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Working moms: Crazy busy or just crazy?
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Before having a baby, I assumed that all the working moms I knew who did things like make baby food from scratch or eschew infant formula for breast milk were overachievers. I wrote them off as the same people who in high school always had neat handwriting, killer science projects and perfect oral presentations.
Now, I have a baby. And I find myself doing crazy things like using my lunch hour to meet my babysitter and nurse my daughter, taking yet more time away from an already condensed and overly busy workweek.
And I have plenty of chronically sleep-deprived friends who squeeze similarly unwieldy projects into their day. Some make all their own baby food while others only give their baby breast milk for the first year. Some get by without a babysitter, squeezing work into evenings, early mornings and nap times.
It’s easy to stereotype these women as type-A supermoms who need freakishly little sleep, or to assume that they are trying too hard to make up for the guilt they feel about working.
It’s not that simple. Most of us do need way more sleep than we get, but if you’re awake waiting for that 11:00 pm feeding anyway, you can veg out in front of yet another episode of Grey’s Anatomy or you can steam veggies and chicken for your baby’s dinner that week (and if you make really effective use of commercial breaks, you can do both).
Most people don’t see from the outside the compromises and trade-offs working parents–usually moms–make to pursue things they think are important for the long-term wellbeing of their families.
For example, one friend resigned herself to being 45 minutes late for work for several years, to squeeze in a morning nursing session with a daughter and then a son. She made up for it by being, in an office full of family people who didn’t want to travel, the one who was willing to travel. In her daughter’s first year she flew to Dallas, Des Moines and Vegas, breast pump in her suitcase and breast milk stockpiled in the fridge.
Another woman I know plans and cooks meals for her family at night after the baby is asleep so she can spend those precious hours between work and bedtime playing with blocks and reading Good Night Moon instead of chopping and sauteing.
One woman in my mothers group breastfeeds because she wants her daughter to be less allergy prone than she is. So she has expressed milk in train station waiting rooms and bathrooms and in clients' offices while traveling for her job.
Some women spend Sunday afternoons steaming and pureeing meats and veggies and dividing them into ice cube size portions for meals during the week. Others keep a breast pump in their desk drawer and make beelines home after work for that 6:00 feeding.
What are they not doing? They’re not meeting friends for happy hour, or watching TV or talking on the phone or going to the gym as much as they used to. They’re probably behind on the laundry, housework and their magazines, and they don’t send birthday cards anymore. They’re avoiding working overtime and bringing work home and accepting the pay cut or deferred promotion that goes along with working less.
I traded in the lunch hour I used to spend running errands or exercising for my drive-by nursing sessions. On days where I need to run to Target or squeeze in a walk anyway, well yeah, I get less work done and make less money. That's life.
Most of us realize these trade-offs are not permanent. They are things we’ll do for six months or a year or two. And hopefully they will pay dividends for years afterward in kids with strong immune systems, healthy eating habits, no allergies and good relationships with us.
And we trust that when the baby starts eating solids we can catch up with Grey’s Anatomy on DVD.
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