Mom Minutes

"Two friends separate, with one of them living in the plains and the other going to live in the mountains. They meet up again years later: the one who has stayed down has lived less, aged less, the mechanism of his cuckoo clock has oscillated fewer times. He has had less time to do things, his plants have grown less, his thoughts have had less time to unfold... Lower down, there is simply less time than at altitude." 

- Carlo Rovelli The Order of Time -

Time is a complicated concept. I'm currently reading The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. In it, Dr. Rovelli explains the ways in which time is irregular. Time passes at different speeds for a person depending on their altitude and their speed. Time on other planets is different from time on Earth. Time is a problematic variable in physics because it is a variable with variables.

I know it's a pathetic comparison, but today it had me thinking about mom-time. There's less time closer to sea level than in the mountains... and it seems like there's less time after you have kids than there was before.

I dropped my girls off at school this morning and, while we were in car-line, I told them I'm only about four classes away from getting my biology degree! I told them because I'm really excited that I've made it this far. I've been in school for four years and I've had to limit myself and take it a little slower than some other students because I've got a lot of other responsibilities, but I'm almost there! However, the response I got was, "Daddy already has his degree."

Their dad, my ex-husband, just graduated last weekend. He has a bachelors in math. I'm happy for him, but I don't want to be compared to him. I don't want my kids to think of this as a race that daddy won. Especially since daddy was a single, childless dude for about 91.95% of the time he was pursuing that degree while I have not had anywhere near that luxury.

The kids have existed since well before he started working on this degree, sure... but he had them for about 29 hours every other weekend (unless he was too busy). He never had to schedule or attend eye exams or doctors visits or spend hours in urgent care when one of them was sick on a weekend. He didn't have to take four kids (or even just his three kids) shoe shopping or clothes shopping or school supply shopping or birthday shopping. He didn't have to plan their birthdays or make their cakes or cook their meals or make sure they take baths. He rarely even had to help them with their homework, and I would estimate that when that obligation fell to him, he forgot it somewhere near half of the time and it wound up being my job anyway.

He has called and told me he was too sick to take them or he was concerned that he was getting sick and didn't want to take them or he had so much homework to do... can we trade weekends. I have never done any of that to him. When I ask to trade weekends, it is always because of an activity the kids want to do or a vacation we're taking with them.

I might be a little bitter. I'm so close to getting my degree! He already has his. He didn't have to get a job because I allowed him to pay very reduced child support while he was in school. He didn't have the kids most of the time and I was flexible about his scheduled weekends when he said he wanted to skip or switch for a variety of reasons. And while his achievement of his goals is good for everyone, and yesterday I was happy for him and excited for my own future... that comment my daughter made in response to my excitement really shot it down.

As a mom, I saw my ex-husband's degree as a worthy goal for him and an important lesson for our children. I felt that they should see him working toward that and how it changes his life, hopefully for the better. I agreed to many compromises, wanting to see him succeed because I believe it is best for our kids. But with all of the responsibility we take on, and the compromises we make, there is less time for moms.

What took him four years might take me five and a half. For every four classes he was able to take, I have been been able to take about three. When I have a list of things I need to get done in a day, I have to plan for lost shoes, un-synchronized potty breaks, buckling and unbuckling of numerous seat belts, arguing over who has to sit next to little brother, and pouting an refusing to cooperate. Sometimes I spend 15 or 20 extra minutes trying to find something my five-year-old left in the store when he screams at me after I've already loaded the groceries in the car.

I just finished a semester. Here's what my general schedule looked like:

Hubby took all of the kids to school on Tuesdays because I couldn't. Cub gets out of school early on Fridays, so I couldn't do much with my bisected time. You see a lot of space for research/homework... let me explain. I have a research project I've been working on for two years with some great people. However, our schedules never seemed to sync, so I frequently spent that time working on research papers for classes, researching grad schools, talking to professors about my grades or grad school or our research, or trying to organize my life. I couldn't do a lot of my chemistry homework without help, so hubby and I worked on it after the kids went to bed about once a week.

Hubby doesn't get home until sometime between 5:30 and 6:00 pm. He got a new job with a different company in January, so he can't work from home as much as he used to and his hours are more difficult. He also doesn't answer his phone like used to at his old job. All in all, I'm more alone than I used to be, but not as alone as many moms out there (single moms amaze me!).

Weekends! Weekends are for grocery shopping, laundry, guilt-cleaning (you know what I'm talking about) and taking care of other catastrophes (e.g., emergency shoe run when a 5th grader's sneakers start leaking, and clothes shopping when their jeans suddenly don't fit, then on to the fabric store for that class project they have coming up...). Once in a while, if we've planned especially well and worked extra hard... we get to go hiking on the weekend!

It just feels like I'm constantly in motion and running from one obligation to another. Everything takes longer and there's more that needs to be done. It's like the fabric of space-time has some special kind of wrinkle just for moms. It's taking longer to get my degree and I'm still losing my mind in the process. But I only have four classes left to take! I'm almost there! In fact, I could finish it in a semester if three of those classes weren't sequential. I'm going to get there... and then keep going!

One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. - Lucille Ball

Disclaimer: When I say "moms", I hope you know I mean parents of any gender who take on the majority of the child-raising responsibilities... not just women who have children. "Mom" is just easier to say.

Sources:
Rovelli, Carlo, et al. The Order of Time. Riverhead Books, 2018.

Talking About Parenting

I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately.

When I'm panicking because I can't find my ten-year-olds on the playground after their swim class...
When I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to make it to two drop-off times, ten minutes apart, at two schools, a ten minute drive apart, five days a week, until next summer...
When I'm worrying about who is going to pick up my four-year-old from half-day preschool if I've got class two days a week...
When one of my kids suddenly comes down with something awful on a Sunday and we have to take her to urgent care...
When I put my four children to bed and I finally feel relaxed for the first time all day...

Parenting is hard. There are about as many "parenting styles" as there are children to parent in the world, I would guess. I would also guess that not a single one of them is easy. Raising children saps your energy and steals your time. If you're not careful, it can destroy your health and seemingly denature your home. But future/new parents don't want to hear these horror stories.

The weekend before last, I got to go to the local botanic gardens for the first time. I am head-over-heels for botany, in case you didn't know. But I've never been to the botanic gardens because there are a number of other places my kids would rather go. Finally inside the gardens, I spent my entire trip eating lunch at the cafe, and then standing outside a bathroom stall while one of my kids was sick. Then we went home... where I lounged in the bathtub so I could be next to her while she suffered.

Yesterday, I spent almost 9 hours doing homework... mine while my kids were at school, and helping them with theirs once they were home. I'm certainly learning to love math, but I still don't love homework. And, by nature of priorities, I didn't get any housework done and we ate delivery pizza for dinner while watching the second half of Wonder Woman because I was entirely spent by 6 o'clock.

Today, my four-year-old son is hanging out in Papa's office for a while because I have to be on campus and Papa has to be at work, but Cub is only at school until noon. He's eating Wendy's for lunch, because there was no time or planning to prepare him his usual sandwich and fruit.

So, to those who find this grim honesty about parenting distasteful: Maybe just don't have kids. If you can't stomach a story about an outing gone horribly wrong, an adult life given entirely over to the needs of a sometimes unreasonable and ungrateful child, the sadness, tiredness, depression, anxiety, anger, frustration, and loneliness that visit upon those who have chosen to raise the next generation...

If you can't bare to see the pain of it all without losing your will to procreate... maybe just don't. Because it seems to me that the beauty of parenting can only be seen through a thick lens of suffering. I give pieces of myself to my children every day. I lose sleep. I eat things I hate. I cry when I sing songs about unconditional love. I rarely go out with friends. I schedule my life such that it works for them. I pay loads of money for them to learn and experience life. I drop everything when someone is ill. I enter a weird state of fugue when a birthday is coming and give myself over into elaborate, all-day, sometimes multi-day, cake making and decorating. I love all of that, and I wouldn't want it to change.

I love them in a way I never knew existed before they were born. It is incredible, but it hurts.

Through Love all that is bitter will be sweet.
Through Love all this is copper will be gold.
Through Love all dregs will turn to purest wine.
Through Love all pain will turn to medicine.
Through Love the dead will all become alive.
Through Love the king will turn into a slave!

-- Jalaluddin Rumi

A 400 lb Mistake

I'm posting this here because I can feel a "too-long-for-facebook" thing coming on.

Say what you want about the actual situation involving the little boy and the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo. Everyone is all worked up about whether the gorilla should have been shot and what the parents were up to and how in the world a zoo even has a gorilla enclosure a little boy could get into. But what I've learned from this episode is, in fact, that it's not okay to make a mistake on the internet and then try to correct yourself.

I reposted that picture that's going around. The one about Harambe, "doing a better job" watching the kid than his parents. But I posted it in an attempt to get attention for my question: Why couldn't they have just sedated him? I didn't think of the picture as a comment about the parents, but as a comment about how surprisingly docile and loving the gorilla seemed to be in the videos I saw.

To clarify: I was never trying to suggest that the mom was at fault. I have a three-year-old boy. We go to the zoo. He has tried to climb in a pit-style cape buffalo enclosure, but has never made it past sticking his head over the wall and lifting one foot. My three-year-old sometimes scares the hell out of me with how quickly he goes from being right by my side to being in the middle of the street (I might not even want to take him outside if we didn't live on a quiet street) or halfway down the escalator at the mall. I can imagine how a kid his age gets into trouble like this, even with vigilant parents. And I said as much in the first comments on my post.

Before I made that post, I looked at four different articles (accompanied by videos) about the incident and came to the conclusion, based on the text and the video combined, that he was protecting the kid and being incredibly nice. It was obvious that the videos were edited, but it has only since come to my attention that what was cut was the scary part. Interestingly, the news outlets were choosing to take the edited video and write about the incident as though nothing dramatic happened.

So, it turns out I was wrong. The gorilla did do some dangerous and scary stuff with the little boy. Watching the full video made me uncomfortable. But my question still stood. Why couldn't he have been sedated?

Harambe was a healthy and impressive representative of an endangered species. In my original post, I said, "I understand that the gorilla needed to be subdued in order to extract the kid." but it's sad to lose an individual like that. Why couldn't he have been sedated?

Since my post, Cincinnati Zoo director, Thane Maynard, "has said that tranquilizers may not have taken effect in time to save the boy while the dart might have agitated the animal, worsening the situation. Animal expert Jeff Corwin agreed that tranquilizers may have taken too long."

Okay. The picture was probably insensitive to begin with. I guess I didn't realize how it would be interpreted. I guess I thought of it as more of a joke than an accusation. Then, I was corrected as regards the gorilla's seemingly docile behavior from the first several videos I watched. Then, I got the information I wanted. Both of these things happened within hours of each other. I took the post down.

But I'm still dealing with it.

First, I didn't think anyone really cared what I said. Hardly anyone reads this and as far as I can tell, basically no one pays attention to my facebook. But one of my real-life friends attempted to gently correct me (and others) by posting an article focusing on a bystander who feels that the incident was not the fault of the parents.

I felt I needed to explain my position. I didn't mean to suggest that it was the parents' fault. I was simply pointing out that the gorilla seemed oddly calm and maybe didn't have to die. I just wanted to know why he wasn't tranquilized (this was before I learned why).

The responses to my explanation have been... aggressive. One person points out that I obviously didn't look into it because the video shows the gorilla being violent and tells me, "So congratulations, you called the parents worse than psychotic abusive assholes." But I did look into it. I read four different articles and all of them chose to use edited videos and present the information as though nothing concerning happened while the boy was in the enclosure. I think this is a serious problem we should all take note of. Why were/are so many sources choosing not to tell the whole story? When many different news outlets are misrepresenting the story in the same way, it's hard to know that you didn't do your research well enough.

After I explained the circumstances that lead to my post, this same person goes on to ask me how I would feel if I "had a hand in causing this mother to commit suicide because of all of the hate directed at her."

By this point, I had already taken the post down because the zoo had made a statement, providing the information I was looking for, and I saw the full video, showing the dangerous behavior.

I admitted I was wrong. I took the offensive post down. I made a mistake. It's cool though, deliberately giving me shit on the internet because I made a mistake anyone could have made that almost no one even saw is different from me accidentally giving another mom shit on the internet because she made a mistake anyone could have made that everyone saw.

Seriously, it is different. Because basically no one could even see my mistake, and it was redacted, it's over. I admit I made a mistake. I was insensitive and I apologize. I didn't realize I was wrong or being insensitive, because of the circumstances. In contrast, everyone is seeing this story and they think they know what's going on. News coverage has been leaving out details and people are angry that Harambe had to be shot. They're blaming this woman and the internet is awash with misinformed, unforgiving pointed fingers. I'm just dealing with one of those fingers.

I try to teach my kids that it's important to make mistakes. If you haven't made a mistake or failed at something today, you haven't tried hard enough at anything difficult or new, you haven't put yourself at risk. Putting yourself at risk is important because that is how you learn and grow and where you will find satisfaction and success. But when we make mistakes that affect others, we might need to correct them and apologize.

I corrected my mistake and I am sorry for being insensitive and wrong. I'm glad someone pointed out that by posting that picture, I was lumping myself in with a hurtful crowd.

There are things to be learned from this:

• There are larger problems with news media than I even realized
• It's surprisingly easy to be a jerk on accident
• It's hard to take it back
• Even nice people are jerks on accident sometimes and it's probably important for the accidental jerk and the victim to both remember that
• People who don't know you will judge you and you can't take them seriously. They also make mistakes
• And we should probably never design a gorilla exhibit like that ever again

Nine Years

A couple of years ago, I told you all about the drama and craziness of my first birth experience. My twins made me a mom, nine years ago today.

In the span of mere seconds, I can be both terrified by how quickly the years seem to pass me by, and overwhelmed by how distant nine years ago seems right now.

I remember I once said that if I believed in a creator, I would say it must have given me twins on its first attempt because it knew I'd never do this again. I really thought that was it for me. I was 19 and I figured I'd never want to have another baby. That was pretty terrifying since I hadn't seen or heard from their dad in months and it seemed like it would be pretty difficult to find a partner who was okay with never having his own kids. Somehow, in a wide variety of ways, my life changed a lot over the course of the next few years (and then again over the few years after that), and I had two more.

In addition to the fear of never finding a guy who didn't want me to have more babies, I knew I had to be picky about the people I allowed in our lives. When I brought them home, I nearly immediately broke up with my boyfriend. He was a guy I met several years before and had been friends with for all of that time. He was an amazing person and an amazing boyfriend... except that his mom didn't like me and definitely didn't like the idea of "us"... and the babies really sealed the deal. I just knew I couldn't deal with his family and their judgement in my life anymore. So, having destroyed my relationship with someone I once thought was the perfect guy, I figured I'd be single forever.

Then, I married their dad. That was a mistake and a mess that I just kept having to apologize for while I pretended to be happy. I don't particularly want to talk about it in greater detail, but you can read about the official end of it (after two years of bitter and painful divorce proceedings) here. Maybe someday I'll put it in a memoir. Like many people fresh out of a situation like that, I was pretty sure I was unlovable and I pretty much hated myself. Still, long-story-short, I wound up stumbling rather gracelessly, and with a lot of baggage, into the prefect relationship. We've been together for four and a half years.

In nine years, the twins and I have lived in five different states. I've owned houses and rented apartments. We've lived in our own place, and military housing, and spare rooms with family and friends. We've been through a lot. At times, I thought our lives would be a series of "we'll figure it out"s. Somehow, we landed in the suburbs in the state that was always my first choice for "when I grow up" collages, with a mortgage on a house we've lived in for over three years. Not bad.

When the twins were born, I had resigned myself to being working-poor for probably the rest of my life. I had graduated high school and, before I found out I was pregnant, I was considering college options. It felt like it was too late once they were born. Then, I realized I wanted to offer inspiration for them by building myself up again, so I went to college online through Westwood. I thought that was all a mom could do. It was expensive and non-transferable and a huge waste of my time and money. I just felt like I had created a deeper grave for my career prospects and filled it with student debt. I went back to the "working-poor" theory... but when I got fired from my job that only paid just enough to cover child care, I decided I needed a change.

All of this is why nine years ago seems so far away.

As of today, I've been a full-time student a legit university for almost two years, working towards my bachelors in biology. We've lived in this house, which we own, for more than three years. I've got four, awesome, frustrating, smart, healthy kids. I've had the same incredible relationship for more than four years. And, in this time, I've learned that being a parent is never easy. It's always difficult for one reason or another... and it won't be the same reason for long, or you'd get used to it. Also... things rarely go as planned, or as you feared.

We're celebrating the twins' birthday on Saturday. They've been in gymnastics for more than two years. They're starting taekwondo next month. They went ice skating for the first time about a week ago and seem to have found a new passion. They still pretend a LOT. They also read a lot. C loves Calvin and Hobbs, lately. S likes reading about animals. They saw their first orchestra performance on Sunday. Here are some other neat experiences from this year:

April: Helped build a chicken coop
May: Built a crazy fort in the woods and participated in their first gymnastics expo
June: Used the sewing machine for the first time
July: Fired guns for the first time
August: Road public transportation for the first time
September: Camping for the first time
October: Their first Zombie Crawl

They're growing up so fast, as cliche as that sounds. That's why I'm terrified by how fast the time is passing me by.

Sometimes, I Hate Being a Mom

When I was pregnant with the twins, I frequented a mom forum. I was scared. I didn't know what to expect and I didn't know any other reasonable people in my generation to talk to about what I was going through. I felt like I belonged. These people didn't even judge me for being 19 or unmarried. It felt like a miracle. I trusted these women.

After I had the twins, I continued to mingle in those forums. circumstances forced me to move to a rural town in Kansas to live with my mom and I was bored and lonely. I still didn't have mommy friends. I didn't really have friends at all because I could hardly leave the house. I trusted these women.

Then, one day, I wanted to complain. I don't remember what my gripe was about, specifically. Since I had two, infant, premature, colicky daughters I had to share a room with and I was single, broke, and living in rural Kansas, I'm sure you can fill in the blanks.

The responses I got just made things worse. People I had been talking to and asking for advice for a year or more were arguing with me and each other. A few were defending my right, as a mom, to complain. Several were chastising me for ever speaking out against the joys of motherhood because there are women out there who would give anything just to be able to have a baby and it's not fair of me to complain since I'm so lucky.

It's like saying there are people out there who are jobless and would love to be able to work, so I shouldn't ever complain about the harsh and demanding realities of my minimum wage, no benefits, hyper-demanding work at the funeral home (yes, I used to work at one of those) because I'm so lucky to even have a job. Okay. Yes, I was lucky to have a job. I could have been jobless instead. But if I don't point out the flaws in my job, I feel like I'm leading others to believe that there's nothing wrong with it and it's a sparkly fairy tale. That's not right. I mean, I stepped into it with no information. I don't want that for others. Besides, if I don't complain, it might never improve because no one will know that I'm dissatisfied.

Sometimes I hate being a mom because:

• It ruined my body
• it routinely destroys my internal peace
• it complicates my career path
• it puts a lot of stress on my family and my marriage
• it means I have to own a much bigger (read: more expensive) house
• it means I can't justify living in the city
• it changes the places I can go out to eat
• it means I have to own a huge (gas greedy) car
• it keeps me up at night
• it makes me judge myself harshly... all... the... time
• it makes me question myself constantly
• it complicates my budget
• it's suddenly much more cost effective to drive for two days than to fly anywhere
• I never have time to study
• I barely even do my makeup anymore

No one of these things seems like much of a problem. Combined, though, they start to hurt. The hardest part is that I am now constantly at war with myself. I can't manage to pursue my dreams and provide theirs. I never feel like I'm doing enough, and no matter how much I do... they don't understand the significance and don't act like they appreciate many of the things I do. So, I'm keeping myself up at night thinking about how to be a better mom and produce better adults from these children I have created... and they are totally unaware and seem to not even care.

And that's all okay. It's okay for them to behave that way. They don't understand. But it's also okay to feel this way, as a parent. Those of us who do (and I'd venture to guess that all of us feel this way sometimes, even if we put forth an image that looks like a Betty Crocker advertisement), shouldn't have to suffer in silence. That's just perpetuating the problem. No one will throw you a life vest if they don't know you're sinking, and if you've just had to fight off the Kracken while struggling to keep it from pulling you under, I expect you to warn anyone who will listen not to swim in the same waters unless they're feeling exceptionally brave. 

I just took my kids to a member's-only pre-grand-reopening event at the Children's Museum of Denver. They made all these amazing renovations. We had a completely fantastic time. I got Cub up from nap today and he asked me about lightning. I told him about static electricity... but he's convinced that thunder is the sound of Power Rangers kicking the lightning so it will go away. I love them and they make me smile and laugh and feel validated in my constant struggles... but they also make me scream into my pillow and self-loath and cry sometimes. This is being a mother. 

If You Want Something Done Right...

If you want something done right, do it yourself; and by all means, don’t let your ex get his hands on it. As you may have read, our first week of lessons went swimmingly, and our second week happened to be the week their dad was planning to be in town. Now, after a week away from home, we’re starting over on things I thought we had figured out.

We’ve had to put lessons on hold so I can put my full attention and (limited) energy toward reteaching the household rules as well as personal responsibility and hygiene. The attitudes around here have become resistant and defiant enough that it has been difficult even to convince myself to TRY structured lessons. Not to mention, I certainly don’t want to further distract them from their potty responsibilities, since their attention to their bodily needs has become... lax.

It has only been one week since they returned from their visit, at this point. We have already made huge improvements. It was just very upsetting to me and to our routine to be put in this situation.

Additionally, the home school planner came back to me reflecting only two, half-hour lessons for each of my daughters for the entire week that they were away. While I recognize that their dad would probably like for his visits to be like vacations, I did inform him in advance that it wouldn’t be possible, considering the hours we need to squeeze in. It’s also not terribly difficult to teach them because they think it’s fun.

On the upside, I got divorce paperwork filled out, reviewed by a lawyer, printed, signed and notarized last week. Now I’m just waiting for a copy of our marriage license to be returned to me in the mail so I can file. Unfortunately, divorce only solves some of our problems. I’m also going to need to learn to make demands and get him to give our kids what they need (and I’m not even talking about college funds or cars).

Staying Positive

For reference if you aren't familiar with practice paper.

This is a difficult one for me. It’s fairly easy to stay positive when explaining things to the kids, but not as simple to stay positive in my head when things aren’t going right. I think that’s okay, as long as you don’t get stuck on that track.

This week, during writing practice, one of my daughters drew an ‘e’. It was very well structured for a five-year-old’s hand writing. It was even the right size. The problem was that it floated on the dotted line on her practice paper, instead of spanning the space between the dotted line and the bottom line.

She panicked. “I messed it up!”, she said. I looked at it and noticed how upset she was. So I pointed out that it was actually a really great ‘e’, and that’s a pretty difficult letter to draw, since it has a round part and straight line all in one. She did a good job. “it just belongs down here”. And, “you know what? It’s not a problem. You have lots of paper, and you have an eraser. You can choose to erase and start over, or leave it there and make a new one. There’s plenty of space.”

Attitude adjusted, she chose to erase the offending letter and try again. And she got it right the second time. Also a significant note: she was noticeably more pleased with that second ‘e’ than she was with getting any other letter right on the first try.

But, earlier that same day, I found myself in a funk during nap time. My five-year-olds don’t want to take naps anymore, and they probably don’t really NEED them anymore (except on days when we’re particularly active). But my two-year-old needs a nap every day. They share a room, and I don’t have enough space to let the five-year-olds stay up where they won’t keep the younger one awake. But their presence in the bedroom, while not sleeping, keeps the two-year-old awake anyway. For the last week, we’ve been having particularly persistent problems, and I can’t seem to devise a solution.

They get multiple timeouts every day as a result of this problem. It’s really the only thing they get timeouts for anymore. After a couple of sessions of that, I get frustrated. So I’ve tried lots of different theories on them; most of which worked for a week or so before they lose power somehow.

Since my whole world is centered around my children (stay-at-home-mom/homeschooler), these things are especially discouraging. So, when they persist for several days, I feel disappointed in myself for not being able to work it out.

Maybe this is just a little biased, since I clearly don’t want to be broken or wrong, but I don’t think there’s anything unusual about that. In fact, I think it is part of what makes me good at what I do. It upsets me to be unable to fix a problem, so I devote a lot of time and thought to finding a solution, and I try a lot of different methods before I give up. But, there will be failures. So, when failure gets me down, I try to remind myself that it is a side effect of caring so much about my kids and my parenting.

I’ve been steeped in the fallout of disappointments this week, more than usual. I have a feeling I’m not the only parent who ever feels this way. So, hopefully sharing how I cope with it might help someone else remember what a wonderful mom or dad they are. I’m no psychologist, but I think it’s okay to feel that way, as long as it’s only temporary.

Kudos To Stay At Homers

I've been a stay at home mom for over five years. That number rolls over to six whole years if you count all the way back to when I had to quit my job halfway through my pregnancy with the twins because my doctor put me on bed rest. Most moms in my position will tell you that this is absolutely not "just not working". It's difficult and time consuming. You can't call in sick, and you rarely get 15 minute breaks, let alone vacation days. You end up more than a little stir crazy if you're not careful. I have, admittedly, tried to quit this job. Twice, actually.

I don't mean I tried to quit being a parent. Instead, I simply tried to go back to work. I got a job at a gas station when my twins were only a few months old. There were many reasons that didn't work out. The twins were premature and colicky and I simply couldn't leave my mom home with them whenever I was working. I also couldn't afford a real babysitter on what I was making at that gas station, and the job was awful anyway. I would have quickly found myself unable to stay up through the night with the babies and then go to work during the day.

More recently, I was employed by the best funeral company in the Denver area. I was referred to as a "family services representative", which is a fancy way of saying I was a receptionist with A LOT of other responsibilities. They barely trained me and I had to learn my job as I went. I worked nights and weekends and made only as much per hour as I was paying a babysitter. I was lucky to find a job that paid even that much, considering I had been an unemployed mother for years.

I thought it would be fine, because my oldest kids (the twins) were 5 and well behaved and intelligent with no known medical problems. Additionally, I had friends who could watch them for free when they were off work, so my babysitting wasn't eating my entire paycheck. 

But I wound up getting fired for being "forgetful". Now, I've never been told that before, at least not without specific reference to being forgetful at a particular moment. I'm convinced I lost that job because I didn't really know what my responsibilities were. But I didn't do much pleading to save my employment because I was miserable there. 

I don't want to be a stay at home mom for the rest of their childhood. I want my kids to see a woman with a career and ambition.They need a role model. Besides, if I'm being honest, being at home with the kids, as the only adult in the house, is pretty mind-numbing. I love teaching them and exploring with them, I hate defusing every fight and correcting every mistake and finding socks covered in dust bunnies under the couch.

If you're a stay at home parent, I'm proud of you. Even if you have a job, if you spend your time at home engaged and interested in your children an taking care of their needs, you're a hero. And if you're a single parent still able to love and care for your child, bravo! It's difficult, and if you can't think of something you really dislike about being a parent, you're in denial. But if you're doing your best, you're doing some good.

My Homeschooling Training Wheels

Before I begin, this isn't about convincing everyone to choose to educate their children at home. It's about sharing my story, which might be your story, too. And it might just help you make the right decision for you and your family.


I really fought the idea of homeschooling my kids. I thought a lot of pretty typical things like, "public school was good enough for me." and "I don't know everything, how can I teach them all they need to know?" and "I don't want to deprive them of the social aspect of public school." Then there's the one most parents won't admit, publicly: "I can't wait to have that eight hours to myself!"


Now, my twins are five-years-old and I'm homeschooling them through their first year of "structured" learning. What happened?


Now that my first born kids are old enough to start school, I had to reevaluate those things I told myself, and it was scary. 


Was public school really good enough for me? Is it good enough for anyone anymore? Maybe it is, for some people. But it wasn't for me. And it's not a matter of smarter or better behaved or otherwise better prepared kids doing better (or worse) in public schools. Kids, and really all people, have different methods of learning, not all of which are met when a teacher has to constantly tend to 15 or 20 students. 


I got an education, and I graduated on time, and I was told how smart I was, but I wasn't interested in my lessons, I did as little as I could to get by, and the few things I was deeply interested in learning weren't offered at my school. Now that I'm openly talking with other adults, post-high school, I'm learning that I'm not nearly the only one who has these complaints. 


No, I DON'T know everything. That much is absolutely true. What I know is pretty limited. Of course I know a lot about what I care about. I try to keep up with psychology, and I can impress you with all of my knowledge if you take me to the zoo (I loved zoology and botany in school). But I'm only average at best in the field of math and when it comes to history, thank goodness for Wikipedia. 


Which brings me to my epiphany: I don't KNOW everything, but I have access to it. I have the internet and the library and my college text books. I also have the willingness to answer my kids' questions with, "I don't know, but let's find out!"


The most bizarre realization was that I do, in fact, want to deprive my kids of the social aspect of public school. I don't want to deny them the ability to make and spend time with friends. But that should not get in the way of a good education, and, in my experience, social issues destroy the educational scene in public schools for almost every student at one point or another (or many points). Honestly, the twins already have each other for distractions, and that's difficult enough.


As far as wanting that eight hours to myself... I can't answer for that. I still want that, and I know I won't get it this way. But nothing good in life is free. We barter our time for money at our jobs, and our money for food at the store, and as our Dalai Lama said, you should, “Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.” I'm not going to get everything I want. My children's education is more important to me than eight free hours a day to take more college classes, get a new job, or just bake a lot. My prerogative is to produce adults who are prepared for the world and ready to start a life and be successful, by their own definitions.


Here we go!