I quit my job to spend more time with my son, but I haven’t quite let go of the one life vest that helps me hold my head above the proverbial water: my nanny.
Yes, I’m one of those over-indulged SAHMs who has help a few hours a week. Many weeks before I decided to quit my job, I implored my husband to let me keep my nanny on board part-time. I insisted that I couldn’t do it alone, no, not with the hours he works or with a child entering what some call Toddler PMS. For all that my nanny and I have been through together, the thought of having the ability to go to the grocery store alone without someone yelling in my ear at every turn, “turkey! banana! ketchup!” was enough to make Messianic Music look like a sing-along with Elmo.
He obliged, I helped to find my nanny another part-time job and in such state I entered the world of SAHM heaven.Â
But when my nanny showed up this morning I wasn’t filled with excitement. I had a laundry list of things I wanted to achieve during my day, but really I had nowhere to go other than to the gym and back to Lululemon to pick me up a fine sweatshirt (note to self: I MUST stay away from that store for fear of turning into nylon).  And, in the fashion that I’m used to, I rushed out of my house to make it downtown by 9 am. Not for a meeting, but for a yoga class. I left my son screaming in my nannies arms as I left. It was deja vu all over again. Except I was wearing technical fabric instead of wool gabardine.
As I puttered around town, by myself in my car, listening to adult radio (AM news station) all I could see were all the other mommies like me, in their SUVs running pointless errands, biding their alone time (and spending ridiculously more money than me at LLemon). I felt like I deluded myself and my husband into thinking I actually needed some “me” time. I thought, what is it that I was trying to get away from? I’ve already spent the last 182+ Wednesdays away from my son at work. Why would I choose to spend yet another one on my own?
A lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m not quite ready to let the totally-reliable, yet odd-personality sitter go. I know the drama my friends go through trying to find part-time help for their children. The conversation I overheard at Whole Foods between two mothers lamenting to each other how they wished they could afford a sitter now and then certainly helped convince me of me-time worthiness as well.
But really, at the core, it’s the reason I worked for the last year and a half. As much as I want to be a SAHM, or was a working mom, I know that I’m not cut out to do the all-out mom thing a 7 full days a week. Because I know that I’m a better mom if I have a little space now and then. Because separation anxiety in a 9-month-old ‘aint got nothing on a 2-year-old.
Or maybe it’s because when I returned home after only 4 hours away, I walked into a house and heard giggles like I’ve never heard before, son and nanny playing games I would never have thought of, and got the running-into-my-arms-hug from my son that was usually saved for the nighttime.Â
Because I know that even though I’m technically an SAHM now, it doesn’t necessarily mean everyone’s better off having me fulfill the stay-at-home part of the equation 100 percent of the time.
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