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Too Many Choices
For those of you into acronyms, I am currently a SAHM (stay at home mom). This is a recent development in my life. After the arrival of Sarah, I returned part-time to my pre-baby, corporate America job. The agreement and my paycheck were based on three days a week. By the time she turned one, part-time had morphed into over 40 hours a week and at least one business trip a month (but no change in my paycheck). The day after my husband and I traded Sarah in the airport parking lot (he was arriving and I was departing), I threw in the towel.
For the past three years, I have run a small company. From CEO to janitor, I was the one-woman show of this business. Unlike my prior position, this job (usually) remained part-time. It sometimes even hit the sweet spot of 20 hours a week. It was a great experience, but the time came to close up shop. Last month, I fired myself and the business came to an end.
Now I am trying to figure out my next step. I already know that being a mom is the world toughest job. The question is whether I have the energy and the desire to pursue an additional job outside the home. It is question that is really difficult for me to answer.
On those days the girls are well behaved, the arguments are few, and life runs smoothly, I feel that nothing would surpass staying at home. Heck, half the point of working is to allow me to retire one day. Depending on your measure, I am retired now.
On those days when the girls bicker, the house is messy beyond recognition, and I work really hard to get nothing done, I feel quite different. At least in an office when I have a bad day, I know I will still get a paycheck.
If this were the 1950s, I would follow convention, wear a skirt, stay home and be happy about it. If this were the 1970s, I would follow the feminist movement, were a pant suit, work in an office and be happy about it. Today, I have choices.
Moms across the nation fought for decades to give me those choices. For their efforts I am immensely grateful. However; I have no idea which choice to make. The only thing for which I am certain is that home versus work choices are not one size fits all. The best choice for one mom will not work for another. Or as I learned, the best choice at one stage of life may be a poor choice at later a stage. My current plan is to enjoy the summer. I promise not to decide about taking a job in the labor sector until after Labor Day. I will spend time at the pool and maybe even catch up on a few books. I will also clip every coupon in the Sunday newspaper to save some cash.
When the summer ends, I will reassess. Maybe the choice will be clear or maybe it won’t. Either way, I will decide. If it turns out I don’t like my decision, I will thank all those women who fought to give me these choices, and I will choose again.
Gigi appears every Friday on TriangleMom2Mom. To read more about Gigi, go to her blog Stroller Lane.
Gigi Harrell
Gigi is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Friday.
She's a mom of two daughters, ages 4 and 1½. Gigi’s path to a career in writing took the scenic route. She graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Industrial Engineering and a husband-to-be. After a few years of work and lots of play in California, they returned to their roots in the South. They landed in North Carolina where she graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with an MBA. She worked in marketing for a large multinational company, but career priorities changed with the arrival of her girls. She stepped off the corporate track to start her own business. She now works full-time as a mom and part-time running her business and writing freelance. Gigi lives in Cary with her husband and two daughters balancing the havoc and harmony of everyday life.
Comments
I think I'm in the same spot you are- but I work full time with two small children in daycare... every time I have a bad day at work I think it's time to quit and stay home full time with the kids. But then we have a particularly long weekend with lots of tantrums and refusal to take naps and I think that maybe working outside the home isn't so bad. I agree with you that working as a SAHM is the world's hardest job - but with the world's greatest reward (even though it is non-monetary...). So I am also flip-flopping about what I want to do- quit and be with the kids or stay at work? I work at a company that is continually resourcing jobs to other areas of the world and I must say I secretly wish they would move my job, lay me off & make the decision for me that I can't seem to make for myself- stay home with my kids! But this weekend is coming up and I imagine on Monday morning I'll be singing a different tune as I happily get ready for work and 5 relaxing days at the office.
Hey Ladies! I saw your posts and wanted to share my story with you... in my "previous life (before kids)" I was a part of the corporate banking world and when I was getting ready to have my 1st baby in 1998 my husband and I made the decision to reduce our income by more than half so I could stay at home - then I had another baby 15 months later :) I did the stay at home mom career through their infancy and toddler stages, all the while wondering how I could contribute to our family finances so we could have a little more and do a little more. I could not find anything that financially made sense unless I went back to a 60 hour a week J-O-B.
Four years ago a wonderful opportunity was presented to me by a dear friend that would allow me to earn money and still be at home with my girls. I have to be honest that what intrigued me most was that my friend was a corporate attorney and I could not believe that she was "selling" something from home... I sat down with her and tried the products she was so excited about, then we discussed the marketing plan.
After seeing that the products really delivered results and my own due diligence researching the company I decided to jump in with both feet and I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love what I do now and that I not only have the ability to contribute to our family finances, but to allow my husband to retire before he's 40!
The company that I have my business through is Arbonne International and if you're interested in how this might be a fit for you, I'd love to take you out for a cup of coffee and tell you more. You can also see more on my website... www.BeFree.MyArbonne.com Thanks for reading & make it a GREAT day!!! ~Heather
It's really interesting to see the perspective of someone who's been been both a SAHM and a WOHM. I quit a 60+ hour-a-week job to move down here shortly before my daughter was born, and to date, being a SAHM has been the easiest and most fun job I've ever had. I can't imagine working full time right now, not because I have any great problem with daycare, but because being a working mom seems so darn hard!
I'll admit, though, that there are times when I worry that I've made the wrong decision. I've seen other people having a heck of a time trying to find jobs in my field, and that's without a gap in their resumes. I'm pretty scared most days that when I do go back to work, I won't be able to find a job. And I worry about the kind of example I'm setting for my daughter. I want her to grow up believing that she can do anything, and that home and hearth are not necessarily the sole responsibility of the mom. More than anything, that's the reason I plan to return to work within the next two years or so.
I took off from the work force about five years ago. I delighted in telling people that I was "retired" even though I had nary a gray hair on my head. I recently accepted a part time editing job that has me working from home. Since it's summer, sometimes I'm working with my iPhone headphones on playing "Ambient White Noise for Sleep" which is the BEST 99 cents I've spent on iTunes!
Whichever choice you make, the grass will always appear a little greener on the other side at several points in any given day. Sometimes choice makes life more complicated and more difficult...giving new insight into how dictators arise!
Sometimes I feel like a sham telling people I work because usually I'm wearing my pajamas from the night before and throwing in a load of laundry between editing paragraphs of techno-lingo. I feel like I can't really say I'm working if I'm not wearing pantyhose and listening to NPR (or Howard Stern) on the way to work.
I'm going to stop now because I think I may have some blog fodder here!