It's a recession of mothers.

I've gone back to work full-time. I did not forsee this happening to me. Somehow, I imagined that being the mother of four angelic children exempted me from full-time work, the way it does for the Mormon mommies in the neighborhood.
This is my husband's fault, as usual. He refuses to make another $100K a year. I've explained to him, rather nicely a few of the times, that all he has to do is make more so I don't have to. He declines, citing "reasons" (air quotes would be used here if we were talking in person) he finds reasonable ("they just don't give out $100K raises!"). Who are "they" I wonder? I should like to meet "they", because while my husband is typically impervious to my suggestions and, er, orders, I find that others can be swayed more easily. Lars won't introduce me to "they", he says that would be career suicide. Still, seems strange as I am quite nice and rational, "they" would probably find me rather pleasant.
But, lady friends you know what I'm saying, fathers just don't care to grasp our mommy way. Lars (who by all accounts is an excellent papa) thinks nothing about leaving for work in the morning, feels no urgency on his ride home. When he's at work, he doesn't quickly jot down an item on the crumpled grocery list in his pocket, or check his cell phone every 20-minutes to see if the school called about a broken pinky toe, or sigh deeply and smile sadly as he mournfully pictures their faraway faces. He is blissfully exempt, as fathers are, of feeling the long ago cut umbilical cord tugging at his navel.
I, on the other hand feel the constant phantom pains of that severed umbilical cord. I tear up when I pull out of the driveway in the morning, my eyes filling with saltiness as I roll down my street in neutral to save gas. I heave little gulpy breaths as I drive toward the barrio or the cougar office. During the day, I refer to them 4-times hourly, ad nauseam I'm sure. After work, I race out of the office, breaking traffic laws in order to expeditiously get to my children. When I see them, I melt, I mourn, I break off little pieces of me and feed me to them as mommy snacks.
And despite the misery at having to leave them, despite the biological pull back to them, here I am, schlepping around Southern California in the middle of the night speaking Spanish and delivering babies.
Of course, this gives me miserable feelings and sentiments. Resentments (my poor patients, but not husband). Tears. Arguements. Resentful children. That is the worst . . . resentful children. They're right, though, I've left them for what I hope is a temporary stint as Primary Financier of All Things Viking.
I try to sneak in my work hours so the kids notice less. I work when they sleep, I sleep when the go to school. I work only while they are at school and then have them walk home to cover my fitting in extra patients long after the school bell has rang. But a lot of times, it just can't be avoided and they come home from school and I'm not there and won't be for quite some time. Or just as bad, their Daddy takes them to a Saturday game or party or playdate and he doesn't even care to, he doesn't even want to be there, he has no passions for playdates. Or, a get together of family friends is happening, all the other kids have both parents present, but not mine because I'm away at the hospital while Lars is soaking up the jolly good times as the eldest daughter of one of the families trails our imps around. In some ways, I admire and envy the easy ways my husband can parent. I envy his complete apathy to missing pick-ups and shopping trips that I inflate with meaning that probably isn't relevant or meaningful.
No matter how I try to rationalize it, I still end every conversation with myself this way, "what kind of mother . . .?"


I'm sad, friends. I know my fellow working mommy friends occasionally feel the same sadness that I feel today, that we're a sometimes sisterhood of just gettin' by mothers. Lest you fret too much, my just gettin' by friends, my apathetic father friends, my stay-at-home friends and all my in-between friends -- lest you fret -- you should know that I am a wine-bottle-is-half-full type of gal, today is but a blip in my near eternal sun shiney-ness. You should know that I let these whiney, self-pitying, and demoralizing times last for only a few moments before I get started on the rewiring of my hardware. I just need you, my friends and co-conspirators of modern work-life division, to slowly nod and whisper your resigned snippets of shared remorse with me. Friends, tomorrow we will prevail. I love you and goodnight.