I’ve been a work-at-home mother in earnest for about six or seven years. I dabbled before and I’ve had quieter times some years/months than others but since 2002ish I’ve been making a decent-sized to full-time contribution to our family’s finances.
Am I proud of that? Oh hell yeah. Very proud. But somedays (today) I am also very tired.
I’m not quite a working mother because I do most of my work from home. But I’m not quite a stay-at-home mom either because I’ve got responsibilities that go beyond my family sphere.
Because I’m the one home and because I generally like it and am good at it, I’m also the one responsible for most of the family meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking. And here may I give a shout out to my trusty crockpot, without which my family would eat a lot less healthfully and for much more expense. We buy few packaged or processed foods and so I also do a lot of baking and snack prep. Being the one closest to the kitchen most days, I handle breakfast and lunch.
We split the difference in housekeeping but the day-to-day picking up falls to me because that’s the reality — if I’m the one tripping over it then I’m the one either picking it up to put it away or I’m the one hollering at one of the kids to do it.
Speaking of kids, I do the bulk of the raising of them. Again, it’s all about proximity. When Brett’s home it’s an even split with allowances made for other responsibilities like budgeting (Brett) and never-ending laundry (me, because Brett has ruined too many of my cold-wash only clothes). Also I tend to work in the evenings, which means Brett usually gets small people ready for bed although I’ll come by for a story and snuggle.
We are both crazy-busy. Brett works ten hour days most days and I work in bits and pieces all day and into most evenings. Our kitchen floor is sticky and the dishes tend to pile up. We should dust more and the vacuum seems to spend more time in the closet than it should. We both have occasional clothes crises when we realize someone has run out of socks. Our life is nuts.
Most of the time I’m fine with the way things are. I’m pretty smug with all we manage to get done on a day-to-day basis. We’re an at-home, working, homeschooling family and somehow we manage to do it and every one is clothed and fed and attended to. Lately I’ve even managed to get on the elliptical trainer three or four days a week. We rock!
But oh lord, we are so tired.
The summer before this I went to visit a friend who is at-home with two kids — both schoolaged although it was summer so they were home. She also has a weekly housekeeper and money to burn, which means that stopping for a pizza on busy girl scout’s night is no big deal. They have a big, sunny, spotless house and visiting her is a little like a mini-vacation to me.
My friend is a lovely person, committed to homemaking in the best sense — decorations for every major holidays, personally packed lunches with a note tucked behind the thermos, fresh cookies and milk every afternoon — and then she got an offer to do a volunteer project that she really wanted. It was a big project but nothing beyond the order of chairing a PTA fundraiser. I mean, she’d have to scrap less for a couple of months, maybe stop for that pizza one night more. And the pay-off would be totally worth it.
“But Dawn!” she said. “How on earth will I have time?”
And I laughed and laughed and laughed and then I saw she was serious and I told her she’d figure it out. But really I was thinking that maybe I was the wrong person to ask because from my vantage point she had nothing but time. I mean, if I had her kind of time (and a housekeeper to boot), I could have written twelve books by now.
But on the way home (still chuckling in my car) I realized that this is one of the mixed blessings of having to work and having a family — you really find out how much you can get done when you just have to do it.
Anyway. I’m tired today and the kids were obnoxious so I’m looking at staying up late banging on my keyboard. I’m feeling a little sorry for myself (especially because I had to turn down a couple of fun social events for which my schedule would NOT make way). My working life doesn’t always comfortably make room for the primacy and urgency of my home life and my at-home world doesn’t always understand the primacy and urgency of my working life. In a lot of ways — and most days I can see it like this — I feel like I have the best of both worlds but in a few other ways — and it happens today I’m seeing more of this — I feel like I can’t get my head above water.
Here’s what I know though, having been down this road before: I’m still learning this job and I’m pretty hard on myself to be on the ball right away so I’m wasting a lot of energy kicking myself for not already being at 100%. Likewise, when I feel down about one thing I tend to visit my bad mood on every little aspect of my life. So not only do I suck at my job (only I don’t — I know this objectively) but I’m a terrible mother ruining my kids with my neglect (only remember I’m a fan of benign neglect) and I miss all the fun (because of the two missed social engagements even though there is plenty of social fun in my life). I have to remember the parenthetical truths and dismiss the paranoia. It’s hard though — wallowing is so much easier.
(Writing this all down made me feel better so y’all can hold off on the virtual hugs. Now I’m kind of embarrassed to hit post but I’m going to in the interest of honesty even when it’s whiny.)
