So I done got told to update this blog for goodness sakes. The last thing I had up here was so depressing.
Well, it rightly was. I have depression. I have anxiety. Hello - means often times my thoughts are actually depressing. :) Fancy that.
What had precipitated the last post was the fact that my brother, whom I knew had been looking for reasons to fully distance himself from the family, finally found what it was he needed as an excuse and decided I was no longer a good enough influence on his child and therefore he wouldn't be bringing her near me again. Now let me assure you that what he found pales in comparison to some of his nasty habits, and it's not even my habit that has him making this decision...but whatever. I'm tired of clawing at things that would eliminate his excuses. I don't want him in my life if he doesn't want to be in mine. With that realization, which admittedly came AFTER the last blog post, I found a liberating peace in my life. While it's been painful to have to tell my mom that her kids won't likely be in the same room for a good many years, she's had her own similar experiences with her own brothers, and I think she understands. Besides which, she's good at staying out of things...so there's that.
But after that moment of liberation, I started to plot a course to better things, and the tide is finally shifting in my favour. I've been offered a new job with more money and better title and better learning opportunities. It's a really exciting change that I think will be better for our family in the long run.
It's not coming without it's fair share of anxiety. At the moment I feel like a great big bungled up ball of whoa...and there's no way to release it because I can't submit my resignation for at least 1 more week. The biggest anxiety I'm having though is putting my daughter back into a daycare situation. There's no way to make it work with commuting to stay home til she goes to school, and be home in time to collect her from school. They don't give parents 5 hour workdays and pay them this great. SO, we're trying to lock down on a sitter that makes the most sense, but it's breaking my heart already. She's been in daycare before. But it seems like I'm giving up the cup of christ by handing her over. It's no easier than when I did it the first time. That's because no matter what job I do for another company, it will always be at odds with my baser instincts of being a mom first.
But onward and upward. In 20 years, when my daughter heads off on her own path, she'll have seen an example in her mother of a woman who stopped at nothing to ensure her family was well provided for, and who broke herself in two trying to be everything to her and her daddy. Not such an awful legacy to leave behind. She'll have witnessed confidence in the face of adversity, and thoughtfulness in a woman who truly looked for every possible way to make the best decisions for her family each and every single day. She'll see a woman who spent as much time with her child as humanly possible, playing, engaging, and caretaking...and she'll see a woman who hopefully made the world outside our home just that little bit better.
Right?
The big job changes come at the end of the month and hopefully keep me busy and engaged and inspired for a good number of years to come. I'm beginning the second half of my work journey - and I'm hoping it's a wild and woolly ride!
Onward and Upward.
Showing posts with label daycare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label daycare. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
A Woman's Balance
I read an article this morning on Linkedin wherein I found the contents somewhat repetitive of other similar articles I'd read elsewhere. The article titled I'm Not Balancing Work and Life, and I Feel Great, pretty much tried to give the impression that when you do what you love and you have a family that lets you do it, there is no such thing as a struggle for balance because it inherently exists. The argument is simply that doing what makes you happy is all the balance you need, and as long as the kids are taken care of, what's the big deal?
The comments as you can imagine were far more interesting than the article. Many calling out exactly the issue with this argument for the general populace, which is simply put, not everyone can afford to offload their kids and not think twice about it.
I've read other articles by high ranking female executives who talk frankly how they are both in a flexible work arrangement where they set their own hours, and who have the financial means to buy the support they need at home. They either have a full time live in nanny, and/or a spouse that either has similar flexibilities / finances OR who is willing to support the primary worker by sacrificing their own career to stay at home with the children. In all cases, the word balance comes with a steep price tag. Balance in any of those reports only calls out how affluent you are and how fortunate it is to be able to "buy" flexibility when you need it. And in all cases too, it's critical not to overlook what I like to call the "Quota Quotient". The ratio of female executives and CEO's as compared to male executives is still a product of inequality in the workforce. Any woman who has made it to the top of the career ladder must still prove that they are worthy of being there for their skills and actual value rather than the fact that their gender satisfies a company's male to female ratios in support of their diverse work culture policies. This naturally translates to a need then that they have to reinforce that their work dedication is no different in absolutely any way to that of their male counterparts. If it's harder for them in any way shape or form, it's riskier and it's perceived as a blatant lack of dedication or loyalty to the company and it's profitable outcomes. We want so much to believe that feminism has been a blanket success, and in the face of providing the "other side" any ammunition to to the contrary, well, we'll opt every time to prove that we can have and do it all, the way our fore-mothers fought for our rights to have it that way. Especially if the perception of our current status is that we've already won the battle.
I have similarly found a level of balance that makes me happy...but here is the key...I'm happy with it most of the time. There is no such thing as equally weighted balance, and I make sacrifices every day in my career to facilitate more time with my child. I was fortunate enough to be able to hire a nanny when I first returned to work after maternity leave, AND was fortunate enough to change my work arrangements in such a way that I was able to work from home full time when I returned to work. This meant I really got to extend my time with my child beyond my sanctioned maternity leave, and enjoyed that much more "parenting" time, without putting my job at risk. When the nanny moved on, and we started our child in preschool, again, it was disruptive and I struggled (still do most days) with the choice to work rather than raise and take care of her full time. I was still fortunate enough to be able to work from home, and so, I'm not losing 2 hours or more every day with a commute, and that 2 hours more I can spend with my child each and every day. When my systems shuts off at 4 pm, it doesn't go back on until 7:30 am the next morning. If I have evening calls with Asia, it's done after my child is in bed, and very rarely before. On the rarest occasions when things have to overlap and work infringes on my time with my child, my husband has to step in and do it alone, but more often than not, she's sitting on my lap colouring and drawing while I listen to the conference call on mute. Again, I have more flexibility than your average Jane, and I know I'd struggle immensely managing my family priorities if I had just the 2 hour commute to deal with even.
A complicating factor however is my husband's job. While he's very much a hands on dad, and spends as much time as possible with us doing the family thing, there isn't the same appreciation for familial responsibilities with his job. His commute is a total of 3 hours every single day. It significantly reduces his time with the family, AND means that I am the one who takes every single sick day, who takes the burden of most of the child rearing responsibilities and who absorbs the daily tasks of meal preparations, dishes and house cleaning. We're not financially free enough to afford a housekeeper or other types of domestic help. And our child was sick for over a year. This meant my career really took the back seat and it meant that I worked during naps and every spare singular moment on those sick days so that I could avoid losing my job due to excessive absences. The company I work for is more awesome than most at providing the kinds of flexibility that made this possible, but it took them a lot of years to recognize and acknowledge the lesson. And it also means that it's hard to reignite my career trajectory, now that my child is healthier and there's more room in my life to prioritize work. As they say, the damage may have been done. For someone at the top of the career ladder, this is likely less of a concern weighing on the sleepy mind of a mother who is trying to balance the priorities of work and her family.
So here's my message for let's say, new mom's who are returning to work for the first time, and facing the fact that they'll have to leave their children in the hands of potentially strangers, for care between the hours of 7 til 6, Monday to Friday. Find as much flexibility as you physically can in your job without jeopardizing the fact that you have one. Remember to choose caregivers you trust and keep a hawk eye on the care they are giving your child. TALK to your children every single day about their day, no matter how young they are, so that they open up and actually tell you what happened. Eventually, their vocabularies will catch up, and you'll know more than you probably ever wanted to. Remember that you working, is as much about making your family a priority and providing for them as staying home would be. AND, remember that you are more capable than you think you are. Balance for average working moms is really about the quality of the time you are spending with your kids. So involve them in your chores, and make the work to up keep the house feel more like fun. Get your itty bitty's helping with dinner preparation, or let them paint at the table while you do dishes. Let the living room be less tidy than the dining room, and play with them while you have your tea and watch the news. Make baths fun, and crash at 9pm. Take them grocery shopping, and find a babysitter once every couple of months to watch the kids while you and the spouse do something grown up - like getting beer and wings at a restaurant and watching a grown up movie, you know, at the actual theatre. Work is work, and it's important. But remember it's a tool to buy you more time with your kids. Prioritize it this way, and you'll see some semblance of a balance, in a ratio that works better for you.
AND DON'T READ the articles by women executives thinking they've figured out some magic math that affords them better balance than you can achieve. The only thing they figured out was how to prioritize work so they could afford more support at home with the kids.
The comments as you can imagine were far more interesting than the article. Many calling out exactly the issue with this argument for the general populace, which is simply put, not everyone can afford to offload their kids and not think twice about it.
I've read other articles by high ranking female executives who talk frankly how they are both in a flexible work arrangement where they set their own hours, and who have the financial means to buy the support they need at home. They either have a full time live in nanny, and/or a spouse that either has similar flexibilities / finances OR who is willing to support the primary worker by sacrificing their own career to stay at home with the children. In all cases, the word balance comes with a steep price tag. Balance in any of those reports only calls out how affluent you are and how fortunate it is to be able to "buy" flexibility when you need it. And in all cases too, it's critical not to overlook what I like to call the "Quota Quotient". The ratio of female executives and CEO's as compared to male executives is still a product of inequality in the workforce. Any woman who has made it to the top of the career ladder must still prove that they are worthy of being there for their skills and actual value rather than the fact that their gender satisfies a company's male to female ratios in support of their diverse work culture policies. This naturally translates to a need then that they have to reinforce that their work dedication is no different in absolutely any way to that of their male counterparts. If it's harder for them in any way shape or form, it's riskier and it's perceived as a blatant lack of dedication or loyalty to the company and it's profitable outcomes. We want so much to believe that feminism has been a blanket success, and in the face of providing the "other side" any ammunition to to the contrary, well, we'll opt every time to prove that we can have and do it all, the way our fore-mothers fought for our rights to have it that way. Especially if the perception of our current status is that we've already won the battle.
I have similarly found a level of balance that makes me happy...but here is the key...I'm happy with it most of the time. There is no such thing as equally weighted balance, and I make sacrifices every day in my career to facilitate more time with my child. I was fortunate enough to be able to hire a nanny when I first returned to work after maternity leave, AND was fortunate enough to change my work arrangements in such a way that I was able to work from home full time when I returned to work. This meant I really got to extend my time with my child beyond my sanctioned maternity leave, and enjoyed that much more "parenting" time, without putting my job at risk. When the nanny moved on, and we started our child in preschool, again, it was disruptive and I struggled (still do most days) with the choice to work rather than raise and take care of her full time. I was still fortunate enough to be able to work from home, and so, I'm not losing 2 hours or more every day with a commute, and that 2 hours more I can spend with my child each and every day. When my systems shuts off at 4 pm, it doesn't go back on until 7:30 am the next morning. If I have evening calls with Asia, it's done after my child is in bed, and very rarely before. On the rarest occasions when things have to overlap and work infringes on my time with my child, my husband has to step in and do it alone, but more often than not, she's sitting on my lap colouring and drawing while I listen to the conference call on mute. Again, I have more flexibility than your average Jane, and I know I'd struggle immensely managing my family priorities if I had just the 2 hour commute to deal with even.
A complicating factor however is my husband's job. While he's very much a hands on dad, and spends as much time as possible with us doing the family thing, there isn't the same appreciation for familial responsibilities with his job. His commute is a total of 3 hours every single day. It significantly reduces his time with the family, AND means that I am the one who takes every single sick day, who takes the burden of most of the child rearing responsibilities and who absorbs the daily tasks of meal preparations, dishes and house cleaning. We're not financially free enough to afford a housekeeper or other types of domestic help. And our child was sick for over a year. This meant my career really took the back seat and it meant that I worked during naps and every spare singular moment on those sick days so that I could avoid losing my job due to excessive absences. The company I work for is more awesome than most at providing the kinds of flexibility that made this possible, but it took them a lot of years to recognize and acknowledge the lesson. And it also means that it's hard to reignite my career trajectory, now that my child is healthier and there's more room in my life to prioritize work. As they say, the damage may have been done. For someone at the top of the career ladder, this is likely less of a concern weighing on the sleepy mind of a mother who is trying to balance the priorities of work and her family.
So here's my message for let's say, new mom's who are returning to work for the first time, and facing the fact that they'll have to leave their children in the hands of potentially strangers, for care between the hours of 7 til 6, Monday to Friday. Find as much flexibility as you physically can in your job without jeopardizing the fact that you have one. Remember to choose caregivers you trust and keep a hawk eye on the care they are giving your child. TALK to your children every single day about their day, no matter how young they are, so that they open up and actually tell you what happened. Eventually, their vocabularies will catch up, and you'll know more than you probably ever wanted to. Remember that you working, is as much about making your family a priority and providing for them as staying home would be. AND, remember that you are more capable than you think you are. Balance for average working moms is really about the quality of the time you are spending with your kids. So involve them in your chores, and make the work to up keep the house feel more like fun. Get your itty bitty's helping with dinner preparation, or let them paint at the table while you do dishes. Let the living room be less tidy than the dining room, and play with them while you have your tea and watch the news. Make baths fun, and crash at 9pm. Take them grocery shopping, and find a babysitter once every couple of months to watch the kids while you and the spouse do something grown up - like getting beer and wings at a restaurant and watching a grown up movie, you know, at the actual theatre. Work is work, and it's important. But remember it's a tool to buy you more time with your kids. Prioritize it this way, and you'll see some semblance of a balance, in a ratio that works better for you.
AND DON'T READ the articles by women executives thinking they've figured out some magic math that affords them better balance than you can achieve. The only thing they figured out was how to prioritize work so they could afford more support at home with the kids.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Random Thoughts
So, it's been a bit insane (no pun intended) in my neck of the woods lately.
I'm pretty sure the phrase "nothing can prepare you for children" isn't an unfamiliar phrase to anyone.
I'll be very clear, I was as mentally prepared for motherhood as anyone could imagine being. I'm level headed, I don't generally freak out when my child bumps her head or scratches her knee. I anticipated post partum depression, and I knew how to take care of her when she arrived (for the most part). I wasn't scared to breast feed, bottle feed, or deal with poopy bums and other unsavoury things. I was even prepared to get puked on a lot. But she has terrified me to my very core without even trying, and has sent me on the longest treks of head hanging guilty feelings, and seemingly endless tears, several times.
And what this means is having a child, no matter how "stable" you are, can and will shake the very foundation of that mental stability to it's core. Maintaining your own mental health is never more important than when another little living soul is dependent on you for every breath they take. My toddler got sick this weekend. This isn't very surprising. Since she started in a preschool daycare setting in March, and we've been sick just about every other week in this house since then. Not foregoing the fact that she's been sick enough to be hospitalized for the last two August long weekends of her short life already. I figure we're gearing up for a doozy in two weeks. Now, when a child is sick with even the faintest sniffle or sneeze, the world comes screeching to a halt, at least for mommy's. With one arm holding a toddler, juice cup, bunny and snot rag, and doing all your other life/house sustaining things with your free hand, life becomes nothing short of chaos, and confusion. Add more sleep deprivation to an already disrupted sleep cycle, and an inability to keep up with those key responsibilities that keep your family on an even keel, and you have a real recipe for disaster.
Oh, and the more this goes on, the more worn down you become, the more likely you are to get sick with whatever they have, and the more likely you are to get depressed and anxious because you feel like it will. never. get. better. Couldn't possibly, because it's like you've jumped on a germy hamster wheel of misfortune. And let me tell you something, if Lady Fortune is fickle, the Madame Misfortune is pretty fucking evil.
All this got me to thinking though, about the statistics and information we hear about who is affected by mental health. Anyone who lives with a mental illness will tell you that it's not surprising that everyone in the world is affected by issues related to mental health in some way. But moreover, I've been told by a health care professional who cared for people mental health disorders like depression and anxiety (the ones I suffer with), that these types of patients are generally intelligent, over achievers who are extremely critical of their own perceived failures.
SO, give over to any over achieving mom, and I'm going to tell you that the stats for people affected by depression are probably exponentially higher for working moms over stay at home moms, and are probably greater still for working mom's whose children are not with another member of the family for their day to day care. And that got me wondering if this was in any way related to the pressures of corporate America, and moreover that so many women are now also the breadwinners in their families. While the article's main subjects demonstrate a gender role reversal of the marital partners, I would speculate based on my own experience that this is by in large a rarity. In my own case, I'm still the primary care giver and the fact that I'm the breadwinner is as much the reason for flexibility in my day to day schedule, as it is for the added pressure and responsibility I feel day in and day out. The more balls you are juggling in the air, the more responsibility you have, the greater the opportunity is that something will fail, break or just plain not be good enough by our own over achieving standards. And then you feel all those trigger feelings. Just as it is with any diet, if you don't leave yourself enough time to nurture your emotions and your mind, and find your zen as they say, how can you possibly expect to stay healthy?
So, I have to say, that all the employee assistance programs in the world (like this one) are only going to be so helpful. We need equality of pay, equal opportunities for everyone regardless or race, gender, age, or physical challenge, and that goes for the home and child rearing responsibilities as well as the for workplace. Perhaps patience is the key. It's taken a long time for women to achieve this level of equality. I guess I can hope that by the time my daughter is dealing with all these adult life things, that her spouse is the kind who will contribute equally, both to the household income and the family care.
With all that said, it's also true when they say:
"it's worth it a million times over. And I'd do it again without even blinking an eyelash."
I'm pretty sure the phrase "nothing can prepare you for children" isn't an unfamiliar phrase to anyone.
I'll be very clear, I was as mentally prepared for motherhood as anyone could imagine being. I'm level headed, I don't generally freak out when my child bumps her head or scratches her knee. I anticipated post partum depression, and I knew how to take care of her when she arrived (for the most part). I wasn't scared to breast feed, bottle feed, or deal with poopy bums and other unsavoury things. I was even prepared to get puked on a lot. But she has terrified me to my very core without even trying, and has sent me on the longest treks of head hanging guilty feelings, and seemingly endless tears, several times.
And what this means is having a child, no matter how "stable" you are, can and will shake the very foundation of that mental stability to it's core. Maintaining your own mental health is never more important than when another little living soul is dependent on you for every breath they take. My toddler got sick this weekend. This isn't very surprising. Since she started in a preschool daycare setting in March, and we've been sick just about every other week in this house since then. Not foregoing the fact that she's been sick enough to be hospitalized for the last two August long weekends of her short life already. I figure we're gearing up for a doozy in two weeks. Now, when a child is sick with even the faintest sniffle or sneeze, the world comes screeching to a halt, at least for mommy's. With one arm holding a toddler, juice cup, bunny and snot rag, and doing all your other life/house sustaining things with your free hand, life becomes nothing short of chaos, and confusion. Add more sleep deprivation to an already disrupted sleep cycle, and an inability to keep up with those key responsibilities that keep your family on an even keel, and you have a real recipe for disaster.
Oh, and the more this goes on, the more worn down you become, the more likely you are to get sick with whatever they have, and the more likely you are to get depressed and anxious because you feel like it will. never. get. better. Couldn't possibly, because it's like you've jumped on a germy hamster wheel of misfortune. And let me tell you something, if Lady Fortune is fickle, the Madame Misfortune is pretty fucking evil.
All this got me to thinking though, about the statistics and information we hear about who is affected by mental health. Anyone who lives with a mental illness will tell you that it's not surprising that everyone in the world is affected by issues related to mental health in some way. But moreover, I've been told by a health care professional who cared for people mental health disorders like depression and anxiety (the ones I suffer with), that these types of patients are generally intelligent, over achievers who are extremely critical of their own perceived failures.
SO, give over to any over achieving mom, and I'm going to tell you that the stats for people affected by depression are probably exponentially higher for working moms over stay at home moms, and are probably greater still for working mom's whose children are not with another member of the family for their day to day care. And that got me wondering if this was in any way related to the pressures of corporate America, and moreover that so many women are now also the breadwinners in their families. While the article's main subjects demonstrate a gender role reversal of the marital partners, I would speculate based on my own experience that this is by in large a rarity. In my own case, I'm still the primary care giver and the fact that I'm the breadwinner is as much the reason for flexibility in my day to day schedule, as it is for the added pressure and responsibility I feel day in and day out. The more balls you are juggling in the air, the more responsibility you have, the greater the opportunity is that something will fail, break or just plain not be good enough by our own over achieving standards. And then you feel all those trigger feelings. Just as it is with any diet, if you don't leave yourself enough time to nurture your emotions and your mind, and find your zen as they say, how can you possibly expect to stay healthy?
So, I have to say, that all the employee assistance programs in the world (like this one) are only going to be so helpful. We need equality of pay, equal opportunities for everyone regardless or race, gender, age, or physical challenge, and that goes for the home and child rearing responsibilities as well as the for workplace. Perhaps patience is the key. It's taken a long time for women to achieve this level of equality. I guess I can hope that by the time my daughter is dealing with all these adult life things, that her spouse is the kind who will contribute equally, both to the household income and the family care.
With all that said, it's also true when they say:
"it's worth it a million times over. And I'd do it again without even blinking an eyelash."
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