“Working” versus “Not Working,” (Ha! HAA!) Two Months In

So, a few months ago I wrote about how I thought going back to work full-time after the SAHM gig, and even though some of the comments I got were ROUGH on me personally, I wanted to update you all, because I feel like maybe there’s a lack of information about all of this, at least in my little corner of the Internet, about this transition. This post is a little bit dry, but I think it’s important to keep people updated that this parenting thing continues to be HARD, and no, it is not just you.

So.

Ever since Sachin started kindergarten, I’ve been writing from home every free second I can get. The kids are only gone for six hours a day, so I have to make up some time on the weekends and the evenings. I usually wake up, walk the dog, let out the chickens, make the kids’ lunches, make the kids’ breakfasts, eat my own breakfast, unload the dishwasher, clean up the kitchen, get the kids dressed, get myself dressed, put in a load of laundry, and then take them to school. Then I come home and write, or pitch, or edit, or blog, or answer emails, or what-have-you.

I stop to have a small lunch and snack in the middle of the day, to change the laundry from the washer to the dryer, to do a little house tidying, and to give our dog a ten minute walk. I go and pick up the boys, and usually I work for another hour while they play, and then we sit down and do homework and read together, and then I get dinner ready and the day winds down.

I am also still the one who, outside of these working hours, is mainly responsible for: food prep and cooking for all meals, grocery shopping, doctor and vet visits, daily cleaning, homework help, laundry, all errand-running, any volunteering, field trips, play dates, extracurricular activities the boys have during the week and probably a few other things I am forgetting.

Gregg vacuums and mops the whole house on Saturday, pays the bills and does the filing, takes the boys to soccer games, reads and puts the boys to bed, and does the dinner dishes about 85% of the time (sometimes the boys request his presence with Lego building or video game playing, and then I do the dishes while he does this). It is not like he is not helping, but he is out of the house almost sixty hours a week, so there’s only so much the guy can do, unfortunately.

I am not making a lot of money. (Hearty chuckle.) I am learning a lot. I like it, but there’s a steep learning curve. I like the flexibility I have, but I don’t like how there’s always work I could be doing, either around the house or in my writing. There is, seriously, ALWAYS more work. Working for yourself is a never-ending job, and your employer pays really badly. I usually end up working on Saturday mornings, and sometimes on Sundays, but I’m trying to cut that out. I need a little break, because it makes me (quite literally) crazy to work so much. The only other non-grad-school time I’ve worked so much was when I was working two library jobs, and there was a span of a month where I worked every single day, including weekends, including some evenings.

I think I cried a lot.

This is a lot better than that, but it’s still a lot of work. (I am not complaining; I am explaining. I feel very privileged to get this opportunity to try all this out. But that doesn’t make it easy.) Here are things that I used to do as a stay-at-home mom that I don’t do any longer: exercise, bake, do craft projects with the kids, take them to museums and the zoo and on outings, severely limit their screen time, cook things from scratch, read more than two books a month.

Yo, my kids eat pre-packaged food a lot more than they used to. So do I. There was a week where I didn’t have time to eat lunch, so now I buy five terrible frozen bean burritos, microwave them, and eat them for lunch. I am a foodie, and this hurts my heart, but I am not willing to make my delicious homemade lunch every day. We eat a lot of ravioli and garden burgers and pizza, too. I am sure we are full to the brim of sodium. I do not monitor my kids’ eating habits nearly as much as I used to. We have a snack drawer and they eat, and that’s it. I used to, like, cut cheese into shapes and prepare a garnish for their snack plates, and now I throw them a box of Oreos. 

My kids played fewer video games, were more enriched, and had healthier snacks when I wasn’t working full-time. I have not figured out how to fit this in yet. So do I think it’s the “same,” “working” versus “not-working” (let’s have a hearty chuckle at that, parents, because kids are SO RELAXING AAAAH DON’T YOU JUST WANT TO CATER TO THEM ALL DAY?)?  NO. I do not do the same stuff. Not even close. It’s not BAD, what I do now versus what I did then. It’s just DIFFERENT. Not bad, not good, just different. Sure, the food was higher quality before, but their independence and self-reliance is higher now. How do I judge which is the way they *should* be? I can’t.

All of that said? It is GOOD. It is worth it. I am a happier human being. I am juggling things, and there have been a few fights between me and the kids. It’s been an adjustment, but they’re gaining a little more responsibility and empathy, and also a little more freedom. It was time, for all of us.

And yes, I would do it again. In a heartbeat. I like this. I’m busy every second. I miss exercising and baking. I am sure I will have to figure out how to fit in the important things (like seeing friends, and date nights, and reading more books to my kids). This is by no means how I think life will be from now until Sachin goes to college. And yes, it will probably always be hard.

And yes, I will keep trying, because I think that’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to be a mom and a writer, and I’ll figure out how to both things well, but maybe not at the same time. That’s okay.