Sometimes I think I’m the expert on what it’s like to go back to work part-time after baby. Sometimes I have a big mouth. When those two sometimes collide, it ‘aint pretty.
So first, my apologies to the poor mom I talked to on Sunday at the benign street festival in my neighborhood. Because really, I know you were just trying to have fun with your kids, and you really didn’t need me to lay into you about all negatives of working part-time. You’re just trying to scale back your workweek, and really, I get it.
But, in case you, or anyone else cares, I’m gonna lay it out there real nice and simple. I just don’t think part-time work works all that well. Especially if you’re trying to “scale back.” You may think your company will be all sorts of grateful to you for giving them a day back of your salary, but really, going from four days to three days of work a week, just creates a scheduling and organizational headache for your colleagues and managers.
I worked a three-day workweek. I think it’s the devil. I may not have said it before, but with a year-and-a-half on the SAHM front, I think I have a new perspective on the matter. I know at one time I said I loved working part-time, and so if you use this post against me I will come find and kill you (remember I am channeling the devil), but that was like a whole naive six months before my part-time love went down the reality drain.
I think staying at home for awhile now has opened up my eyes to the annoyance of some part-time jobs. Part-time work alludes you into thinking you’re getting “the best of both worlds,” (that, by the way, is like one of those annoying new-mother sayings, like “just sleep when the baby sleeps.”) but in reality, you’re neither here nor there with work or home life. You’re torn on your days off because your client really needs you to be on a 3 pm conference call, but you really need to be at the mommy-and-me class. The part-time devil makes you think you’re getting some kind of good deal on the whole work-life situation, but if you’re like me, you just end up feeling stressed out and maxed out instead of productive and profitable.
Even though I think my part-time schedule started off grand, in the end it didn’t work out so well for me. (Can’t you tell?) This doesn’t mean it can’t work for you, but I think there need to be some ground rules and expectations set up from the start before you try it. I tried to set these up in that old post I wrote about how you need to have an understanding boss, terrific child care, great coworkers, and a partner who has awesome benefits. If I were to add to that today, I think my only piece of advice would be: don’t get sucked in.
Don’t let the devils of part-time work - conference calls on your days off, not getting paid for working over your alloted hours, only breaking even between work payment and child care, lack of promotions because of your reduced hours – get you down. If you can work it out to be just part-time, I think there is a fighting chance of succeeding. If not, I think you’ll just end up dancing with the pitchfork amidst a hot fire.
I’ve had some close encounters of the working kind in the past week. Remarkably, since I left my job, I’ve had little to do with my former coworkers. It’s not out of spite or anything. (Although I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate me calling them at 1 pm while they’re at their computers and I’ve just finished watching an episode of Top Chef). It’s just that I’m being lazy about the whole “networking to get back in the workforce someday thing” and I have no urge to really know what I left behind me. I wish I could say that I miss work, but I don’t, actually. So while I like to hear from my old friends, I don’t have that morbid curiosity about me wondering, “are they getting by without me?” Because I’m sure they are.
However, in the last week, I’ve gotten some pokes from my former colleagues and work associates. My old team took me out to a very nice “going away” afternoon tea where I gorged myself on scrumptuous handmade scones and shrimp sandwiches until my stomach hurt. (Cut me some slack. Most of my lunches these days consist of french fries and an occasional crust of grilled cheese.) My colleague even asked me before our get together if I was excited to bust out some of my old corporate wardrobe again. Like I all I wear are Uggs and leggings all day every day. Please. It was actually somewhat entertaining to put on a shirt that buttons, pants that aren’t made of denim and have somewhere to be with adults at 3 pm, but by 5 o’clock, I was relieved to go home, take off my thong underwear (I have little problem with panty lines while I’m at home) and slip on my momiform.
I mean, after we discussed gossiped about all our old clients, what was I supposed to talk about? My “blog” which is so “cute?” My son, who’s growing up faster than I care to believe? My coworkers are childless and I’m not sure they were that interested in the latest potty training techniques. Plus, it’s not like I’ve been very good at keeping up with marketplace trends; I’ve let my “work” magazine subscriptions all but completely lapse in the three months since I stepped out the door.
This lack of interest in the working world wasn’t just obvious over Darjeeling and jam. I’ve had other work-related avoidances as well. For example, I turned down a good freelancing opportunity last week. I blew off a former colleague who wanted me to speak to his class. I’m even bailing on a “how to be a better freelancer” seminar this week that I’m supposed to go to with my new friend and learn how to market myself better. Freelancing lesson #1: don’t bail on popular blog friend for night at home. (Truth be told I am staying at home to prepare for a vacation later this week, but my former gunner self wouldn’t let a silly thing like vacation get in the way of some good networking.)
I’m sure somewhere out there Leslie Bennetts is signing Hail Marys praying for my working mom salvation. I’m a serious ”keeping myself in the mix” flunkie. I’m a career-path dropout. Hell, I’m not keeping that “key contacts” roster alive. You know, the one I’m supposed to keep so that if in six months I’m going ballistic with a temper-tantrum-throwing-toddler and I want to go back to work it will be seamless. On paper, I’m setting myself up for complete failure. But I’m keeping hope alive that the way everyone else judges what moms do when they stop working will somehow change if and when I decide to ever be a “working” mom again.
That just being me doing what I want to do when I want to do it will be enough. I’m not giving into the career Grim Reaper yet.
It seems to have reared its ugly head all over the internet and blogosphere again. I’m all for ending the Mommy Wars, but I’m also all for people articulating their feelings and points of view on the topic. To get a sense of how heated this debate still is, you should all check out the interesting discussions on these two blog posts:
- Work It Mom! is currently featuring an article by Leslie Bennetts, author of The Feminine Mistake (which I wrote about way back when), that has set off a firestorm of comments and a response by the site’s founder, Nataly. I personally think Ms. Bennetts probably has some nuggets of wisdom in her writing, but found her article a bit off-putting. I think it’s absurd to quantify or generalize the term “happiness” and that we all have to define it for ourselves as mothers and women and people, not by whether or not we work or not. I also applaud Nataly for putting different opinions on her site. We’re all not always going to agree with one another and that’s what is great about the internet and its various communities. Just don’t let it get too personal, people.
- Speaking of personal attacks, Stephanie, a.k.a. Lawyer Mama, is taking some serious heat for a blog post she wrote last week about the scheduling of her son’s friend’s birthday party during a weekday time when she’s at work. The ensuing debate and discussion underscore how mothers really judge each other. (You’ll notice I’m not participating in such debate, because I won’t opine either way! I am allowed to take a neutral stand on the internets, right?)
- And to round it all off, Chicago Crain’s Business published an article this week featuring a few moms’ stories about working vs. staying at home. It doesn’t cover any new territory, but any article that has a headline, “Great friends –until they had kids,” is always going to get me. The mommy wars are so much more fun with a sensational!! headline!!
Ok, I’m off to eat bon bons and watch Oprah re-runs, because, well, you know, that’s all us SAHMs do anyway…
Tags: mommy wars, Leslie Bennetts, Work It! Mom, DC Metro Moms
I don’t like to talk too much about my family here, but I’m so proud of my mom that I think her recent comeback is worth a post. See, my mom spent the better part of mine and my brother’s childhood working at home. She dabbled with her art, but turned down a job at Walt Disney animating cartoons because she wanted to settle down and raise a family. She didn’t completely ignore her artistic calling, however, and started her own greeting card company out of our basement. I remember vividly the piles and piles of mimeographed (before Xerox!) cards sitting in our basement waiting to be shipped to buyers. She was talented, motivated, and folks, she’s SERIOUSLY FUNNY.
When she shuttered the doors to her card business in the late 1980s, I think she believed she may never return to her passion: making people laugh. Yes, she still worked, owning a Southwestern-style art gallery, but there’s not much humor to be had in Navajo rugs. But she always kept at her humor, tweaking it over the years. The “hey Sara you’re 13 now humor book.” (It’s SOOO funny when you’re mom makes fun of your frizzy bangs. Ha ha.) The witty one-liners she would come up with while we vacationed. To her, everything’s humorous, which can make childbirth and being a new mom much easier.
This year she realized that it was time to get back in the game. To start doing what she loves and knows best. So she built a website and resurrected her defunct greeting card business. Her humor has stood the test of time and I hope her newest endeavour is wildly successful. She deserves it after raising my brother and I. It’s proof to me that anything’s possible at any time. I love you, mom.
No go on and order one of her hilarious greeting cards at http://sendsomehumor.com (that’s for my mom and her non-web savvy friends.) Stat!
I see my immediate family regularly. Like every three weeks regularly. However, I see our extended family way less often. Like once a year often. What brings us together are those typical family events like weddings, showers, funerals (the worst kind of events), you know, those events where your saving grace is having a full glass of wine in hand so that you can knock a few swigs back before your aunt-in-law quizzes you on your breastfeeding skills.
Trust me, I love our family. I do. But sometimes when we get together I feel like I’m enduring the Spanish Inquisition of motherhood.
Take last night, for instance when the whole family came to town for the second cousin’s bat mitzvah. It was a lovely affair which took place in a Unitarian Church (no, I had never been to a bat mitzvah in a church either) with a guitar-playing rabbi.  I didn’t realize how much better Hebrew songs sound with a little C-chord thrown in. Really. Even though the church didn’t have the heat on, my feet were freezing in my fabulous Tory Burch high-heeled boots, and I was starving (I didn’t mean to eat the candy at the end of the service that was meant to be thrown at the bat mitzvah girl), I felt warm and fuzzy after the bat mitzvah’s wonderful performance. Post-candy gorging, I was looking forward to celebrating a young girls’ rite of passage into womanhood after the service.
Until I got to the dinner wherein the inquisition from my working mom cousins-in-law began.
“So, how is it not working? Is it horrible? Are you miserable? Do you feel like pulling your hair out?”
I hadn’t even had half a glass of wine yet.
“Uh, well I actually am really enjoying it.”
“Really? I couldn’t do it. I have the greatest job, I work from home, my son’s in a day care and I work for myself – it’s great. I love my work.”
How do you respond to that?
I immediately got defensive.
“Well, I’m doing some freelance writing, and it’s not like I’m going to be an SAHM forever. I’ll probably go back to work one day. Sounds like you have a great situation that works. My situation stopped working for me and I wasn’t happy.”
Of course most part of that was true. But what if I had tweaked my response just a little bit to say, “I just wanted to stay home to be with my son.”
It should be that simple. I should be able to confidently say to my family, “I just don’t want to work. Right now and maybe forever.” Instead, I started to sweat and cringe and talk up my meager writing gigs just to fit in with my cousins who are more career-oriented than I probably will ever be.
On the way home from the dinner, I discussed this issue with my famous psychoanalyst stepfather-in-law. Dr. Dale understands what makes people tick an why they say the things they do. And we came to, what I think is an interesting perspective on the topic of why women judge each other and get highly opinionated on the issue of working or staying at home.Â
As a mom, you do what you do because it makes sense for you and your family. Not because your neighbor thinks it’s cool that you met Oprah one day on the job. You do it because it works for you and nobody else. And you can’t generalize those feelings to others. So of course if you like your job, you have a flexible schedule and your son is happy in day care, you can’t even remotely imagine what it would be like to stay at home every day and attend gymnastics classes with your two-year-old. Or maybe that’s just my cousin-in-law. Or maybe our theory is whack. But believing in that sure beats the alternative, which would include for me a sleepless night ruminating over why I threw away a successful career to play with Lego steam shovels.
What’s interesting now, is that now, six weeks removed from the job, I can’t get away from the conversation. I’m slowly realizing that this conversation will probably be a part of who I am and will be for a very long time. I also realize that 1) perhaps the inquisition approach to asking how I’m doing staying at home now isn’t the best approach since it’s so new and fresh still and 2) a second glass of wine may have helped me craft a wittier response.Â
I’ll have to remember to ask the waiter for an extra glass of Pinot the next time I sit down for a family dinner. Â
It’s always fun to see how celebrities are quoted about how they handle motherhood and work. So when I came across this story in USA Today I couldn’t resist quoting yet the newest working mom on the block – Julianna Margulies, who’s starring in a new show, Canterbury’s Law, this Monday night. In the series, she plays a ball-buster lawyer. In real life, she’s mom to six-week-old Kieran. I’m sure she was asked the obligatory, “how did you handle pregnancy and working?” question, which elicited this response:
I got pregnant by surprise at the end of April, and in May, we found out we were picked up. IÂ don’t want to be the working mother. We’ve seen it a million times. How do you juggle? And it is impossibly difficult, as I’m now finding out.
Furthermore, she was against writing her pregnancy into the show. Most times I find it irritating when celebrities wax poetic or give unrealistic advice about the beauty of working and raising their children on movie sets or whatever. So, thanks Julianna for keeping it real. It is impossible to juggle.
Tags: Julianna Marguiles, working moms, celebrity moms, Canterbury’s Law
