As a working mom, I struggle with the balance of home and work life on a daily basis. Some days, I can’t wait to escape to the office and not hear, “Mom!!!” every two minutes. Most days, though, I’m wishing I could spend a little more time with my kids after I get home from work and before they go to bed.
Driving to all their extracurricular activities, making dinner, giving baths, doing homework and more makes it seem like I’m home long enough to get my kids organized just in time to go to sleep. As my husband works most weeknights, all these responsibilities usually fall solely on me, adding to the chaos.
I feel like long weekends and time off from school make this even more difficult. Recently, I worked from home while my kids weren’t feeling well. Going back to work the next day, I felt defeated from the start. I felt bad leaving my still-sick kids with my husband since he didn’t get much sleep after work. My one daughter had gotten up in the middle of the night and kept me up because she thought she was going to get sick. While leaving for work, that same daughter was bawling outside her bedroom for me as I walked out the door.
Describing the morning’s events to a coworker, she said, “The kids will be fine – it’s OK.”
No, it’s not OK.
It’s not OK to feel like I’m disappointing my children. It’s not OK to feel like I should be at home, being a mother, instead of a working woman. What definitely wouldn’t have been OK for our family, even though it felt like it at the time, was to walk out and go home to be with my kids and not work again.
I chose to be a working mom (more or less, we have bills to pay and we chose not to live off of one salary). In making that decision came other tough decisions – will my job be flexible with my family’s lifestyle? What if I want to have another child – what’s the maternity leave policy? Will I be spending more time doing my job than being a mother?
If you have a job that doesn’t satisfy you or give you enough time with your family, look for a new one. There are so many possibilities for women – whether that means working from home full-time, part-time or none of the time. We are fortunate to be living in an era where the possibilities for working mothers seem to be growing daily.
Jobs may come and go, but the job title of “mom” won’t go away.
