I sat in a tedious 3.5 hour meeting, was bombarded with problems, and wrapped it up with an email from someone in another part of the state who sent me something to review and comment on because it's really urgent and they need it this weekend, with no background and it made no sense, and I could respond nicely and laugh. And I am pulled more deeply into company operations and asked for my opinion with every email and phone call and "I need to ask you...." So though I whine about brain overload, I'm glad to be where I am, doing what I do, because it's challenging and interesting and dammit, it's fun when it's not pissing me off. And even when it's pissing me off it's still fun, because I can rant to people who get it and laugh with me. And I wouldn't have gotten to this point now if I hadn't slogged it out in the trenches, doing time in the unexciting jobs when my kids were young. And those kids? Are more than fine. They are people I like to know and am proud of - very smart, funny, compassionate, generous, independent nice adults.
And I'm glad I'm where I am, and I'm glad they are the way they are, and we all got there on the same family trip - and God knows it wasn't an easy one. But we all survived the hard trip of the last 5 years and I'm damned proud. And I'm grateful that it all worked out this way. Just thought I'd share that, for the working moms who get grief for their choices. You'll survive the shit from the housewives - it's just bitchiness. You'll also be ready to deal with whatever life throws at you. And that's what counts, for you and your family.
5 comments:
amen sister. mark & i are working hard to make sure that our boys grow up to be good fathers, and gentlemen, and yes, sean goes to daycare every day. and liam did til he turned 13. because of sean being the way he is, he needs the socialization he gets from daycare, without the pressures of school (he hates his teacher, and is having trouble with it and the other students). and yes, if your kids are gainfully employed (albeit maybe not so happily, who would love to work at a theme park??? (forgive me if i'm wrong, maybe it's just you that doesn't like it , lol)) and happy mature adults (for their ages, lol), then to hell with everyone else who wants to judge.
Oh no, I'm sorry if I gave the wrong impression - my daughter loves her job, she makes decent money, has full benefits and loves her co-workers - it's a pretty decent job. She graduates in early August (if all the paperwork gods smile upon her) I don't know if she'll stay there until law school or find something else. After one of my 3.5 hour meetings I want to go down there and get a job too!
Oh, and I don't feel judged - never have! Either I was blissfully unware of the Evils of Working Motherhood or, as I suspect, this Mommy War crap is a relatively recent development in ways women are rotten to each other. It pisses me off to see it happening to young moms. (Can you tell?) :-)
If you follow the education/psychology news, they've been talking about bullying for about 10 years now. The latest theory is that Girls are actually worse bullies than Boys are. Boys will taunt a little and then beat on you, Girls will go after the psyche. Really terrible stuff that would make AbuGrav look like joke. The thing is, Boys are taught (and eventually learn, most of them) that bullies are bad people and nobody likes them, so they stop bullying. Somehow, that never happens to Girls. So the bullying continues and escalates into High School and beyond. Scientists (and thereby Schools) are starting to really recognize that some of the things that Girls do are actually torturing others. It's amazing and scary what shows up on hidden cameras.
It makes me wonder if some of this Mommy-War Bitchiness is a hold-over of bully-mentality. I personally was a bullied child and I take the live and let live/whatever makes you happy stance. So it makes me wonder if the vehemence of the women on this (and similar debates) has any correlation to whether she was a bully or a victim in the playground.
-Auntie M
I wasn't the bully or the victim, I was the Peacemaker and always concerned about Fairness. I hadn't thought of this in bullying terms but of course it is - take a young mother, worried enough about her parenting decisions as we all are, and then tell her that not only is she making a bad choice, but she's sending her child into a virtual hell (daycare), she's a bad mother, selfish, even if her child "seems happy" it can't be true, and on and on. It absolutely is bullying.
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