Get a job

Someone said this to me recently. I was joking about how I'd like an intern to help me with my housework so I could have more time to play with my kids and write. I laughed it off at the time, but I shouldn't have.

The correct response: I already have one. Or two. Or three. Just as it's not cool to let a racist comment slide unnoticed, we shouldn't just accept sexism.

I've seen both sides of the mother story. I was a working mom when I had just one child and chose to stay home as our family grew. And at the time I chose to work, I had people make the comment, "Be a mother." This is exactly the opposite of the comment made to me recently, and it illustrates a glaring fact:

Women, we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. And society thinks it's OK to judge us in a way they'd never consider judging fathers. (They unfairly judge fathers in other ways, like "he shouldn't stay at home with the kids or be a Brownies leader.")

So, just to make me feel better, here's my snarky response to my former male co-worker who thinks I need a job to justify having help around the house:

The minute you can nurse my infant, feed and dress my children, start a load of laundry, interview sources, write an article, take the kids to the doctor, visit Santa, drop off my husband's dry cleaning, cook dinner, play trains, attend a play date, and get everyone bathed and to bed in a timely fashion, feel free to come over and judge my schedule. Until then, I'll be doing the best I can.

And I still think I could use an intern. So there.

Reading Votes for Women

This former managing editor targets exactly how it feels to want a career and home life.

Out of focus

I do everything in two to three minute movements, so I rarely feel focused on one task. I'm often working to a symphony of, "Mommy, can I have a glass of water?" and the primitive grunts and leg tugging of my one year old.

So things don't always get done the way they should. The water bill gets missed in the stack of junk mail and I sheepishly discover it a few days later when I'm stacking the magazines I subscribe to but never get a chance to read. The laundry gets stacked but I don't notice the stack of folded socks until I sit on them. And if it doesn't make it on the calendar, it doesn't happen.

I like to blame it on constant distractions from my two little whirling dervishes. And I sometimes remember with great fondness the long stretches of quiet thinking time I used to enjoy at work when I shut my office door.

Still, I'd rather be getting some done with my two little distractions than checking off everything on my list while someone else gets cuddles from my babies.

The best choice for you

A little over a year ago, I quit work to stay home with my kids. My son, D, was 3, his sister a newborn. D had been going to school at the same preschool for three years--since he was 4 and a half months old. And he had a crew of friends he'd hung with—literally—since birth.

So I guess it should be no surprise that, as we were preparing for his birthday party this weekend, he asked me, "Mommy, can we invite Ian?"

He hasn't seen Ian in a year. But in his 3-year-old mind, his best friend Ian has to be at his birthday party. And his favorite teacher of all time is definitely Ms. Tina, his last teacher at daycare.

Sure, he went to a preschool this year for about five hours a week to make friends and continue learning in a school-like setting. But his heart is still with his old class and his old friends.

Ask him any day, "Do you want to go to see Ian and Ms. Tina or stay home with mom and see your new friends?" He definitely prefers me at home.

Sometimes he still asks, "Mom, are you not going to go to work anymore?" I explain I work at home now—taking care of him and his sister and doing freelance work. But I don't need to feel bad about the time he spent in daycare. The pluses were numerous. His daycare was at his daddy's office, so he got daddy time on their rides in. My husband visited him at breaks and lunchtime, going down to give bottles of expressed milk when he was an infant and then just to play and visit when he got older.

With a new family member in the house, it was time for me to be here. More time for both kids, and for my husband. We eat healthier and live healthier in a more stress free environment. But ... sometimes I still feel a little guilty for taking D away from his favorite friends and teachers. Heck, there are no easy choices. We're all just doing the best we can, right?