Between a Quarry and a Steam Roller

This emotional outburst is long overdue, but this is the first real opportunity I've had to air it.

So for Christmas break I had the great pleasure of 14 virtually uninterrupted days with my little guy. We were busy, to be sure. We packed in four Christmases and plenty of other activities. On top of it, Ben had somehow gotten on a horrific nap cycle of very little sleep and a lot of fussing and crying. There were many times when I was very overwhelmed, utterly exhausted, and yearning for a reprieve. But come the Monday morning of my return, all of the difficulties and struggles of those fourteen days came in a distant second to the pain of leaving and returning to work. It felt like October all over again, except it was infinitely worse. When I went back to work in October, I had moderate postpartum depression and a touch of cabin fever. I was this strange mixture of exhausted and refreshed. On the one hand, I was very ready to get out of the house and have some baby-free time. I craved something I could pour myself into that wasn't going to empty itself into a diaper. I wanted to figure out if there was more to me than mother; if there was still some semblance of the person I used to be. I wanted to be around other human beings and exercise my mind. On the other hand, all I wanted was to spend every waking moment (and even some sleeping ones) with this new, perfect little person. I wanted to be there for everything. I didn't want to miss out on any firsts, seconds, or thirtieths. I missed him so much it ached. The first week wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was settling back in to work and too busy trying to remember how to do my job. It was the second week that it kicked in. I cried every day on the drive to work. My mind was elsewhere half the day, and I missed Ben terribly. Eventually I settled in to my new life; well, as much as I could settle being somewhere when all I wanted was to be somewhere else.

And then Christmas break happened. I was all set to enjoy my two weeks. And I thought that after the two weeks were up I would probably be sad to go back, but hopefully I would feel rested and "filled" with enough Ben to get me through two more weeks until the next three day weekend. Nope. I was a wreck. And I think something my brother said on Saturday is what tipped me over the edge. Now, I know my brother would never dream of hurting me, or of intentionally saying anything that would upset me. My brother and I have been freakishly close for most of our lives, and we love each other very much. But he said something that struck me to my core. We were all playing with and admiring Ben, and he started a story about a friend of his by saying something like "My friend so-and-so has a kid, and her mom is raising him just like mom with Ben..." and that's all I heard.

It is my deepest fear, insecurity, pain, whatever you want to call it, that by going to work, someone else is raising my kid. I am beyond blessed that it is my mom that watches Ben rather than some strangers in a daycare. But it pains me to the very depth of my heart that most of his waking hours are spent with someone other than me. And I fear that my mom (or whoever else is watching him once she goes back to a "real job") will know him better, or that he will know her better. That if he fell and both of us were standing there, he would go to her for comfort.

I'm sure there is so much that goes into this. There is, of course, the part of our society that sometimes tacitly, sometimes loudly, judges working mothers. That we are bad moms because we leave our precious children in someone else's hands while we go do our own thing. That it is my responsibility to parent my child, not someone else's, and that I'm selfish for having a job. Then there is the church, often echoing the same strain. And then there is the selfish part of me. I want it all. I want to be there for every first. I want to be the one he runs to when he wants comfort. I want it for me. But then there's the part of me that wants it for him. I was a latchky kid, and I hated it. I resented my mom for working. I know now the reality of things, but I didn't understand then. I didn't understand that I needed food and shelter, and that in order for me to have that my mom had to make a sacrifice and work. I get that now, but I didn't then. All I knew was that I was being abandoned. I hated the thirty minute walk home from the bus stop to an empty house. I hated being home alone for two to three hours while I waited for my parents to come home, particularly on those winter days when it got dark long before they came home. And it didn't help that I was abused by my babysitters when I was five. I don't want that for Ben. I don't want him to feel those things. I want him to know that he is the most important person in my life, and that I would do anything for him; that I love him and would never abandon him. I don't want him to sit crying and afraid in a dark and empty living room, wondering if I'm going to come home.

There's this part of me that knows that I'm doing the right thing in going to work. If I didn't, I would be spending the next ten years paying off $30,000 in student loan debt for a job I don't do. If I don't work for at least two years to clear my credential, I lose it. And if I didn't work, we would be living in a studio apartment in Santa Ana paying off those wasted loans and eating Top Ramen for every meal. And while I don't think I'm a materialistic person, I don't think it's materialistic to want your family to be a little more comfortable than that. I don't want to live in fear that we won't be able to pay our bills or that we can't buy clothes or food for our kids. I want what's best for my family, and as long as my mom can watch Ben, giving him all the love and attention he needs even though it's not from me, and we can put food on the table, that's what's best for him.

Then there's the other part of me...the darker, sadder part that thinks maybe I am being a bad mom by going to work. That if I really loved my kid, I'd stay with him no matter the sacrifice.

So which sacrifice do I make? And how do I live with the consequences?