Watching the Second Hand

I read an article on time management recently and the author described one of the women profiled as a “full time student and full time mom.” I come from a generation of women weaned on the Helens: Reddy and Gurley Brown, which means I wholeheartedly believe a woman can do it all. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve had to concede you really can’t do or have it all at the same time. Especially not when you have kids. So while I think you can be a full time student OR a full time mom, you can't be both in a 24-hour day. In the past six weeks, I’ve learned this lesson first hand.

Since I’ve gone back to working a 40 hour week, my time and my heart are divided. I spend my days with virtual strangers with a scant three hours left over each evening to connect with my children. I can’t surprise them and swing by Baskin Robbins on the way home from school – it’s well past dinner time when we drag in each night. I can’t chauffer them to tennis or dance – my sitter does that now. I’m not even there to help with homework – they do it with teacher’s aide in the after-school homework club. I’m a full time writer. And a part time mom. And it hurts to put the words on paper.

I write because I love the written word. But I work because I prefer to write with a roof over my head. My decision to abandon the freelance life was made amid the pressure of a floundering economy and a need for two steady incomes, and I’m so thankful to be working in a field I enjoy. But at the end of the day (literally) I miss my babies.

When I had the luxury of being a full time parent and part time writer, I would sit at the park with other SAHMs and wonder aloud how working mothers did it. We, feeling stressed and harried with our carbon copy to do lists, thought we knew what it meant to be busy. Playdate. Costco. Post office. Bible study. Drive through Mickey D’s. Teacher conference. Dentist appointment. Sooooo busy. But we had our children with us, which often slowed us down, but brought with it a comfort we would not recognize until it was gone.

My son is in 5th grade and basically gets it when it comes to the economy and the reason mommy went back to work. He was doing pretty well with it too, until he realized I don't get off work in summer just because school is out. His dreams of lying around the house for three months are being replaced with long days at summer camp. My first grader remains somewhat clueless, but will surely ask why mommy isn’t driving on the next field trip. My response to these disappointments is tempered; I don’t want them to see how much more it disappoints me.

There are parenting theories about time, quality versus quantity. Having been on both sides of the debate, I’ve concluded that when it comes to being a mom, there is no quality or quantity; there is simply time. 24 hours in a day of your son or daughter’s childhood that slips by in a blink. For the working mother, that time becomes achingly precious. As I drop them off each morning, their small silhouettes diminishing too quickly in my rear view mirror, I tell myself I am doing the right thing. And then I will myself to keep driving, counting the hours until I see them again.