Working It Out

Is it weird that I'm excited about returning to work in just a short week? Does it make me a bad mom because I'm not feeling pangs of guilt at the idea of essentially leaving my kids behind every weekday while I galavant around the office in heels and a blazer?

We live in this post-nuclear family society where Mom's are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I feel like I'm not allowed to be excited about work because that means I won't be the one caring for my children full time.

Sometimes I feel like this is a self-projected issue, that I see other Mom's so sad and depressed to be returning to the land of staplers and xerox machines and I think to myself, "What's wrong with me? Why don't I care?" I care. I definitely care. But in the fight between working and staying home with my kids, working will always win. I think even if I had more kids than I could afford to keep in daycare I'd still work part time, on weekends, whenever and wherever I could. I love work. I love challenges that don't involve getting play dough out of the carpet.

Then, other times, I feel like it's them. The other Mom's. They're surely talking about me and my lack of ability to parent my own children. Abandoning them in their most crucial developmental years. How dare I be happy to go back to work when they're all so sad and depressed about it?

Returning to work with Cash was a different ballgame. I was starting a new job, I felt like I was allowed to feel excited and refreshed. I was trying on a new hat and it was the best thing for our family. I wasn't looking at it from the perspective of leaving him, I was looking at it like I was bringing home some bacon! I saw a future and I was excited to get to it.

This time, I still feel that pang of excitement. I'm excited to have some of my freedom back, to not be physically attached to my children day in and day out for weeks at a time. Even when Hubs is home sometimes it still feels like it's on me. The responsibility of mothering them. Mothering is mothering, Fathering is fathering. They're different but the same.

In the end I guess what matters is that I have a job that I love doing and I am excited to go back to. I have a good future in the industry and I am proud of the accomplishments I've made since starting there. As much as I try, I can't be everything to everyone, so I have to choose who I want to be.

I choose to be a good Mom, and for me, being a good Mom is being a Mom that works. I'm lucky enough that we can afford to make that a reality and I am lucky enough to have the skills where I can consistently grow professionally.

I choose to revel in my success instead of focusing on what others think I should be doing. They should be focusing on themselves instead of me.

I choose to show my children the importance of hard work and a good education. I want them to want to spend their lives working, not because that's what puts food on the table, but because it gives them a sense of accomplishment and its something that they love to do. I want them to find good work/life balance, not to store it all up in one pot while the other runs dry. Most of all, I want them to feel content in their choices, like I do, right now.