and part of it to following commenters' sage advice about backing off. Thank you!

Activity of the Week: Happy Birthday To You

Roper — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:06:00 GMT

I haven't done an 'Activity of the Week' in a while, I guess because with the weather being better and the girls being more self-sufficient, it hasn't been as much of a challenge to figure out ways to keep them entertained. And actually, this particular activity is one that they pretty much came up and do all by themselves. I just keep them supplied with the necessary materials, and suggest helpful enhancements from time to time, when they'll let me.

See, Clio and Elsa are obsessed with birthdays. This began shortly after their own birthday, back at the end of the December, and kicked into high gear when they went to their friend Amelia's 2nd birthday in Februrary. The obsession has manifested itself in a variety of ways: first, they just sang the Birthday Song constantly. Then, they started constantly asking for / calling everything sweet "Happy to you" cake. (We successfully introduced the idea of *pretend* happy to you cake, as well.) Then, for a while, they wanted us to draw birthday cakes for them. If you looked through our recycling bin anytime this March through May, you would find page upon page of crayon drawings of birthday cakes -- usually double tiered, with lots of fancy, squiggly decorations, and candles, of course. (I really honed my birthday cake-drawing technique. If for some reason you ever need a drawing of a birthday cake, I'm your gal.)

Now, the big birthday activity is making "Happy birthday to yous" -- their term for birthday presents. It's quite simple: you take a piece of paper, draw on or a put a sticker on it if you like, and carefully crumple it up. Then, you hand it to the nearest adult and say "I made you a happy birthday to you!" As the lucky adult recipient, it's your job to say, "Oh, wow! It's beautiful! Thank you!" and carefully unwrap it to reveal -- nothing. (I tried, once, to introduce the idea of wrap little things up inside their "presents" --- toys, legos, etc. -- but that just pissed them off. They obviously know what they're doing.) One thing I have contributed to this game, which they like, is giving them new materials to work with -- aluminum foil, construction paper, wrapping paper scraps, pages torn from old magazines, bows, etc. This, they like. But pretty much, they just like me to hang out and do my own thing -- check email, do the dishes, sweep the floor, etc. -- while they work, then act very excited when they hand me the treasure they've created. It's a pretty freakin' good activity.

We added birthday hats to the mix yesterday, which as a hit, until Clio snapped herself with the elastic.

Happy to you!!

Thanks, by the way, to everyone for your sage thoughts and advice on my last post. It's great hearing about different people's experiences and perspectives. I think those who said that a happy mom = a better mom really hit the nail on the head. I am definitely more patient and focused with the girls when I feel like I'm getting the time and space I need for my writing. It would make me so proud -- and I hope it would make them proud, too -- to one day be able to show Elsa and Clio a book and say, "Your mommy wrote this." And tell them that they can and should do what they can to follow their bliss in life, too, whatever it may be. (Birthday party planning, perhaps?)

My Writing Mother Guilt

Roper — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:17:00 GMT

Katie Allison Granjau over at Home/Work just wrote a great post about her Summertime Working Mother's Guilt. I've been wrestling alot with my feelings about my work / family balance, too, specifically as it pertains to my fiction and nonfiction writing -- a.k.a. the part of my work that doesn't pay me shite in monetary terms, but that I truly love, and dream of making at least part of a living at someday.

I've always felt extremely fortunate to have a situation where I can work part time (25-30 hrs/week) at a well-paid job-job that I really enjoy ("love" would be slightly too strong a word....it is advertising, after all) AND have time to be with the girls AND sneak in some time to write my own stuff, including this blog, AND even watch the occasional DVR-ed episode of 30 Rock. It's been tricky at times to maintain the balance, but mostly I've managed. Lately, though, it feels like it's gotten a lot harder to fit everything in.

My workload and responsibilities at work are, more and more frequently, oozing out beyond my set hours. (There's a reason why almost nobody works part-time at an ad agency; it's just not a punch-the-clock kind of job.) At the same time, taking care of the girls -- and their attendant needs -- seems to be taking up more time. They nap less and go to bed later. They make bigger messes. They eat more. (Does anyone else feel like they basically LIVE at the grocery store? Jeez!) As a result of all this, I'm finding less and less time to do my own writing. Because when I have to choose between two of the three things -- the job that pays the bills, my family, and my writing -- it's always the writing that gets the shaft.

Recently, though, we've been talking about the possibility of shifting our babysitter's schedule around so that on Wednesday afternoons, when I normally take care of the girls and Alastair works, I could write instead. That's potentially four or five extra hours of writing time per week, which would be awesome. And isn't really that much less time with the girls in the grand scheme of things. So....why do I feel guilty about the prospect?

I really could use another big chunk of writing time on a regular basis. Trying to squeeze in an hour here and there is fine to an extent, but to truly make progress, particularly when it comes to longer pieces, I need those bigger stretches. On the other hand, a part of me wonders if I shouldn't be trying so hard to make time for writing in general. Maybe I should put that part of my life on hold for a few years -- or at least scale back more significantly -- and get back into it when the girls are slightly less high maintenance and slightly less adorable. (But do they ever get less high maintenance or less adorable, in one way or another?)

If we make this change, I'll still have 3-day weekends with the girls. And I usually get home from work at a reasonable hour so I can hang out with the girls for a bit and put them to bed. For a lot of moms who work full time outside the home, neither of these things is possible. But I like the fact that I'm not a full-time working mom. At the same time -- and maybe this is where the guilt kicks in -- as much as I love my girls, I really don't miss them that much when I'm working, whether I'm at my "real" job or upstairs in my office writing.

I mean, sure -- I'm always happy to see them when I'm done. But it's not like I'm sitting there thinking "Gosh, I'd rather be out at the playground or drawing with sidewalk chalk or refereeing whiney toy disputes." I mean, I'd hate it if I NEVER got to do those things. But I don't feel the need to be doing them more than I already am. And I feel like maybe I could even handle a little less, if it meant I could make more headway on the work that I'm passionate about.

I know that some women love being with their children as much as possible, and hate that they have to go back to work. I know -- and have always known -- that that's not me. I also know that I would never make the choice to spend so much time and energy on my career(s) that I barely ever got to see my children. But here I am in sort of a middle zone, where it's harder to draw the lines and make the choices and figure out what I really want -- or what I really ought to do.

How do you draw the line between selfish and self-preservation? How do you process the working / parenting dilemma? Any parents of older kids out there, have you regretted any of your choices after the fact?

Sorry this is such a rambly and, probably, repetitive post. Not one of my more eloquent efforts. But who's got time to edit??!

PS -- speaking of the writing / parenting balancing act, a couple of Father's Day-related events in the Boston area from my friend and former Babble Blogger Steve Almond,. On June 9th at 6pm, a panel discussion on "Being a Father" with Sven Birkerts, Ben George, and Jennifer Boylan at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge. There's also a special Father's Day Reading @ Porter Square Books, Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. And yes, Steve is giving me free chocolate in exchange for including these listings in my blog. I can always be bribed with chocolate.