Many of the parents I know spend 99 percent of their time divided between working and taking care of their family. If you really love your job, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. Work becomes your social outlet, your creative outlet, your intellectual challenge, etc.

But what if you hate what you do?

I received the following letter from a mom in Connecticut—we’ll call her Constance because she asked me not to use her real name—who’s having serious regrets about her choice of career.

From Constance:

…I just Googled, “how can I prevent my nervous breakdown,” and stumbled upon your blog. Thank you for sharing what you went through.

Currently, I’m a teacher. I live in Connecticut, so I make decent money at it. I mean, I live in a small cape and drive a used Prius. I’m not rolling in cash, but I’m able to live fairly well. I certainly don’t make what people with master’s degrees in other fields (such as business or economics) make.

The problem is, I sort of hate it. Teaching, that is. I majored in music (undergrad) and then didn’t know what to do afterward. I feel stupid for this, but I was 17 when I made that choice. After graduation, I was too scared to try and make it in New York City, so I moved home to Connecticut and got certified to teach.

When my job is rewarding, it can be amazing. However, when it is bad, it is worse than I feel I should have to accept.

I teach in an inner-city school where the majority of the children have tough home lives. I have almost no administrative support, and the children can be really mean. There is a point where feeling sorry for myself overrides feeling sorry for them. I feel foolish saying that it hurts me to be called a “whore” and to be told “I hope your baby dies,” while pregnant, when the people who said these things to me are 10 years old or younger. But it does hurt. A lot.

The worst part is that I’m not allowed to hate teaching. When I tell people what I do, the response is usually, “Oh, how nice!”

Teachers are villainized in the media. We make too much money (according to Donald Trump!).  We have tons of vacation time! How can we complain?

For the record, I’d rather work every day and like what I do, or at least not hate it so much that I cry and break out in hives.

I want to just give up. The problem is, I can’t. I have a child. My husband works at a daycare center and doesn’t make very much money. Without my income, we’d lose our house. I can’t seem to find another job. I just spent half an hour scouring the internet to try and determine whether or not my medical insurance would cover a stint in a mental institution, because I can’t stand the thought of going back to work…

What do you do when you hate your job, but can’t afford to quit? Have any readers out there made a mid-life career change, after they became parents? How did you go about it?

Or have you thought about switching careers, but decided to reconcile yourself to what you do instead? How do you make peace with the choices you’ve made?

My last full time job was leading a team of designers for a web agency. I used to hire a lot of freelancers when we had more work than our staff could handle. Some of these freelancers were moms who limited their hours so they could pick their kids up from daycare. They were exceptionally good, so it was usually no problem to work around their part time schedules. (Have you noticed working moms tend to have above average productivity and communication skills?)

I idolized these women’s lives. They looked healthier, more relaxed than the rest of us. There was something almost European about the way they lived. They rode their bikes to the office, came and went as they pleased, and blocked off whole mornings to help out at their kids’ schools, or go to pilates classes. (!)

Once, I had a dream that one of my freelancers told me I could make a million dollars a year if I would only quit my job and work part time like she did.

Part of that dream came true. I finally did quit (after contracting a bad case of vital exhaustion/spiritual awakening/Americanitis), and now I freelance part time. I do not make a million dollars a year. Or anywhere close. But working part time has given me my sanity back.

I’m lucky. The U.S. has the highest percentage of full time working women of any country in the world, and a recent Pew Research Center poll found 60% of full-time working moms would prefer to work part time, but can’t.

And yet…part time has its downsides.

This is an email I received recently from a blog reader (whom I’ve never met, but she happens to be my husband’s cousin).

From Linda:

I thought I’d write you as I am now getting some insight into an “ideal” work schedule. I can’t believe I’m bitching about working part time—but I have so many friends who are sure that it’s the answer to their dreams—a way to “have it all,” and I am sadly becoming certain that it just ain’t so.

Last year we found out that our then four year old is autistic. We had known that K was “delayed” and “special,” but until then we didn’t have anything to wrap that around.

At the time of K’s diagnosis, I was six months pregnant and exhausted. I had been working in corporate America for almost 20 years and was a successful Marketing Director at a major multinational corporation.

Full time work—50+ hours/week, 1 hour each way commuting. I was burning the candle at both ends. So, I sat down at my computer one night after everyone went to bed and did a spreadsheet. What was work costing me, in real dollars? Mileage on my car, gas, dry cleaning, cleaning service, wardrobe upkeep, gifts for my staff, lunch at work, ordering in, nanny, etc.

Turns out, I really wasn’t bringing home much pay after all (even though my husband and I made the same amount of money). So we decided to stop the madness and, at the end of my maternity leave, I quit.

I’ve spent the last seven months realizing how much I needed to do at home and loving my daughters and the time we’ve been spending together. There’s still a lot of stress raising two children, one of whom is autistic (arranging all of her care is a full time job on its own), but I’ve felt really good about it, and lucky, too.

So, fast forward to March 1st. I decided to take on a contract job filling in for a maternity leave at my old company. They offered me good money and my dream schedule. I work 8:00-2:30 Mon-Thurs. I’m home by the time K gets home from school. Awesome right?

Wrong.

The problem is that it’s almost impossible to do the jobs that I love part time. Even with a supportive boss, I feel guilty every day leaving at 2:30. Then I race home and immediately jump into evening therapy classes, doing laundry, cooking dinner. I barely get to see my 11-month-old since her nap starts around 3:30 and once she’s awake I’m making dinner.

I have a great husband who shares the parenting responsibility when he’s home, but he works full time so it isn’t like he’s under less stress than I am.

I’m back to feeling like I’m doing a lousy job at work and at home. And I’m exhausted to boot. My husband and I are back to being partners instead of being partners. I’m losing all the ground that I gained in my seven months of “freedom.”

I’m trying to keep perspective and leave work at work, but I really wasn’t raised to do that and I’m fighting years of habit. On top of that, two weeks in and I’ve already been asked to stay late twice. Not an auspicious beginning.

I’m committed to another 3.5 months. After that, I’m going back to mommy-ing full time and writing my blog part time. It’s not anywhere near as lucrative, but at least I won’t be grinding my teeth at night and having work/stress dreams, and I’ll be there for my girls. Please let time go faster!

I hope my experience is an anomaly and that there are women out there “having it all.” I don’t want it all anymore. I just want to do two things really well. I want to be a great mom and a loving wife. I want to go home.

What are your experiences with part time work? Did it live up to your expectations?

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I’m pleased to announce Working Moms Break has its first foreign correspondent! Also known as my friend, former coworker, and fellow working mom, Lucie Moses.

Years ago, while I was quietly descending into full-time job madness, Lucie seemed to have arranged the perfect life as a part-time freelance designer. Now I have that part-time freelance life, she’s one-upped me by moving to FRANCE.

I was thrilled when she offered to write about what it’s like being a working mom in France. Some of her descriptions were surprising, (What’s up with the French and breastfeeding?). As you’ll see, even Lucie has mixed feelings about some of the “benefits” of being a mom in France. But most of it had me drooling with envy.

Lucie with her husband, Dean, and sons Felix (left) and Milo (right)

Guest post by Lucie Moses

Here is me in a nutshell: I was born and raised in France. I moved to America when I was 21 years old. I’m a freelance web designer. After 16 years living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m spending a year in Paris with my American husband and our two children, age 9 and 6. Below are some of my observations about the differences between being a working mother in France versus in California.

Warning: I have only been here a few months and my experiences are mostly anecdotal. Still, I hope you will find it interesting.

1. The 35-hour work week + 5 weeks of vacation

The French work fewer hours than Americans. The official work week in France is 35 hours. In practice, a lot of companies have stayed on a 39 hours/week schedule. Instead, the 4 hours/week that they owe you are bundled into extra days off that you can take whenever, or a Friday off every other week.

The French also work fewer days. Workers get 5 weeks of paid vacation. Plus sick days, which are not counted as vacation days. Bonus: France is a Catholic country, so that means holidays every time Jesus goes up, down or sideways.

Almost all French people take several weeks off in the summer. A working mother’s dream!

2. Motherhood-friendly labor laws

Women get paid maternity leave during the last month of pregnancy + the first two months of motherhood. You get an extra month off if you breastfeed. By paid leave, I mean 100% of your salary. Working until you due date is simply not done in France.

A friend of mine is a teacher in Paris. She has young children and works part time. Her school is required by law to allow her to work part time until her youngest child is 3 years old. After that, she gets her old full-time job back. I believe all government employees can choose this path.

3. Work-friendly kid schedule

When I called the dentist to schedule visits for my sons, I was surprised that the time slot the receptionist suggested was 6:00 pm. I’m used to skipping work to take my kids to the doctor or the dentist. I consider myself lucky if I can get an appointment outside of school hours.

Same thing at school: The bi-yearly parent-teacher conferences happen in the evening, between 6:30 and 8:30 pm.

My kids’ karate class? From 6:30 to 7:30 pm on Wednesdays; all the other classes were just as late.

To tell the truth, I find the karate class to be too late for my kids. They should be home eating dinner at that time, not practicing kicks. I guess I’m holding on to the American early supper. Still, I appreciate the effort to make such activities compatible with being a working parent.

4. Good health coverage

Remember that visit to the dentist I just mentioned? Free, as part of a program that provides a free dental care to all children, once every three years. I’m not sure how much a dental visit usually costs, but I bet it’s a fraction of what we would pay in the U.S.

My youngest son broke his arm soon after we moved to France. All in all, the visit to the ER and the follow up visits and X-rays set us back about $200. That’s without insurance.

The previous year, our oldest son broke his arm while we lived in America. All in all, the visit to the ER and the follow up visits and X-rays set us back about $2,000. That’s with insurance. We had a supposedly high-end PPO, but there were all sort of co-pays and deductibles. Being a parent in America is a pricey endeavor.

5. Free school from age 3, cheap before that

In France, free public school starts at age 3 (or 2.9 if you have a January baby). Childcare for younger children is also heavily subsidized. If you don’t make a lot of money, it’s very cheap.

When my niece was a baby, my sister was between jobs. Part of her unemployment benefit was nearly-free childcare three mornings a week to allow her the time and energy to find a new job.

6. School within a few blocks from your house

I don’t know about you, but picking a preschool for my kid in the U.S. was an agonizing process. I researched, I visited, I weighted the pros and cons. Three years later, I went through it all over again to pick an elementary school. When I got to France, there was no choice to be made. I got assigned a school. End of story.

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of French kids simply go to the school closest to them. That’s where you get assigned. It’s very hard to get a transfer to another school so most parents don’t even consider the other schools. What you lose in choice, you gain in reduced stress and improved daily commute. The vast majority of kids go to a school within walking distance of their house. Our school is three blocks away.

Bonus: all my kids’ friends live within a 8 block radius of our house. I certainly don’t miss driving them to playdates.

7. No lunchbox to pack

I am still giddy every morning: no lunchboxes to pack! Oh, how I used to hate making lunches every morning for my picky eaters. Will they eat it? Is it nutritious? Why did I forget to buy grapes again? This used to be a major stress in my mornings.

In their French public school, my kids get hot sit-down nutritious meals. Eating well is a big deal in France. School cafeterias reflect that; the menus are varied and appetizing. My oldest son has become more adventurous with food. He eats all sort of new things at school, including rabbit meat.

My little one is still as much of a picky eater as he ever was but I don’t worry about it because there is nothing I can do about it. He doesn’t nag me about me getting a packed lunch instead because packed lunch simply aren’t allowed (except for kids with severe food allergies). He always eats at least a piece of a fruit, a yogurt and some bread. The bread is hand-delivered every morning from a real bakery. Good stuff.

8. No volunteering at school

Perhaps the biggest culture shock for me this year is my relationship with my kids’ school. I am used to spending a lot of my time volunteering in the classroom, chaperoning field trips, attending school plays, taking photos for the yearbook, socializing with other parents during pick-up and drop-off, discussing my children’s progress with the teachers, baking cookies for birthdays and generally being involved in myriad little ways.

This year, none of that is happening. I’m not allowed on school grounds. I don’t know the names or faces of my children’s classmates. I have barely met the teachers. There was no school show during the holidays.

Honestly, I miss volunteering in the schools terribly and so do my kids. My children’s school life used to be a big part of my social life. But in other ways, it’s liberating. I never have to juggle rescheduling a work meeting to attend my son’s recital for the simple reason that there is no recital to attend. I didn’t feel any pressure to bring a cake to school for his birthday. No other mom does it. Working parents in France don’t have to think too much about school. Less is expected of them.

9. Le Breast is not Le Best

Yes, breast milk is best for baby and it’s a wonderful bonding experience for mother and child. Still, you’ve got to admit it can be very demanding, especially when the mother is working.

French women have the worst breastfeeding record of any civilized country. The majority of French babies are weaned by 3 months of age. Pumping milk while at work? Unheard of. Breastfeeding past the infant months is considered almost selfish because it prevents other members (dad, siblings, grandparents, nannies) from taking a full role.

I have mixed feeling about this one. I am definitely pro-breastfeeding. When my son was a baby, I felt self-conscious breastfeeding in France. Family and friends were incredulous.

“Is he really still nursing, at this age?” they would ask. “Is it even possible to have milk a year after birth?”

But at the same time, breastfeeding is often a source of stress for American mothers. There is a huge social pressure to nurse at all costs and for as long as possible. Perhaps there is a happy middle between those two?

10. Distance between kids and parents is considered healthy

When my oldest son was born, attachment parenting was all the rage in San Francisco. Following the advices of Dr Sears, we gave an earnest try to the family bed (didn’t work out for us), I “wore” my baby often (we liked that), and we acted as human pacifiers to put him to sleep.

My sister eyed me with suspicion, like I’d been brainwashed by a cult. Her baby was bottle-fed, pushed around in a stroller and relied on a stuffed rabbit and her thumb to soothe herself to sleep. During a vacation in France, my mom handed me an article about how allowing your children into your bed would scar them later in life (something about mixed messages confusing their sexuality).

Beyond the baby years, I get the message that it’s considered bad for parents to interfere too much in their childrens’ lives. On French school yards, kids handle their own conflicts. My soft-skinned California kids are still adjusting. When I’m with French parents, I don’t feel the need to constantly interact with their children. In fact, that’s considered counter-productive. Sure, you are here to provide some structure (and good nutrition!) but the rest unfolds by itself. The French are careful not to smother their children and not to let their children take over their lives.

I went to a mellow birthday brunch this weekend for a friend’s 2-year-old. While Ruby picked out “Happy Birthday” on the piano and Jake pretended to drill things to the Christmas tree, I sipped coffee in the kitchen with a few other moms. As usual, the conversation turned to the questions that seem to plague all American mothers of young children (or at least the ones who have the luxury of asking these questions):

Should I quit my job? Can I afford to go part time? If I quit, will I be able to get back in later? If I don’t have a career, what will I have when the kids get older?

One of the moms had recently convinced her boss to let her do a job share so that she could reduce her hours.

“I told everyone it was about having more time with my family,” she said. “But it was also about having time for me.”

I was so glad she said that. When people heard I’d quit my job, several of them said things like, “You should be proud! You’re doing the right thing for your kids!” As if that was why I’d done it. For my kids. What I did wasn’t nearly so noble. I did it for me.

The job share mom said that when she was breastfeeding her twins, her doctor told her what foods she needed to eat to keep healthy.

“What happens if I don’t get enough of something?” she asked. “Will my babies get sick?”

“Oh no,” the doctor said. “The babies will get what they need. They’ll suck it out of you. You’re the one who won’t get what you need.”

She said that’s how she felt about working full time. Her kids got what they needed. She got the leftovers. In other words, she was getting sucked dry. That was my experience, too. Strangely, it was a relief to realize this. I wasn’t a bad mother, as I’d feared. I wasn’t ruining my kids’ lives by giving so much to my job. I was only ruining mine…

~Pssst!…Speaking of getting sucked dry, did you vote in the poll yet?~

After the birthday party, we stopped by an ornament-making party at another friend’s house. Jake napped in his stroller while Ruby, rather than decorate the styrofoam balls provided, ground one to bits and sculpted a beautiful snow scene. (That’s my girl. Transforming her destructive impulses into art.)

Meanwhile, I hung out in the kitchen with a whole different set of moms. After we’d talked about Obama and devoured the homemade fudge, the conversation, inevitably, turned to the work dilemma again. (OK, maybe I devoured the fudge. Everyone else was very ladylike and had only one piece.)

One of the women had once been a hot shot vice president of something or other. She’d managed the job stress by eating Tums by the handful, until she finally quit and had kids. She took a few years off of work to be home with her babies, and was just starting to freelance part time.

She told us her daughter came home from kindergarten recently, starry-eyed about another kid’s mom who told the class about her job making robots and sending them into outer space. The class was so inspired that they did an art project involving robots and outer space.

So my new friend was trying to think of what cool thing she does that would impress her 5-year-old.

Honey, did you notice what a great grocery list I make? I put it on the refrigerator and update it EVERY DAY.

I joined in with my own version:

Honey, do you know how clean the laundry is? Have you noticed that we never run out of milk or clean underwear anymore?

Ouch.

But instead of getting quietly snarky, as many of us might be tempted to do, the grocery list mom did something very open-hearted. She emailed the robot-making mom, told her how impressed her daughter was, and how jealous she was that she didn’t do work that was nearly as impressive.

And the robot mom wrote back saying how jealous she was that the grocery list mom was able to work part time.

So, the grass is always greener…

We keep talking about it at every gathering, about this mommy work dilemma, because it’s a puzzle we’re trying to solve, a Rubix cube we keep turning around in our hands. The solution seems tantalizingly close, but one colored square always seems to be on the wrong side.

I don’t understand why we can’t have both things. Why can’t we make robots that go into outer space, and do it in less than 30 hours a week? Why can’t we put in a good day’s work in six hours, instead of eight, or 10 or 12? Why does work have to suck so many of us dry?

I’ll leave you with a statistic, because you know how much I love statistics:

Americans work longer hours than workers in most other developed countries. Whether we have kids or not, we’re all trying to live on leftovers.

It’s been quiet around here for the last week. I took some time off to focus on my kids. (“Happy Chicken Day!” says my daughter, Ruby.)

Kids are back in school and today I’m catching up on a few bloggy things.

Thanks to everyone who left their suggestions to my question about what you’d like to see here on the blog. (It’s never too late if you’d still like to leave your suggestions here, I would still like to read them.)

It’s clear that just about everyone wants more stories of real women struggling with our competing obligations and, when possible, finding answers.

So in that spirit, I’d like to share an email I received recently from a blog reader named Ami who works as a college administrator in Baltimore. (She kindly gave me her permission to post it here.)

Like many of us, she’s feeling overwhelmed with her responsibilities and frustrated that there’s no obvious solution. (And she’s the second person I know who will admit she fantasizes about going to the hospital because it would be a vacation from regular life.) She would love to hear your thoughts (as I would) on what we can do.

From Ami:

Your site was exactly what I needed.  I am so far over the edge and it is reassuring (if that’s the right word) to read that other moms feel as insane as I do. As background, I am a full-time working mom of an 11 year old boy.

My son has Asperger’s and a host of co-morbid disorders. It is impossible, and I do mean impossible, to juggle work, battles with the public school system, and raising a difficult child. I could go on and on, but let me get to the reason I wrote…What can we do about this untenable situation? I would love to know if other women feel as trapped as I do.

When I graduated college, it was assumed that I would work full-time and bring in 50% of the income. My husband grew up in that environment, as well. But, as we all know, we are now expected to work full-time AND still be full-time moms, wives, etc. If I had known how hard this was going to be, I never would have had a child.

I stumbled back to work when my son was 6 weeks old. He had colic and chronic ear infections, so I really didn’t sleep for a year. No exaggeration. I would fantasize about having a minor car accident on the way to work. Nothing serious – just enough to lay me up in the hospital for a few days so I could sleep!

After 11 years of this life, I’m starting to have those fantasies again. I know that wishing does no good, but I really wish that I had remained single my entire life and had my tubes tied! How did we get to this point?

I have thought and thought over the years about a way out, to no avail. My husband won’t even entertain the idea of me working less than full-time and, honestly, we can’t afford it with all of my son’s medical bills. I feel like a zombie. I’m not really living my life. And I just love that advice about “taking time for yourself”!  How? When? There is always, always something left undone.

I don’t know what the solution is. It may be that there isn’t one for our generation (I’m 39).  But I surely hope that the next generation of women learns a lesson from our agony and wises up. Don’t go into marriage and family thinking you can “do it all.”  It’s a crock.

So, what do we do now? Is there any hope of relief for us? I feel that the only thing we can do at the moment is to vent to one another. At least we know we are not alone in this mess.

Thank you for starting a blog that really hits at the heart of the matter. The mothers in this country are slowly but surely being driven insane.

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Have a story to share about this modern day mess of working and raising kids? We welcome your war stories, happy stories, opinions, crazy ideas, questions, and brilliant solutions. Leave a comment on the blog, or email me at katrina@workingmomsbreak.com.

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Most jobs aren’t made for people who have children. Which is one of the reasons a lot of moms and dads start their own businesses. Lately several blog readers have been asking for advice or stories about this. So I asked Heather Sobieralski to write a guest post about why she decided to start her own business.

Heather has two kids, is a life coach for moms, and also works part time as a middle school counselor. You can read more about her coaching services at My Mama Mojo, or about her own journey of motherhood on her blog.

Why did you decide to start your own business?

It’s something I was called to do.

When I first became a mother, life I as knew it changed. I felt as though everything I had previously known from my pre-child self was gone. My confidence disappeared. I had no I idea who this woman was occupying my body. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I was not enjoying motherhood. I was supposed to be happy right?

I tried on numerous occasions to have “real” conversations with other mothers, but they seemed to be nothing but sunshine and roses. If they admitted the least bit of self-doubt or discomfort they would always wrap up with, “Isn’t all worth it?” Well no, actually. Some days I rather miss my old life thank you very much!

I craved someone to talk to, someone who wouldn’t judge me or tell me what to do. This is how My Mama Mojo was born.

My original idea was to create a business where mothers could seek support on the phone and via email from a professional. At that point, I had never heard of a life coach. I already had a master’s degree in counseling, but that didn’t seem to be what I wanted to do. I wanted to specialize in helping moms re-claim their identity. I wanted to support them to figure out how to make their post-child life full of joy and MOJO! I wanted to do this via the phone and email so moms could get support while their child took a nap, on their lunch break or when the house was quiet at night.

I remember when I had my moment of clarity about what I wanted to do.  It was if everything I had been through suddenly made sense to me. My personal hell was for a purpose. Within a few days I had enrolled in a coaching program and had a business plan.

It is now almost a year later, about $5,000 invested and many arguments with my husband about how much time and energy I was putting into this “idea.” But I love it! Every time a woman finds me and breathes a sigh a relief that she is not the only one and will feel better, it is all worth it.

What are the most common themes you hear from your clients?

Every client is different. I have had mothers of newborns and mothers of teens, but there are consistent themes.

• How becoming a mother has impacted and continues to impact their career and lack of “choices.”

• Inequities in parenting compared to their partner.

• Guilt, guilt and more guilt! Guilt for working, guilt for staying home, guilt for not enjoying being home, guilt for breastfeeding difficulties, guilt for yelling at their kids, guilt for failed relationships, guilt for being stressed, and guilt for feeling so damn guilty!

• Loss of identity.

• Self-neglect and exhaustion.

• Feeling like they are the only one who feels like this.

How have your clients solved this whole work/life dilemma in their own lives?

At the beginning of coaching I take clients through activities to identify their core values. The rest of our work together is based around what they value as important. Often after becoming a mother our values either get “lost” or change. It is amazing when women make the connection between why they have been so overwhelmed and unfulfilled. If you are living out of alignment with you values, you are not living an authentic life.

Clients have solved the work/life balance by:

• Committing to the coaching process, carving time and space to work on self-development

• Taking a good look at what is working and what is not

• Giving up comparing themselves to others who are “doing it better”

• Ditching the guilt, getting rid of the “shoulds,” and taking a look at what is really important (identifying core values)

• Trusting their decisions and new direction

Do you have any advice for women who want to start their own business?

If you are being called to do something in particular, listen!

I am just going to lay it out there…it is a lot of work, time and love to start a business. You need to be highly driven and self-motivated.

Create realistic short- and long-term goals, but be kind to yourself and allow your master plan to be fluid. If you need the security of money while building your business, hang on to your job (even part time) if you can. It takes a year or two to build a business—and this means no income coming in!

Count on your “doubt loop” coming to visit from time to time. Tell it to go away and stay focused on your vision.

Stay light and keep it fun. View it as a journey, not as a checklist.

Hire a coach! I never could have gotten my business off the ground without my own coach. It is amazing what a difference having someone to hold you accountable makes in any new endeavor.

Do you have a story or advice about starting (or NOT starting) your own business? Leave a comment here, or email me: katrina@workingmomsbreak.com.

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post. If you haven’t read it yet, start here.

And now I give you four more amazing, successful, competent women, inside and out.*

‘O’—Stay-at-home mom “by choice”

Outside: O. is the mother many of us hoped we would be. She takes great pleasure making beautiful things for others to enjoy. Inventive desserts that would make Martha Stewart drool. Delicate, handmade earrings of origami cranes. She organizes elaborate art projects and tea parties for her daughter and friends. She is generous with her time, volunteering in her older daughter’s school, even though she has her 1-year-old with her all the time. She’s one of the younger mothers I know, but wise beyond her years. She has clear priorities, and seems very sure about her decision to stay home with her kids.

Inside:

I never know what to say when people ask me “are you a stay at home mom?” To me, that implies that one parent works (and is able to support the entire family) and one parent agreed to not work and happily does all the home stuff…Which I guess is me, but I don’t remember “agreeing” to this arrangement at any time.

No, I do not have a 9-5 day job, nor did I leave one to become a mom. I do work some though. I have a small business I am trying to start and I teach a couple of classes a week, on top of all the housework, all the pick/up drop offs, all the shopping, all the bill paying, all the everything.

My husband operates like a separate entity, coming and going when he wants, working 60-90 hours a week at several jobs, hardly having a meal with us, doing none of the hands-on parenting. We just squeak by every month. We have good food on the table, our children are clean and clothed, but we are broke. Not just broke, but $30,000 plus in debt. Screw family vacations or a new flat screen TV ’cause it ain’t happening anytime soon over here. Home ownership? Not for us. We are so broke that we qualify for free lunch at my daughter’s school and both girls are signed up for Medi-Cal for when my husband’s benefits lapse. (He is on an hour bank plan and only gets benefits if he works enough).

Most of the time I am crushed with the weight of the financial debt. I feel helpless and angry that I can’t make more money myself to pay it down. I feel stupid and childish that I am 33 and have no savings, no investments, no 401K, nothing. I have ideas, goals, dreams that seem so unrealistic in my day-to-day life that it feels like they will never happen.

I know it is temporary situation. I know my children will grow up fast, faster than I want them to. I know that I will have time to sort it out later, but that doesn’t help the wanting to go away or the situation to seem any less debilitating.

‘K’ Gregarious former model mama

Outside: You can’t miss her—strikingly tall and blond, with that infectious laugh. She seems to have about 1,000 close friends. She had the easiest pregnancy of any woman I know, and has been the most successful at integrating her pre-child and post-child lives. She obviously loves her daughter, and seems to be immune to the mother-anxiety so many of us feel, taking business trips as needed and often going out with friends in the evening.

Inside:

What people might not see about me:

Being a mother is one of the greatest and one of the most frightening things I have ever done with my life.
I never got a college degree. I’ve had to work really hard to get where I am. And I don’t want to stop.
I’m constantly worrying about money. I never learned how to be really good at saving and it pains me I’m still learning in my 40′s.
I am never going to be thin enough (I’m sure I’m the only one who feels this way too…Ha!)
I am judgmental and often not very forgiving. I hold grudges well.
I love my husband and we’ve worked through a lot, but I worry that at some point it may end.
I am truly grateful for everything in my life and am constantly reminding myself on a daily basis that I could lose it all at any moment. Because of this, I hold a weird level of optimism and anxiety, which works a bit like oil and vinegar.

‘S’—Clear priorities around work and home

Outside: S. has made the perfect compromise between keeping a career she cares about, without letting it swamp her life. She has a 3-day-a-week schedule, spending the off days with her daughter. Happy marriage. Cool non-profit job in her chosen field. Gorgeous apartment in coveted Berkeley neighborhood. It’s what we all want, isn’t it?

Inside:

Being a mother isn’t satisfying the way I expected it to be. I tried so hard to become a mama, and sometimes I think that I lost sight of why I wanted to have a child, what my motivations and expectations were.  My daughter is amazing—healthy, happy, energetic. It’s just that spending time with her is often not as gratifying and enjoyable as I once believed it would be.

Sometimes I feel guilty about not wanting to have another child—like people think I’m cheating my daughter, or I’m not truly part of the two kids’ “Mommy Club.”  I do feel determined not to be pressured into having another child and to go with what my heart is telling me. Enjoy what you have now.

I’m content with the kind of work that I do, but the daily grind of parenting and working outside of the home often overwhelms and bores me at the same time.

Career advancement is on hold since I only work part time. I thought I would be fine with this but I feel torn between spending enough time with my daughter and putting enough energy into work to satisfy my employers and my patients. There are times when I really do come home feeling fulfilled after a good day at the clinic and have energy to play with my daughter and appreciate her accomplishments. However, there are times when I wonder how I can keep working at my job without losing my mind and how I can keep myself together to be a good mother to my daughter and not damage her with my unhappiness. Why can’t I feel content doing an adequate job at both?

‘M’—Social butterfly pregnant with #2

Outside: Despite the fact that she works full time, ‘M’ has a rockin’ life outside of work. She always seems to be attending interesting parties or throwing events like her annual chili making contest or working on her next novel. Having a toddler hasn’t seemed to slow her down one bit, and there’s no reason to think baby #2 will, either. Firm handshake, easy smile, direct eye contact—her confidence is to be admired.

Inside:

We had just decided to hold off on having baby number two, when I found out I was already pregnant. I have never been more depressed. I’m not sleeping at night, worrying about work details. I’m terrified of giving birth again. Haven’t made it to a prenatal yoga class once. (Have not done one Kegel!) When people ask how the pregnancy is going, I want to say, “It’s just another thing I can’t possibly do, but I’m doing it.”

* I’m using only initials, not full names.

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Do you compare your insides to other people’s outsides?

Most of us do, even though we know better. We’re social creatures. It’s natural to make comparisons.

But we rarely get to glimpse other people’s insides. When we make our comparisons, we inevitably wind up comparing how we feel to how other people seem.

This may partly explain why so many mothers feel so much guilt. We look around at the women we know from the office or the kids’ school and see patient parents, happy marriages, and well-adjusted children. And we think,

What’s wrong with me? I let my kids watch too much TV and I snap at my husband for folding the laundry wrong and I hate my job. Why am I the only person screwing up her life?

I asked seven of the women* I admire to send me a paragraph or two about the things you can’t see about their lives from the outside. If they thought it was a dumb idea, they kindly went along with this little experiment anyway.

In fact, the answers they gave were so much richer and juicier than I expected that this post ended up running long, so I’m breaking it up into two parts.

Today I give you the first three successful, together, high-achieving women, outside and inside. Think of them the next time you feel like you’re doing everything wrong:

‘L’—Pioneering mom in the world of high-tech

Outside: If there were a poster girl for the self-actualized working mom, it would be ‘L.’ High-paying, high responsibility job in tech. Breaking barriers at work by negotiating a part-time schedule. Somehow she manages to go to weekly dance classes, and still devote weekends to her two young kids. Husband (who also works) is a full partner with kids and housework.

Inside:

What people don’t see about me is I’ve been on the edge of a panic attack for the past 6-8 months—just started seeing a therapist. Worst time of the day is 5:35 p.m., when I get home from picking my 21 month and 3.5 year old up from daycare/pre-school and we’re all starving, grumpy, and don’t know what’s for dinner.

I’m sick of being the main breadwinner and fantasize about moving to a little town where we can live on a farm and I can be with my kids all day and raise chickens.

I feel guilty about the business trip I have to take this week, and all the household projects I never seem to have time for. Today I’m working from home and spent the morning in tears because I haven’t been able to get online and I have work to do, which is what I should be doing now that our Internet connection is finally restored…

‘A’ Mom with coveted job in high-profile nonprofit

Outside: ‘A’ is incredibly organized at work. Not only does she do what she says she’ll do, she always does it well, usually while wearing some stylish outfit. Despite having a child with health problems and a commute, she manages to work full time and then some. Luckily she has a job she adores.

Inside:

What people don’t see about me (or maybe they do!) is how anxious and cranky my commute and job make me. Ever since I went back to work (and stopped breastfeeding), I’ve found myself needing to take Ativan a few nights a week on work nights. When I have a day of non-stop, back-to-back meetings, followed by the inevitable email backup, followed by the mad rush to the train to do daycare pickup for my toddler, followed by my daughter not wanting to get into the car seat and screaming and crying in the parking lot at the top of her lungs, I find myself hyperventilating in the car and I have to take an Ativan by the time we get home so that I can literally breathe. I’m cranky towards my husband when he gets home, annoyed with our dog, and grumpy and anxious. I manage to hold it together all day and be professional, upbeat, and on-the-ball (I even manage to work out at lunch time a few days/week), but by the time evening comes around and I’m trying to cook, I’m a mess!

After dinner, bath, and stories, I usually get back online to catch up on work since I left “early” to do daycare pickup, so I end up eating chocolate to stay awake. And the nights I don’t take Ativan, I often can’t fall asleep because I’m thinking about how much I have to do at work, so I end up taking half an Ambien to fall asleep!

When we go on vacation or I take a few days off of work, I find myself not needing to take Ambien or Ativan, and I realize how much my job and commute affect me. But I also love many aspects of my job. It energizes me, and I can’t imagine not doing it. I love my professional community and presenting to my peers at conferences, but I just wish there were a happy balance and it was not an all-or-nothing situation (my employer would never say yes to part-time or flex-time).

The other thing people don’t see is that my daughter has a serious medical condition we will have to manage for the rest of her life, and this adds an extra layer of anxiety and worry. We have extra doctor’s appointments and evaluations. It’s a lot to stay on top of with her health, and some days I get so worried and overwhelmed that I go in the bathroom at work and cry.

‘J’ Glamorous lesbian mom in music industry

Outside: J. and her partner have one of those made-for-TV lives. They both have hard-won careers in the music industry, and count various famous musicians among their preschool parent friends. Their house looks like something from a movie set. For the last few years, J. has been freelancing, which gives her more time to be at home with her son while still keeping her career alive.

Inside:

I feel like each day that goes by where I am not fully employed in my industry, my career slips further and further out of reach.  When I am ready to jump back in full time, who is going to want to hire a 42 year-old mom, when there are 20-somethings chomping at the bit to do my job for longer hours and less pay?

My mind swirls with this thought and others:

“I need to volunteer more at his school.”

“I need to start running again in the mornings.”

“How come my son can’t memorize his Tae Kwon Do student creed?”

“I should take him to a baseball game so he gets more into butch sports.”

“Baseball’s actually not that butch.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have done private school so we could save money for college.”

“Fuck, I have no 401k.”

“I have to remember to water my zucchini garden when I get home; how do I get the tree rats to stop eating them?”

“I need to make more friends outside my marriage.”

“Do the other moms think I am weird because I am gay?”

“Do the other moms think I’m hot?”

All of this could take place in my head in the same 5 minutes.  I smile on the outside because to describe what’s going on inside would make me seem off my rocker. I cry in my car on the way to pick up my son and then turn the air conditioning on full blast to cool my face down and un-puff my eyes. It doesn’t really work, but I say I have bad allergies.

Tomorrow I’ll post the next four.

* I’m using only initials, not full names.

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This is part of a series of posts about how working couples share the under-the-radar chores that, taken together, represent the “psychic burden” of parenting. Be sure to read these parts first:

Part I. Survey results

Part II. Why it’s fair

Part III. Why it’s not fair

My last post explored how parents (mostly moms) feel about the unfair division of labor in your households. In this post, I want to share some of the reasons you gave for how things got the way they did.

Several moms talked about their own guilt to be everything to everyone. Are we taking on more to make up for the fact that we have jobs?

“We both work full time and commute…It’s exhausting. Even though we split responsibilities pretty evenly, I still feel a sense of ‘mother guilt’ in that I feel I should be doing more. It’s like I want my son to have the benefits of both worlds: the stay at home mom who does enriching activities with him, who makes dinner, keeps a neat house, is never frustrated or tired or exhausted—while I’m working full time. Last night I was up until 10:30 making organic baby food. My husband doesn’t seem to feel the same pressure that I do in this regard. He doesn’t worry if after work playtime is in front of the TV instead of upstairs with lots of infant development toys and books like I do. Maybe these high expectations are unique to mothers. For my family, the unfair split between household and parenting responsibilities seems to extend past the physical day to day and reflect more of a psychological and emotional division of labor.”

Many women felt their husbands weren’t as good at household tasks as they were, but several moms blamed themselves, saying they were “control freaks” who had a hard time letting their husbands do things their way.

“On the one hand I think mothers do totally get stuck doing all the annoying background/logistics/planning of parenting which can be maddening and totally unappreciated. However, I’ve also noticed and been disturbed by how many of my women friends also seem unwilling to give up some of the control that goes into that role. E.g., Dads never seem to pack the diaper bag, but then when I ask friends why they don’t make him do it now and again, I always seem to get the “Oh, he’d never do it right” response.”

A few moms talked about how they felt stuck in traditional roles because that’s what they grew up with. Several said it just didn’t occur to their husbands to take on these responsibilities. And at least one of the dads who responded to the survey agreed that there are things he just doesn’t notice.

“I try not to be lazy, but it’s this strange situation where (from my perspective) a lot of things “just get done” so I don’t worry about them. It’s partly an issue of visibility: if I saw bills piling up or was thinking about the shots my kid needed to attend school, I’d probably deal with them, but I don’t. (I do recognize a certain amount of this blindness is learned, but I think there’s more to it than that).”

Some things are unique to being a mother. Breastfeeding and maternity leave often launch us into traditional roles, whether we want them or not.

“I think my husband does far more than many dads out there and I have been a bit surprised about his willingness. On the other hand, I am the only one to get up in the night when my son needs one of us and for the most part I am the one to get my son up in the morning and put him to bed. My husband feels this is fair because I am still nursing my son. It will be interesting to see how this might change when my son is no longer nursing!”

When both parents have demanding careers, someone has to cut back to take on the family responsibilities.

“He works 20 more hours a week and gets paid a lot more than I do. I would rather work full time, but can’t imagine how the child and household tasks would get done if I did.”

“I work full time and so does my husband however his work day is longer than mine and he is always on call.”

“I think the fact that many professional jobs require (de facto) significantly more than 40 hours a week is the biggest part of the reason that women are much less likely to be CEO’s, professors, etc.  Somebody has to have the extra time to do the stuff in your survey–and I think the mom is more likely to recognize and choose to do this.”

There is a silver lining. A few of you said you were tired of feeling resentful and were working very hard with your partners to make things more fair.

“A more accurate response to the last question would be, “I don’t think it’s fair, but we’re working on it.” I didn’t want to pick the given “I don’t think it’s fair” option because I’m not willing to live with it.”

“If you had asked me one year ago, I would have thought our division of labor was totally unfair.  We have consciously made huge changes in the way we divide parenting activities and it has made my life so much better.  My husband however, seems more unhappy!”

“The current split of responsibilities works well for our work schedules and is in line with our individual strengths. It took a LOT of trial and error and extensive negotiation. We are constantly re-evaluating what is working for the family. We are flexible about readjusting when the need arises.”

The current “mancession” is forcing some of this change:

“It’s been fascinating this year when my husband lost his demanding job. He has been loving and appreciating being more involved in the family. (He’s even shopping and cooking after twenty years of marriage!!) He is reassessing his career goals after this experience.”

In conclusion…

If my little survey is any indication, then

1. Whether we want to or not, moms carry more of the psychic burden of parenting.
2. Moms are working more outside the home, and for many of us, it’s too much. (See my nervous breakdown story.)
3. We need more help from the dads.

But here’s the problem.  Dads often can’t help as much as they’d like when they have to work long hours. (Studies show fathers now report more work-family conflict than mothers do.) And in their defense, the dads who do cut back their career or stay at home with kids often feel stigmatized for not being good “providers.”

As long as we have this uneven division of responsibilities at home, we are going to have bigger societal problems such as the pay gap between men and women, or the fact that motherhood is the biggest predictor that a woman will end up in financial collapse, or high divorce rates.

This is a really gnarly problem. Has anyone figured this out yet?

Actually, yes, someone has. That will be the topic of my next blog post.

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This is part of a series of posts about how working couples share the under-the-radar chores that, taken together, represent the “psychic burden” of raising children. Be sure to read these parts first:

Part I. Survey results

Part II. Why it’s fair

My last post looked at why half of the parents surveyed felt they had divided responsibilities pretty fairly, even though moms were still doing far more than half of the work. In this post, I want to look at the other half of the story—if both parents are working outside the home, why aren’t we doing a better job of dividing up responsibilities within the home?

As one of you asked, is it “patriarchal social bias? [Is it that] I’m a workaholic? He’s a bit selfish? I’m naturally more social, organized, and future-thinking? Hard to say… ”

Several moms said they were simply better at clipping nails, multi-tasking, cleaning, and childcare:

“He’s just not responsible enough to deal with the details.”

“He says he doesn’t know how to it or just takes too long.”

“The first week of bringing home our baby, my husband cut my son’s nails and the tip of his finger. He’s been scared to do it ever since.”

“Maybe (probably?) its a gender thing but I can multi-task like crazy and he simply cannot to save his life so I handle more things that he does. Other times, the kids just prefer me over him (for example, give baths/wash hair).”

Some of you said you didn’t realize how uneven the roles really were.

“I am better at keeping up with everything that needs to get done—it’s often easier for me to just do something than to remind my husband (over and over again) to do it. This survey made me realize just how much I do!

“Ugh! This survey made me feel like things are not fair. I think most of the time, I just do things, and don’t think about how fair it is.”

Here’s what one dad had to say about why his wife does more of the things on the survey:

“To the extent we actively chose this arrangement, it’s because I work full time and my partner works half time. That said, I think it has more to do with gender conditioning and personality than anything else. Evidence: 1.) There are a lot of other, similar things she does (like coordinating visits with my parents (!), or maintaining social engagements, or our personal finances). 2.) She also did more of this stuff when we were both working full-time. I don’t think this is purely a parenting issue. I think there is general who-does-what inequality that gets magnified with kids because there’s so much more to do.”

Some of you said you know it’s not fair, but you’re willing to make compromises.

“To ensure our marriage survives, I can handle more. I would love it if my husband participated more in the complicated logistics—finding camps, scheduling, doctor’s appts, etc. I DO resent that part when I find that I am busy at work (as busy or busier than he is) but it still falls to me. “

“It evolved over several kids. In the beginning we split everything equally, then with subsequent kids it slid. Having things evenly divided is not as important as I used to think it was.”

Some of you consoled yourselves with the idea that it could be worse.

“It isn’t totally fair but close, and I have it better than most women married to a man.”

We all love our children, and many of us take great joy in organizing birthday parties, buying clothes, and even the more mundane things like clipping nails. But when we feel we’re doing it all, and also working, it’s hard not to get resentful.

“It’s not ideal. We argue a lot, too much, and he feels nagged by me, and I feel like I’m married to a middle-aged slacker. Can we say, ‘COUPLE’S COUNSELING’???”

“I grew up being told, I can do anything if I want to. And yes, I have a high profile job, but guess what. Nobody taught me how to combine career with motherhood without failing or feeling utterly overwhelmed. Truth is:  You can’t do it all, because a decent career sure as hell does NOT combine well with satisfying motherhood. “

“The only reason he does the few things he does is because he is unemployed and I am working.”

“I think our division of labor is clear when my partner sees nothing wrong in regularly carving out his personal time at home, but sans responsibilities, whereas I am always the primary person for the kids, even at my own birthday party, even when ill. Who’s to blame? I think we are equally at fault.”

In my next post, I’ll share some of reasons people felt they didn’t do a better job of sharing the load.

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