A Working Mother's Secret

I am a working mother with a secret; I want to be a stay-at-home mom. As surprising as this may be for you to read it was even more so the day I admitted it to myself. On the morning of my 29th birthday I was up before my 6:30 alarm. Not in any rush to get my day started I sat on the edge of my bed staring out the window. As I watched the sunrise thru the pine trees behind my metro Atlanta home I was overwhelmed with sadness. A thought had descended upon me that was as clear as the Fall sky outside. I am 29, tired, and I want to be a stay-at-home mom.

Until that moment I had never admitted that to myself. The truth is, until that moment I didn't know that thought was there to admit. It was a secret so closely guarded that I had managed to keep it from myself. As I continued staring out the window, both shocked and satisfied by my admission I realized that my epiphany had come, not the morning of my birthday, but several weeks before.

I was watching a weekly news magazine show which featured a story about professional women who had given up their hard earned climbs up the ladder to be stay at home moms. I watched as the interviewer, also a woman, questioned whether these women were being antifeminists in their choice to stay at home. She suggested that the choices of these highly educated, highly trained professionals could cause a backlash in the workplace; making it seem, once again, a risky decision to hire mothers, or women for that matter. The panel of new stay-at-home moms fired back in unanimous declaration. Their choice was to be where their roles were more important and fulfilling; in the home.

Their words convicted me. I shared their resolve. But while I agreed with this panel of mothers on every point, feeling that in the same position I would make the same choice, I am unlike these women in a very crucial way. All the women on the panel were married and I am not. I am a single parent; working is not a choice, it is a necessity.

So as I sat on the edge of my bed that morning, twenty-nine, tired, and ready to trade in the grind for life as a stay-at-home mom, truth set in. Without a gainfully employed husband, independent wealth, or lottery windfall at my disposal my work free existence was more fantasy than attainable reality. Practical person that I am, I bargained with myself for the next best thing; I can work from home.

Yes. I'll be a work-from-home mom. There will be no commute and enough time in the morning for exercise and a real breakfast. I will set my own schedule and work at my own pace. I will create a work day that ends early enough for me to meet the school bus and start dinner before sunset; a work day in which I will no longer have to schedule the first doctor or dentist appointment of the day, or insist that teacher conferences be held during my lunch hour. And as I go about my work-from-home day, adhering to my own schedule at my own pace, I will write. And people will pay me for it. And if somehow in this new work day of mine I begin to feel tired it is perfectly OK because a couch on which to nap is merely a few steps away; ah, working-from-home.

I realize, of course, that I am romanticizing. Once in a while when I manage to go off-campus for lunch I find myself sitting at a red light and I'll look over and see a mom in the car next to me; child in the car seat, dog in the back. I give her this longing look, willing her to trade places with me. As the light changes and I watch my fantasy disappear on the wheels of an SUV I bring myself back to my reality. I have no choice. I must work. But now I have a plan, and the first step in my work-from-home plan is crucial. I must write.

So I do what single mothers do, I work. I've dusted off my journals and booted up the computer. I write; stories, articles, poetry, random thoughts as they float in and out of my head. I write. Now in the mornings I wake up before my alarm and I get my daughter off to school; I pack my lunch and grab my yogurt smoothie on the way to the car; and as I pull out of my driveway and head off to work with another story working itself out in my head I dream. I dream of the morning where the furthest I will have to commute will be down two flights of stairs to my basement.

At times I still find myself stopped at a red light idling next to a mom with child and dog in tow. I look over as I once did but I no longer desire to trade places. I've accepted the grass on my side of the fence; I am a mom who must work. But I am also a mom with a plan and knowing this makes it OK to watch my former dream drive away on the wheels of an SUV.