All Moms (and all Parents for that matter) are Working Parents February 17, 2007

My tag surfing lately has led me to some very interesting posts on parents, Moms in particular, and the struggle over whether or not to work outside the home in addition to the work inside the home.  I’ve seen many strong opinions on both sides.  There’s Biblical references, personal accounts, sharing of financial struggles, thoughts on division of Mom and Dad duties, and a wealth of information and viewpoints out there.  I am strongly opinionated here, but only in so much as that my opinion is that every family needs to open and honestly explore what works for them and their individual unique situations.  This, of course, can change from time to time and in the various life stages we all go through.  I am convinced it takes an ever present focus on priorities, an open heart and mind, and lots of cooperation and prayer to put a workable plan together.  The challenge is as fundamental as the challenges of parenthood:  simply put, consistently making decisions that support your family, your faith, and your life goals.  Simply stated but giant in scope and purpose.  We are raising beautiful children of God.  We are trying to help them make good choices and decisions, have solid morals and values, be contributing citizens and Christians, and be happy, healthy, nurtured, and loved simultaneosly.  Parenting is a difficult, amazing, wonderous, and a tiring job all at the same time.  Evaluating the enormity of the task makes it easy to see how such strong opinions form.   It is certainly no wonder we are all quite exhausted at days end. 

I’ve been a Mom for 12 years and almost 2 months now (but who’s counting?).  If it wasn’t a cigarette ad, the phrase “you’ve come a long way, baby” could easily apply.  I can remember how difficult it was to all manage and how new it was to me and how downright lacking I was in self-confidence, parent assertiveness, and the knowledge to know what was best.  One of my favorite Ob/Gyn doctors told Steve and I that the first baby is your culture shock and when you first begin to adapt life to caring completely for another little individual.  He recalled baby #2 as a tribute to finding a family balancing act and learning to share attention, time, and love.  He, of course, shared all this with us when we were expecting baby #3.  He identified the third child as “just a lot of fun.”  His logic was that once you had already accepted your role of parenthood and then learned how to divide and conquer, 3 kids, and more if the situation applies, were just plain enjoyable.  Now, with 4 kids, I buy that philosophy hook, line, and sinker. 

As I look back, however, I remember the pain involved in sorting these things out.  I was convinced there was no balance between working outside the home and being the kind of Mom I wanted to be.  I have learned over the years, through much trial and error, that there is always a balance, we just have to keep adding to each end of the see-saw until we find it.  Notice I didn’t say we keep “chipping away at it” or “working through it.”  I intentionally said we add on either side until balance is acheived.  I believe in making deposits into the parenthood account, not withdrawals.  And that doesn’t mean adding more responsibilities.  It means adding to the quality of family and striving to make our work and home life support that quality.  We make deposits that enrich our lives. 

I’m now a kind of half-n-half mom with a similar kind of husband and we share roles.  We share laundry, making dinner, child duty, dog walking, homeworking checking, backpacking packing, activity shuttling, quality time devoting, and all the other hats we wear.  I work night shift, which I returned to after 7 years on days and 14 total years of work as a registered nurse.  I left a cushy dayshift office job as a nurse educator…and why?  Those office hours jobs totally preclude any ability to get to the school lunch, or volunteer in the classroom, or be available for sick calls, etc.  Nights frees up needed time for me and by working 12 hour nights, which is hairy on the work days, I get up to 7 days in a row off every 2 weeks.  That’s when hubby and switch and he does the “Tag - you’re it!” and I take over as the family manager on those days.  Sure, there’s plenty of kinks, but we work together, as a family, to keep working those out. 

I am currently very content with both work and home and very, very in touch with my family.  Our time together is precious and we are intentional about reserving it.  I’ve been told, and I believe, that we have a great deal of family time in contrast to the norm.  It’s top priority to us, so it gets planned in the busy life we have.  I feel very fortunate to be at this point.  I enjoy my work and my children find importance and significance in it.  They seem proud of Daddy and I when they talk about the things we do and how we share taking care of them.  Our day to day tasks are within the realm of possibility of accomplishing and they’ve been trimmed down to necessity.  We’ve made our kids share responsibilities and chores.  Team Houk we call ourselves and most days we are convinced that Team Houk can do anything we set our minds to.  It represents a great deal of progress and personal growth for me to be at this point.  We had to weed out that which detracted from our mission.  It was difficult, but I’m very glad we did it. 

Enough gushing.  I love that I get all warm and fuzzy talking about my family, but that is not the purpose of this post.  My purpose is really to inspire some confidence in those that are going through the process of making these decisions - to offer some love, support, and prayers from those of us who have “been there, done that” as the phrase goes.  To say:”stick to your guns on doing what it takes for YOUR family to acheive this balance.”  And remember, that will be very different for each individual family. 

What I really wanted most to share is something I found that I had written about 11 years ago.  It represents how I felt very much in the midst of the struggle.  I’ve actually found a few of these that I plan to post, along with some of my current success stories, just to prove that there is hope, and it is in your heart, and it will rise up.  It’s just like Sandra Bullock’s character in Hope Floats points out:  that the hope just floats up to the top, through all the mess below it. 

In 1996, as night shift nurse newly in a management role, with a full-time student, part-time employee husband, struggling to make ends meet, and a 1 year old daughter,  here is how I felt:

My thoughts on being a working Mom:

I am so tired of the hassle.  Every night it is an accomplishment to actually get out the door and on the way to work.  It is a series of last minute negotiations for who will do what and the resetting of alarms for a few more minutes to sleep.  I am torn.  I leave the two most important focuses in my life lying in bed and hoping I can come home early, so we can all at least be in the same room.  Not even awake and interacting, just together.  I am chronically tired and overcommitted and just barely making it has become a way of life. It seems as though I don’t have energy left for home, routinely.  My time with Marlee isn’t focused or directed.  It is scarce.  My thoughts are pre-occupied and I don’t feel good at being a Mom. Sometimes, I feel that she is growing up right only thanks to daycare and her good-natured personality.  My contribution as a parent doesn’t seem to be a factor.  Bedtime stories?  Rarely.  Usually Mommy is trying to catch a few winks herself and just wants her to drift to sleep quickly.  Closely, but quickly.  A desperate attempt at creating some quality time.  Tonight she stopped crying when I held her, then asked me to put my jammies on.  She wants the security of knowing I’ll stay.  I am unable to give it to her.  I am unable to give it to me. 

Many years later I’ll now say we might not be able to “do or have it all”, but we can have enough and do enough that our family remains at the top of our list. 

Best of luck to you all in our common struggles to figure it out and raise our kids well!