Thankful for Being a Working Mom

I recently came to the realization that I am glad I am not a stay at home mom.

This is a big step for me since I really struggled with being a working mom the first nine months of Vander's life and I hadn't really and fully realized it was the right choice for me until very recently.

I fully support whichever choice is right for each family and really appreciate people who are able to be stay at home parents. I just realized this is not the right choice for me.

This first came to light when we were in South Carolina. Around the sixth day of our trip, Dylan mentioned something along the line of realizing how much he appreciated daycare. I told him I had been thinking the same thing.

Even in an amazing place with so much to do, even with the help and support of my parents, sister and her boyfriend, Dylan and I were a little overwhelmed with how busy Vander can be!

When I mentioned this to my neighbor, she worded it in a way that made me feel much better about how I had felt. She said (paraphrasing here) that daycare teaches, entertains and nurtures our children during the middle of the day so that we parents have energy to take care of getting them ready for the day and breakfast and dinner and bathtime and bed time and still be able to love and play with our children.

I absolutely love spending time with Vander. He is the most entertaining person in my life; he is just so much fun! He loves doing new things; I can take him places easily. Most days go by too fast and I am sad when he is napping for so long since I am so anxious to go do something with him and I miss him.

However, some days feel a lot longer than others and some days I feel like I have done pretty much everything with Vander I can think of and it is only 2pm.

I fully believe it is a full time job to coordinate entertainment and education for a child all day every day! Which is why I pay for someone to do this for Vander five days a week. I have so much respect for what Vander's teachers do.

I switched jobs in April, which has been amazing. My commute is 10 minutes from daycare or home and my coworkers are so much fun to work with. Even better, all of them are women and most of them are parents themselves, so they fully understand the importance of work life balance and the unexpected absences.

My new job makes me feel so much better about my ability to parent since I can balance work and life more easily. Loving my job has made a huge difference in my acceptance and happiness with being a working mom.

It still isn't easy to leave Vander at daycare every day. While I have gotten over the guilt, I still miss him and wish I could spend more time with him. And as busy as he can be, it is hard to be at work for hours a day and still have the energy to be with Vander in the evenings.

No matter what there are pros and cons, but I am relieved to be in a position where I have a clearer conscience and feel more balanced as a person.