My life is a complete clusterfuck. We have three kids under the age of 6 and all the chaos that goes with that. The twins are still in full time preschool/daycare and my older son had been at TK at the local elementary school and the Discovery Club program before and after. We were out of the house with all the kids by 7:15 a.m. and generally didn't pick up until 4:30 or 5:00 p.m., many days rushing to some activity/practice for the oldest. The thing that made our life work, was the flexibility of my job. I schedule my own appointments and when I'm not in the field, I'm generally working from home writing reports. This schedule allowed me to throw in loads of laundry while I was between conference calls or prep dinner on my lunch break. And prepping dinner is a big deal for me. I'm not generally the mom that volunteers in class or does crafts with my kids, but it's important to me that we eat dinner as a family, together, every night. And I enjoy cooking, so the time that I spent cooking was about the only "me time" that I was likely to get during the week.
All of that was upended when my oldest had to change schools for kindergarten. We had open enrolled for the school where he attended TK, but he didn't get in, which meant we were going to our neighborhood school. I will be the first to admit that I was THAT parent. I did no research other than to look at test scores online. I didn't meet the principal, I didn't tour the school. I made a snap judgement from knowing it was a Title 1 school that had shitty test scores. I was distraught about my kid attending this school, tears were shed. I also wasn't comfortable with him at the Discovery Club at this school. When we thought he'd get into his TK school, my mom volunteered to be the "backup" care for him if he had to go to the neighborhood school. She volunteered because she's nice and wants to help her family in any way she can. But I never intended to take her up on it. These are my kids and not her responsibility. I don't like relying on others for that level of help, but that's what it came down to.
The first couple weeks of school were tough. My son went from having a solid group of friends and support system at school to knowing no one. We were all adjusting to a new schedule, new school, new hours, and new people. Then we got an email home from the principal that changed my outlook on the school. It said something to the effect of, "If your family needs food, please come to Room 18 on Thursday afternoon and take whatever you need." I don't know about you, but our previous school never sent out anything like that, nor had any of his friends' schools. I immediately responded to the email to the principal to see what I could do to help. She indicated that the food was provided by a local food bank, but she could connect me with the Neighborhood Resource Liaison, who is the staff member that coordinates the services for all the homeless families. Let that sink in. This school has enough of a homeless population to need a staff member to coordinate the services. I immediately contacted the liaison to figure out where I could help. I volunteer with an organization that works to provide feminine hygiene products to women and girls that can't afford them, so I thought that might be a good fit. I met her at her classroom one day and dropped off period products. Probably because I had contacted her to help (and actually followed through), the principal asked me if I'd be willing to join the school site council, which is a group of staff, administrators, and parents that help spend the budget for the school. Once again, I'm not generally that parent, but I figured at this school I might be one of the few willing to do it, so I signed up. The first meeting was depressing as hell and I went home and cried. Let's just say the statistics for this school made me realize that families like mine are needed at this school. Families with resources that can provide support. This, along with a few other recent developments, made me go home and take a really long, hard look at how I want to be spending my time.
Now I've been wrestling with this concept for a while. Work has always been exceedingly important to me. I have an engineering degree and I'm a technical person, so at my current job, I've always strived to be a top performer. But between the demands of working a full-time job, my oldest no longer in a before/after care school program, and feeling a pull to focus more time and energy at his school, I could feel my priorities shifting. I came to the realization that with him home in the afternoons, I couldn't work from home like I had been in the past. He's always been in daycare and has two siblings, so he SUCKS at entertaining himself. Even with my mom trying to occupy him, when I'm home, he was constantly wanting my attention. I obviously had to get work done, so I was continually telling him that he needed to go play, or go occupy himself, or just get out of my face so I could finish one damn report! Which, let's face it, are shitty messages to be sending to a five year old. I'm sure all he was hearing was that my work was more important than him. So I made the decision to work at my office instead of working at home. That decision also took away the flexibility that made our life work. No more throwing in a load of laundry between conference calls. No more prepping dinner on my lunch break. Things were piling up at home, my husband and I were both exhausted, and I was fucking miserable.
I started toying with the idea of part-time work. What if I could find a job doing this... What kind of salary would I have to make if we weren't paying for childcare anymore? This was probably the first time in my life that work wasn't high on my list of priorities. Sure, there were other sacrifices that I could make to get our lives in order again, but I was finally admitting that I didn't WANT to make those sacrifices. Yes, I enjoy my job well enough, but in the big picture, is that really fulfilling? I just kept thinking about how if I was working part-time, I'd be able to spend time cooking again, which is a creative outlet for me. I would be able to focus more energy on this school, in my own community, where I could have a positive impact.
After discussing everything with my husband, he was ridiculously supportive. He was totally taken aback that I was ready to upend our life and make some big changes, but he also recognized that I wasn't happy and that how we were managing our lives at the moment wasn't sustainable. After a lot of discussions and back up plans, I went to my company (that as a rule doesn't offer part-time work) and said that my home life was too much right now, that my priorities have shifted, and that I don't have the capacity to be a stellar full-time employee right now. I said that I'd love to stay with the company, where I've spent the last almost ten years, but that I can't do it full-time anymore. I needed part-time work or I will be looking elsewhere. I finally came to the conclusion that while I still need to work, I also need to have my priorities set in a way that don't make me upset every morning when I'm asking my mom to drop my son off at kindergarten and pick him up everyday. It's not just that it feels like a burden on her, it's that I WANT to be the one doing it. I want to be the one helping him figure out his homework or reading with him or cooking with him.
Moms are fucking excellent at making things work and figuring it out. We can juggle a lot, family, schedules, cooking, households, volunteering, exercising, self-care, working, and a plethora of other things that are expected of us on such a regular basis. But fuck that. Just because I CAN juggle it all doesn't mean that I WANT to.
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