June Cleaver Wannabe

My mother was a stay-at-home mom, and she and my father always told us girls that we should do the same.  They encouraged us to go to college, of course, and to start a career, but the point of the career was always to have something “just in case” something happened to our husbands, not to actually work it our whole lives.  I’ve always fought them on this, saying men are just as capable of staying home as women, and women are just as capable of working, and all that razz.  I didn’t get my degrees for nothing.  I find a lot of value in myself as a working person.  Etc.  Mom, you are so OLD-FASHIONED.  Ugh.  Get with the 2000s, would ya?

Ha.  The joke’s on me.  I maintain that in spirit I am right, and that a family has a choice in how they do things.  Women should be welcomed in the workplace, and it would be nice if they made as much as men (ahem.)  Men should be a dash hand at changing a diaper and know exactly how to repack the diaper bag and what their kid’s favorite juice is, and it would be nice if society valued these skills in men.  But.  For my particular family the old fashioned, as it turns out, is exactly what we want.  Patrick is eager to be getting paid for all this work he’s doing.  I am eager to hand over the breadwinner reins.  I always wanted to have the choice to be the working mom – but now that our family has been forced into this by the early arrival of our *blessed surprise*, I wish we did have a choice.  So we could choose the other choice.  Or, more ideal for me, so I could choose to go part time, and get the best of both worlds – a lot of time at home, a little time away.  We won’t be rich, but we’ll have enough money to continue to do the things that are important to us, like go to weddings, visit family, host friends. 

There are a couple of coping strategies that we have come up with to keep us going.  When my alarm goes off in the morning, every morning I tell myself – I’m just going to call in sick today.  I don’t have any sick time, because I had to use it up before getting maternity leave, but I still say it.  "I’m calling in sick today.  But since I’m up now, I might as well go get a cup of coffee. I’m just going to drink this coffee and then call in.  Well, since I’ve had my coffee, I might as well just get a quick shower.  But after this shower, I’m going to go call in.  Ahh, well, since I had my shower, I may as well dry my hair and get ready for the day.  And, since I’m ready for the day, I may as well just get in the car and start the drive.  But tomorrow.  I can call in sick tomorrow."   And thus do I trick myself into making it in to work every day.  It sounds stupid, but it really helps.

Also, Patrick is actually going on the market now.  He spends a part of his day researching jobs, honing his resume, applying to open positions, and doing real estate searches.  We daydream a lot about what’s coming, and it’s fun to know that it won’t be long now.  As far as the workday goes, I’ve decided that I need to think of my work as preparation for the next HR Manager.  I need to have everything in place and running smoothly for him/her, and that will take a while since this is a new company and I’ve had to make every policy and procedure up from scratch.  I’ve perfected some of them, scrapped and re-written others, and now I’ve started writing it all up in a book so the new person will know how I designed our HR and Safety departments here.  Thinking of it that way kind of helps keep me motivated.  And I also have a growing cache of youtube videos of Jack that I watch, when I need a little pick-me-up.  That helps keep me happy.

I have probably about 10-12 more months left of working full time before I pass the torch to Patrick.  When every day is such a chore to get through, the thought of 260 more days ahead of me seems like an insurmountable obstacle.  But I read a quote by Tina Fey the other day: "The life of a working parent is constantly saying, ‘This is impossible,’ and then you just keep doing it."  So, she’s right.  Getting through this workday is impossible.  And I’ll see you tonight after work.