This is my first post on the The Self-Employed Mom blog which is not a republication of one of my columns. I have been scouring the Internet for other working mom blogs (or just mom blogs, or just working blogs) and well, there are lots.
It’s gratifying to know that I’m not alone, even though it sure as hell feels like it when you’re in the thick of things trying to get the kids ready for school in the morning while your mind’s on the 10 am conference call and/or other impending deadlines that are a fact of working life.
So I wanted to take the time to intoduce my growing list of working mom blog links (or working/mom) blog links. Not everyone has made it to my blog roll because, well, I’m not reading the blogs regularly yet so don’t want to fully endorse them. Still, from what I’ve read, they are worthwhile and I’m happy to have a place for them on The Self Employed Mom site. Get some coffee and spend some time reading these women’s blogs - it’s a great way to start the day.
By Jacqueline Dooley
“Let [mothers] solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace”
- Julia Ward Howe
For me, Mother’s Day isn’t just about getting to do what I want, and being remembered and honored (translation: showered with gifts) in the process. It’s also about giving my kids what they want, and enjoying them fully without the distraction of work.
I almost wish Mother’s Day did not fall on a Sunday because, as a working mom, the best Mother’s Day gift of all is playing hooky for the day. What could be more deliciously rebellious than taking Tuesday off to drive to the Jersey shore and collect shells with your kids when you’re supposed to be on a conference call?
So it’s not too terribly difficult to pinpoint exactly what I want for Mother’s Day. In fact, I’ve already got the day planned out. I’m going to New Jersey with my family to visit my mother. There’s nothing better than having three generations of mothers and daughters together on Mother’s Day. I can live without the flowers, candy and trinkets. My number one desire is to have that time together.
Still, I’ve often wondered how it all started. Why is Mother’s Day on a Sunday and not in the middle of the week when we could surely use the break? Not surprisingly, the day began with a very hard-working mother and one truly dedicated daughter.
Congress, on May 8, 1914, designated the second Sunday in May each year as Mother’s Day, after Anna Jarvis began lobbying for the day to be set aside, according to a press release from the U.S. Census Bureau. She had organized observances in Grafton, W.Va., and Philadelphia on May 10, 1908, a year after her mother’s death, and the celebration began to spread.
Meetings in beginning
In fact, the very first Mother’s Day celebrations in America were not celebrations at all. They were meetings organized by Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” “who proposed renaming July 4 as Mother’s Day and a day dedicated to peace,” according to a May 8, 2004, presidential proclamation.
Howe, a poet and writer, was a working mother during a time when women’s involvement in anything but family and the home was frowned upon. She played an active role in the women’s suffrage movement and often spoke at the pulpit of her own Unitarian church. Howe had witnessed firsthand the carnage of Civil War and how it deeply affected not only soldiers, but widows and orphans on both sides of the war.
So the very first Mother’s Day in this country was organized not by a child in honor of their own mother (that comes next), but rather, by a working mother as a way to honor peace in a time of great national upheaval and war.
It’s difficult not to feel humble about what first inspired Mother’s Day in America. So even though I’m glad to honor my own mother this weekend, and be honored myself, this year I will also remember to honor the spirit of peace, which inspired the first Mother’s Day meetings so many years ago.
I also can’t help but feel grateful to both Howe and Jarvis for taking up their causes and working hard to put mothers into the forefront of national consciousness. That surely has helped shape the opportunities afforded to women (mothers or otherwise) over the past 100 years.
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Raising children and working full-time is tough. Working from home hasn’t been the complete resolution I thought it would be, but it has helped, particularly when I need to temporarily pull away from my desk to be there for my kids’ imminent needs.
That can mean things like rushing off to emergency doctor appointments, being available to hold them on my lap indefinitely when they are sick, or ferrying them around to see their friends at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
Because I work from home, I am able to do this all without much conflict, but I know that if I worked full-time in an office, leaving my desk for my family would either be impossible or, at the very least, cause resentment.
And this lack of empathy for parents and our needs (which are really our children’s needs) extends far outside the work place. It seems like every day I read another alarming story about how someone is denied public transportation because of a child’s tantrum or removed from a public place because they were breastfeeding.
Young children have tantrums. Babies need to eat. Families with babies and children need to get from point A to point B just like everybody else. Sometimes children have trouble speaking in hushed tones or holding back tears so, yes, you’re going to hear them cry.
Has our national patience run so thin that we can’t allow some poor family get to where they need to go? What’s next? Will we see “No Children Allowed” signs in every bus station and airport? And those (hopefully few) souls who love to point out that we “chose” to have children, and therefore brought all this negativity on ourselves, may want to discuss the decision-making process with their own parents.
As a society, we need to remember that children are not just miniature adults. Children are loud. They don’t like being stuffed into an airplane for 7 hours, but more importantly, they don’t understand the social responsibility of stifling their discomfort. But our children have the right to be in this world, no matter how loud or inconvenient they may be.
Would it be so difficult for us as a society to provide havens for parents to stop, take a break, and care for our children with some relative privacy? Small allowances, such as green areas or playgrounds at airports would give our kids a chance to run themselves right into a nice long nap.
Are we to be forever relegated to our homes, or “family-friendly” horror shows like Chuckie Cheese and McDonald’s, until the children can behave more like adults?
For that matter, why can’t doctors and dentists have evening and weekend hours? When you need to take a school-age child to the doctor at 10 am, it means you miss the morning of work, and they miss nearly an entire day of school.
I doubt we’ll start seeing more tolerance or accessibility for working parents until we embrace childhood in our society, with all of its imperfections, unplanned moments, and unrestricted enthusiasm.
For me the choice was clear – my daughters’ childhood comes first. They’ll need to retain an innate sense of joy when they remember their early years so they have the strength and motivation to implement child-friendly policies when they become President. Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long.
By Jacqueline Dooley
Quitting work to stay home with your baby or older child is a hard decision - one that never entered my mind when I got pregnant the first time. I took six weeks off after the birth of my oldest daughter, Ana (now 6) and went right back into the fray of a full-time job even though it broke my heart.
Six whole weeks seemed like a really long time to be off from work. But I wasn’t a mother yet, even though I was about to become one, and I didn’t have the foresight to understand how much my baby would interfere with my feelings about everything, especially my job.
But those first six weeks flew by and it was time to go back to work way before I was mentally ready. But, I still got up that first morning, packed my breast pump and headed to the office.
I worked full time for the first year and a half of Ana’s life, but my enthusiasm for my job was stifled, overshadowed by my love for my baby. I used to wonder if men felt the same heart-wrenching feeling of loss every day when they drove away from their babies.
It was a relief when I got laid off in October 2002, when Ana was about 16 months. For the first time I got to spend entire days with my daughter that included play dates, library story times and trips to the park.
Staying at home full-time was great at first, but it presented challenges that I didn’t expect. I actually missed work, and I longed to have some time to myself. I was also very lonely and missed chatting with my friends from work - something I’d taken for granted when I saw them every day.
Isolating experience
I learned how isolating it is to be home with a young child all day long. I remember taking walks with her and trying to structure the day so neither of us would get bored, which wasn’t always easy, particularly in the winter. I lived for nap times when I could get a break. I never really stopped looking for work during this time because we couldn’t afford it, not really, but unemployment checks enabled me to take my time.
When I started working for myself a few hours a week it was the best of both worlds for me. But as my business grew, my hours also grew and I found I was more stressed out than ever trying to keep up all the household responsibilities while simultaneously focusing on my business.
My father used to tell me, “be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”
Since I’ve had my kids, I often think of his words. I was miserable when I worked full-time in an office, and not as blissfully happy as I thought I would be when I was home full-time. Working full-time from home is also not my ideal scenario, although it’s the one I’m living now.
I don’t resent my business. On the contrary, I’m very grateful for it, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely sold on the idea I can’t one day work less hours and spend more time doing mom things. There can be time for both if I create time, but I’ve been a mom and business owner long enough to know that’s easier said than done.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, April 5th, 2007.
