The Real Working Mom

I starting thinking today about working moms whom I admire like Tina Fey, or Giada de Laurentiis or Katie Couric. But then it dawned on me, all of these women probably have live-in nannies, cooks, maids, personal shoppers- an entourage of people, practically a childcare army taking care of their children and household. Of course, I'd be fabulous if I had that much help. Not that I'm knocking them. I still think they are amazing, and I totally believe their work schedules are crazy. Their 'busy' is a completely different any 'busy' than I will ever know.

But at the same time, I still ask, who are the real working moms I can look up to, women who can really do it all? I remember telling my students and writer friends that a writer shouldn't look any further than their own backyard for a subject to write about. (Kinda like Dorothy looking no further than her backyard for her heart's desire). And there in my own backyard are two very admirable working mothers, my grandmothers.

My grandmothers raised children in a time where mothers in the workforce was a rarity, and they raised them completely alone, another rarity. My father's mother was widowed at six months pregnant (with my father) and with a two-year-old (my uncle) . All she had at the time was a high school diploma (the first in her family) and some experience as a beautician. Yet my grandmother discovered the elusive junction we all search for, the intersecting spot where motherhood crosses career. When my father started school, she began working in the cafeteria of the K-12 school both my father and uncle attended. She worked there for over thirty years. I've heard my dad say, “I don't know how she did it, but we always had one suit for church; we always had a meat on the table; we always got new school supplies and books every year.” The most touching story I remember being told was of a particular picture day at the school. Dad said my grandmother made him and my uncle wear a suit for picture day. My grandmother overheard one of my father's friends commenting on his suit, how he thought it was nice and wished he had a suit for his yearbook picture, so she arranged for my dad to take his picture first, then had him go change and allow his friend to wear the suit for his picture. That's what makes an admirable working mom, one that not only thinks for their own children, but won't let other children do without either.

My mother's mother was a divorcee in her town. Where people looked on my dad and his mother with pity, my mother and her family where outcasts and shunned. To top it all off, my grandmother was the preacher's daughter. My grandmother had no high school diploma, no child support, and four kids to support alone. Mom has told me stories of being on food stamps, going to grocery stores to get the dented cans with no labels on them. The big excitement at dinner was what dinner was going to be- peaches or Lima beans. She's told me about being alone a lot, one of her brothers watching her, because her mom was always working. I know my mom and her brothers probably suffered some, because my grandmother was not always waiting for them to get off the bus in heels and a string of pearls. But if anything, I know my mother became a better mother for it. She saw how hard her mom worked her fingers to the bone, the sacrifices she made. I think it made her appreciate what time she did have with me and my brother. I think it made her think, “If mom could do that, so can I.” I know it has made me think that of both my grandmother and mother.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, one of my favorite actresses said, "I was surrounded by plenty of working moms, including my grandmother, a pediatrician, and my mother, a writer and producer...I just thought, Well that's what moms do. They work and raise their kids." I can say the same, and most importantly, I'm proud to.

The Church of Coupon: Excepting New Mom Members Now!

Like a lot of moms right now, working or at home, I have drank the Kool-aid and joined the new fad I call, the Church of Coupon. Yes, the coupon bug bit me, but also like a lot of moms, it was not something I decided to do to be trendy or because I saw the TLC show, Extreme Couponing.

I began couponing right after returning to work. Combined with car payments, house payments and now daycare, I was doing good to have one penny left in my account by the 31^st of each month. No one tried to convert me to The Church of Coupon and like I said, nor did anything on TV convince me. I actually had no idea couponing had its own cult following or that it could save you so much.

I devised the idea of using coupons simply to try to get a few dollars off my grocery bill every week. So I started getting a Sunday paper and went from there. Looking back on it, I laugh to myself at how stupid this was. Now I know better. I would make out my grocery list for the week as usual, go through my small stack of coupons, which I kept in a Ziploc bag, and pulled any coupon I thought could help me that week. So the only savings I saw for a few weeks were $3 here and maybe $4 there.

Then I started talking to other people who couponed, found blogs and websites with printable coupons, and finally in September attended a class.

Now my coupon weekly worship is a bit different. First, I got rid of that sad little Ziploc bag and invested in a notebook. I used baseball card holders to display my coupons and divided it into sections like the ones used in grocery stores: dairy, meats, canned goods, etc. Then using the blogs and websites I mentioned, I look a weekly ads. I make my grocery list out based on what's on sale and what I have coupons for to get the best savings possible. I also am starting a sad little stockpile that I hope will continue to grow. At first, I thought stockpiling was dumb and a waste of money, but now I see the value of it. Example, this week Cologate toothpaste is on sale at Kroger for $1. There are plenty of coupons out there for $1 off Cologate or .50 cents off Cologate. Since Kroger doubles coupons .50 cent and under, I could use either of those coupons to get the toothpaste for completely free. Now do I need toothpaste right now? No, but it's FREE! I added three tubes to my stockpile. Since toothpaste doesn't go bad, I can get toothpaste when it's free or practically free and save the money I would have spent on something else.

Right now, compared to other long-time members of the Church of Coupon, my stockpiles are small. I have maybe seven or eight tubes of toothpaste, three large bottles of body wash, ten bars of soap, four boxes of dishwashing machine tablets, three bottles of laundry detergent, five boxes of cereal... You get the picture.

So five months or so later, what is my grocery bill looking like now? Well, I'm not where I eventually want to be like these moms who get $200 of groceries for $10, but I will most of the time cut my grocery bill in half every week. My New Year's Resolution is to spend no more than $100 a week. Now to some of you, that may not sound like much of a goal, but that is for a family of four including diapers, formula, dinners, lunches, toothpaste (hehe), anything my family may need. I've been successful thus far and may even amend that weekly budget to $75 and then hopefully $50 by the end of the year. As one mom proudly proclaimed on Extreme Couponing, “I will never pay more that $1 for cereal again!” Testify sister!

Being a working mom is more than just balancing motherhood and career. People tend to forget, you have to manage a household too. Milk still has to be bought, dishes washed, floors swept. Some joke, or maybe they're not joking, and say couponing is addictive. And I'm here to say it is. Why would I compare it to a cult? But essentially I do it, because it makes me feel like a better mom. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying spending .75 cent on a box of Fruit Loops makes you a better mother. What I am saying is, I feel like a better household manager when I use less resource for the most product. I'm saving money that can go to my kids while making sure they are not sacrificing anything in the process. So if you're not ready to join the Church of Coupon or if you think my argument is ridiculous. That's fine. I think homeschooling is weird. Guess, I'll save that argument for another entry. But regardless of what we think is weird for one mom to do as compared to another or ourselves, we need to respect each other as mothers and the decisions we make all (at least in our minds) for the betterment of our children. And isn't that what being a mom is all about?

Only You: Leaving your Child: Part 2

Finding the perfect environment to leave your child is step one. It's reassuring to remind yourself during the day that your child is in a good place, looked after, and cared for. But sometimes, only you will do. My daughter has been in a wonderful home daycare for five months, but it doesn't make it any easier. Lily is now going through the phase, at least I hope it's a phase, of 'I only want Mommy.' Now when I leave her at daycare, I have to distract her with toys or food. Her sitter tries to console me by telling that she only cries for a few minutes after I leave and then is fine, and I totally believe that.

But it's not just there. She has even started crying and reaching for me when I leave her playing in the living room floor only to go a few feet away (where she cannot see me) to the kitchen. She scrambles to crawl up my neck and clings to my shirt not only when strangers start to talk to her, but even when my mom or dad first show up. Does she really think I'm going to leave her all the time?

Of course, none of this makes me feel any better. I mean, it is sweet to think that she only wants me, that maybe she loves mommy that much that no one else will do. But at the same time, I wonder, has becoming a working mom made my daughter have separation anxiety?

I would have thought yes (and a part of me still feels that is a little to blame) if I did not see other children whose mothers stay home with them do the same thing. That brings me to the other part they don't tell you about being a working mom, the Guilt.

You have to work. If you could remain sane and financially sound by staying with the child 24/7, you would, but you can't and no reminding of that makes the guilt any less. My mom was a working mom, and I attended both home and large daycares and turned out fine, so the guilt of feeling I am doing some kind of damage to my child is not there. Yet accompanying the guilt is a tang of resentment too. I'm sure all working moms struggle with this, although I'm not sure everyone's resentment is exactly the same. Being a teacher, I'm so happy I get summers and holidays off to be with my child. Albeit I was about to go crazy for many different reasons, I did appreciate the ten days I got to be at home with my family during the recent snow storm. But as a teacher, my resentment encompasses many things and hits me at different times. Like dealing with a classroom full of narcissistic, egoistical middle schoolers stirs up some resentment: “I stuck here with you who doesn't even care about the sacrifices I'm making for my family to help you remember what a stinking verb is! And you won't even try to take notes or listen to me!” or “I am making a hard sacrifice helping your child and you are blaming ME for their poor grades!” or “I am having to technically work overtime when I'm not getting paid for it and when I should and could be home with my baby! And for what? Test scores!”

See? I'm sure you hear the resentment in my voice now. This, as I said, hasn't subsided and maybe it never will. Some days are worse than others. But in the end, when only I will do for Lily, sometimes, only she will do for me.

Leaving Your Child: Part 1

After you have a baby, friends, family and even strangers are constantly giving you advice, invited or uninvited. I've even done it myself with my best friend who recently had her first baby. But in all the "angle their backs when you feed them to reduce gas," and "teething tablets are a God send," no one tells you how difficult it is to return to work. I hope this blog will chronicle my struggle with returning to work and trying to balance it all without going crazy.
Leaving your baby opens a whole new Pandora's box of guilt, stress, and worry. I had to return to teaching f five months ago when my daughter, Lily, was six months old. I was thankful I got to stay longer with her than the short six weeks a lot of working moms get, but it didn't make it any easier. First was finding a daycare provider. I signed up for a church daycare while pregnant thinking signing up almost a year inadvanced would guarantee my daughter a slot. Don't laugh at me. I also had no idea that in a lot of daycares, waiting lists are simply used for people they don't know. If your 'in' with someone on the inside, there are no waiting lists. Luckily (or so I thought), a friends secured me a slot at her son's home daycare when my daughter was barely a month old. Yey! Five months before I needed a daycare provided, I had one lined up.
Ooooh noooo, that fell through too, three months before I had to return to work! So there I was back at the drawing board, calling up every daycare in book just to see if they would have an opening. I toured many daycares too. I remember being most impressed by an 'elite' daycare (to remain unnamed) that appeared amazing: super clean, two teacher for every five babies (which most places- it's ten babies to one a adult), a curriculm, nice facilities, and an outrageous price. But leaving there, I felt like they knew what they were doing. I felt like my daughter would be safe there, but the monthly payment was more than our monthly mortgage bill. So I did the research (I highly recommend this). To my surprise, I actually knew two people who use to work there and both told me stories that horrified me. Apparently, I had just received a wonderful dog and pony show. Good thing it was totally out of my price range.
So when all the large daycares turned me away or put me on outrageously long waiting lists, I started looking at home daycares. Called around, got numbers of local home daycares, and so I started down the list. Two homes had openings, and I arranged to meet with them both.
Appointment one: I asked to come around 4 pm. I thought this was smart, because  I was hoping I would catch other parents arriving to get their children, and I could ask them questions too. Unfortunately, it would not work out that way. I arrived in a farily new neighborhood not too far out of my way. Pulling up in front of the house, I saw a car with a handicap tag in the driveway. Please don't rush to judge and think I have something against the disabled. My own grandmother is disabled, but when it comes to your child, seeing a handicap tag on the caretakers car can be a bit of jolt, especially not knowing what this disability is and if it could effect your child. So I got out of the car and noticed two young men in their twenties sitting on the porch next door (did I mention these houses are really close to each other?). They waved, and I waved back. Approaching the front door, I saw it had two doorbells and a note taped to the glass, "Please ring both bells." Okay, that's weird, I thought, but not too strange. I rang both bells. Waited. Rang again. Nothing. So I peaked inside the window. I saw a large livingroom set up for children, a little table in the corner, a kitchen playset, a pack-in-play, a swing, but no children, no one. So I wondered, did she forget about our meeting? I pulled an old envelope from my purse and began writing a 'Sorry I missed you' note, just as one of the young men next door called to me. "Hey, lady." I looked up. He approached the driveway. "She's home. Just hang on a minute." He pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and in a just a second a heard, "Hey, Mama. There's a lady on your porch. Answer your door." Okay, so was that the disability? Is she deaf? Great. What if she can't hear my baby crying? Again, don't judge.
The door slowly opens. Remember, I told you not to judge me. Put yourself in my shoes and tell me this would not put you off just a little, especially considering I had made an appointment the day before; she knew I was coming. The lady answers the door in pajamas and a housecoat at 4 pm, and when she smiles at me, I see that all her front teeth are gold, and she has her initials in diamonds on her two front teeth. Well, I can't leave now. I can't just say, "Sorry, I think your deaf, and your gold teeth are off putting, so I'm just going to go." I reminded myself, "Remember that amazing daycare? The elite one? They appeared to be so great and weren't. Maybe this lady will be wonderful to your child, maybe she is the person you've been looking for. Give her a chance."
So I do. I shake her hand, walk in, tell her about myself, ask a few questions. I'm surprised that she doesn't ask anything about my daughter. She doesn't seem interested in her at all, doesn't even ask her age. And the most important thing about finding a care-provider for your child, there is no warm, happy feeling. But despite all of that, I ask her for the homecare paperwork. And here's the kicker, she tells me I would have to pay $30 just to see her rules and regulations. Seriously? I can't even hear about your policies without having to pay you? And here's where it got so much worse, I ask her if she has any references, anyone who currently uses her or used her in the past that I could call or could call me. This totally offends her, and she tells me that she is licensed, and I could call DHR if I didn't trust her. (WTF?) Needless to say, I politely thanked her for her time and left.
Appointment two: The other lady, Leslie, who told me she had an opening wouldn't make an appointment with me. Instead, she said to come at anytime other than 1-3pm, because that's when the children napped. She encouraged me to bring my daughter with me, told me she would love to meet her. Leslie actually answered her doorbell and did not have pjs on or gold teeth. After talking for a while, she even asked to hold Lily, and when Lily tried to share her thumb with her, I knew this was the place. She offered me references without me even having to ask, and come to find out, my husband went to high school with her son. The best thing was- Leslie suggested I come a few more times before I made a decision and stay with Lily for a while to get us both use to the idea. I think we did that more for me than Lily.
And that was it, I had found the perfect place to leave my child. Now came leaving her...