A Wife Swap Between Me and Myself

I have had the good fortune recently to have some time off of work and spend quality time with MacBaby. The juxtaposition between working mom and stay at home mom (even for a few days) reminds me of a television program I watched a few years ago.

One night I couldn't sleep and while channel surfing, I found a program where a stay at home mom switched places with her working husband. There were tensions in their marriage because he didn't understand why he never had clean work shirts. Why couldn't she manage a daily load while staying at home with their three children? He warned her of the perils of his taxing job, but they forged ahead with the switch for a week.

At the end of the experiment, the mom revealed she had a great time entering the working world. She enjoyed meeting the dad's clients and spending some time in a professional setting. The dad, on the other hand, looked like he ran through a tornado. Not only did he realize while his laundry wasn't done in a daily basis, but he had a heck of a time adhering to the kids' schedules, making play dates and hosting a neighborhood get together. Then, he took the whole fam to Disney world as an apology for being such an a-hole.

I feel fortunate experience both sides of the situation. When time allows, I love being with my baby and taking care of him. I also like the fact that I can contribute to my family's well being through financial security. Both have their challenges and their rewards. But, it's a lot cozier to cuddle up next to my baby then my computer.

Wherein I Admit I Can't Do It All - Or Sometimes Anything

People tell you that your life will change after you have kids, but you don't realize just how much until you're living it.

During the past seven and a half months, I've uttered the phrase "I can't do everything!" more times than I can count. Some days, though, I struggle with getting anything done, let alone everything.

When you realize you're out of diapers, your child has one clean pair of pants, and there's no food in the house, I call in the reinforcements. Running our household has gone from something I could handle by myself to easily a three person job. Luckily, MacBaby's grandparents and aunts and uncles live conveniently close by and are (usually) happy to come over and help so I don't have a nervous breakdown (she said while putting a dirty bib in the fridge - not the washing machine).

Aside from working, household tasks, and ensuring that MacBaby is taken care of, I have no idea how to fit anything else into my life. The half-hour of daily exercise needed to keep your heart healthy? Yeah, right. Hanging out with friends? Sure - come on over and watch me wipe banana off the little guy's face.

The issue I struggle with the most is date night. It's always a nice time when MacDad and I escape two hours for a nice dinner with a couple of glasses of wine, but I still feel guilty for leaving MacBaby at home. Especially when it's so easy to stay in and cuddle with him.

I know he's in good care with family members, but I don't know how often we should go out a deux or what time of night.

Typically I prefer Saturday nights because we're with him all day, and will still have another day before we head back to work. If we go out at 6, we come back in time to put him to bed, but we're missing awake time with him. If we go out at 7, he'll likely be asleep and won't miss us, but that arduous task is left to other family members.

How do you fit it all in? When do you and your partner spend time together?

Biology vs. Reality

October is National Work and Family Month and as such there's a lot of talk on the internets about women in the workplace.

An article on MSNBC today remarks that finding childcare falls to the mom, even when both parents work full time. Those in favor of work-life initiatives argue that men need to step up in fighting for the cause. I agree, both parties should be responsible for all aspects of parenting. But, there's one problem -- biology.

Even before our children our born, the balance of power is automatically set up so that women are "in charge" of child rearing. We grow children in our bodies. If we choose to breastfeed, we are the sole providers of nutrition for up to a year. I believe this sets up the inequality that women continue to face as they raise their children.

In a perfect world, I would love for my biology to reign over reality. If I stayed hom, MacBaby would never receive formula, could sleep according to his biological clock and would not be rushed out of the house five days a week when he would prefer more time in his Johnny Jump Up.

But, the reality is, I'm a working mom. I want to invest in my 401(k) and save to help MacBaby with his college tuition. I work now for our family's future.

I hope awareness to these issues will result in more flexibility work environments. The results would benefit moms, kids and dads. I just hope our biology doesn't stand in our way.

Start Your Week With a Twist

Slate is featuring Freaky Fortnight in which a staff member is swapping places with his stay at home/freelance writer wife. It should be an interesting read.

While MacDad and I both work, his job is more rigorous and I would not want to change places with him, nor he would he be interested in that prospect. He frequently travels and every time I grill him with "what would you do if I was out of town for a week," he responds with "you can't."

I look forward to following this experiment and seeing how each spouse responds to the shoe on the other foot.

While you're on the site, Slate hosts a weekly discussion of Mad Men. It's sad that I need one of my favorite shows explained to me, but they do a thorough job.

Happy Monday!

Planning for Maternity Leave

Here's a good article about setting your and your employers expectations for maternity leave. I told my boss I was pregnant rather early in case she was wondering why I was looking pale and running to the bathroom all the time.

Working Moms (and Dads) Want to Play Too

I realize I've been posting quite a bit about being a working mom, but just bear with me with this final post on the topic and I'll try to find something else to talk about :)

When I went back to work, I was desperate to find a class or playgroup for MacBaby and I to do together during an evening or weekend. This, it seemed, was an almost impossible task. All fun things for babies and mommies are during the work day. I find this strange for two reasons: 1) I know very few stay at home moms, but these classes are all catered to them and 2) Apparently working dads are incidental in child rearing to early childhood centers.

I finally found one class that I signed up for held one evening a week starting in the fall, but they have yet to confirm my registration due to low participation numbers.

But! MacDad and I successfully took MacBaby to his first parent-child participatory class yesterday - Kidz Rock. The class is geared toward kids zero - five, which turns out to be a fairly substantial age difference. MacBaby was the littlest rocker in the class. He alternated between enthralled and totally freaked. The teacher was all for his participation, though so we'll keep at it. He did get to bang on a drum for a few minutes and seemed to really enjoy that.

Really, it made me feel good being able to take my child to a class that will hopefully be good for his cognitive development and perhaps may lead to him shredding a mean guitar at some point.

More Disses for Working Moms

As if it's not bad enough that my kid realizes when I leave in the morning now and expresses his disappointment with a disconcerted look on his face, The Huffington Post adds to my guilt.

This article states:

As psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth showed in their research, a child needs a 'secure base' in his early years before launching out to explore the world. A strong attachment to his parents in his first years will give a child emotional maturity and a healthy mental development. Otherwise, his social and emotional development will not be normal.

So, my choices are to work to provide food, clothing and shelter for an emotionally stunted child or be bonded to my normal child who goes barefoot because we can't afford to buy him shoes.

Ok. I admit it's not that dramatic. I'm just trying to make a point.

The subject of the article does make an exception for those who have to work.

I'm not talking about mothers that need to work for financial reasons. I'm talking about women who are so caught up in the pressures of society and in their ambitions that they are not brave enough to suspend their careers for their children's sake.

Is there a distinction to your child when he's five months old? It's not like you can explain to him, "I would really like to stay home with you all day, but I'd really like to contribute to your 529, too."

I get her point that there is should be no stigma attached to staying home (see earlier post), but if you're working to achieve financial goals for the betterment of your family, that should be acceptable too. Hopefully my "emotionally stunted" child will thank me when we foot the bill for his college education.

Hi. I'm a Mom. And I Can Have Adult Conversations. FYI.

This weekend, the MacFamily Unit were out and about and ran into some friends at a coffee shop. MacDad was walking around with MacBaby and left me at a table with two gentleman I had never met. The two engaged in conversation, asking one another about their occupations. No one at the table bothered to ask me what I did or my opinion about anyting they were talking about. This annoyed. Big time.

Was I wearing an unattractive nursing bra? Yes. Did I have spit-up on my skirt? Yes. Does this discount me from using my brain? No. Perhaps they assumed that I'm a stay at home mom, which is a fine assumption. I have no issues with stay at home moms and aspire to be one some day (*sigh*).

But, even if I did stay at home, I'm still college educated and pay attention to current events (pop cuture and actual news both). But, I do work and my work is directly related to one of the guy's career plans. Too bad he didn't bother to ask.

And, for all you dudes out there who think taking care of a baby isn't work, I beg to differ. It is far more challenging, physically and mentally, than sitting in an office all day. And, more rewarding to boot.

Have any other mothers out there had an experience where your opinion was automatically discounted because you're just a mom? Did it annoy you as much as it annoyed me?

Should I Move to France to Recevie Acceptable Maternity Benefits?

This article in Newsweek points out that:

In the study of 173 countries, we stood with Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea as the only countries providing no paid maternity leave. Of the 169 countries that guarantee paid maternity leave, 98 of them provide 14 or more weeks. Among wealthy countries—except ours—parents are entitled to as much as 47 weeks of paid family leave.

Why is there not a bigger cry for maternity leave form in the U.S.? I suspect that it goes back to our puritanical roots and our country's "work ethic," in addition to the longtime dominance of the old white men. I could similarly write a whole post about getting a month of for vacation a la Europe, but that's for another time.

I truly believe, though, that reform is necessary. Speaking from my personal experience, my small office offers six weeks of short-term disability coverage. I coupled that with saved vacation days and financial savings to take an additional six weeks off. Though FMLA in larger organizations allows women to take 12 weeks, it does not provide income, making the time off impossible for many women. I was lucky to be able to take advantage of my office's coverage and to be able to plan accordingly for more time.

Why is this an important issue to me? The sooner women return to work, the less likely they are to continue breastfeeding. Although, not every woman opts to breastfeed, we should all have the choice, especially for the first six months of an infants life. According to the World Health Organization, this is the only nutrient necessary.

With my current work schedule, I work four days, then am off for a three day weekend. While I'm home, I am the sole provider of MacBaby's meals. If I didn't have to work, he would never receive formula. As it were, the pumping proved to be ridiculously time consuming, so he does take formula while I'm at work.

Again, I'm not saying everyone must breastfeed their children and that anything else is bad parenting, but we should at least be able to raise our children with our best intentions the way we see fit. The government should want that too.

Ruth Ginsberg Weighs in on Recession Mama Drama

Excerpted from a New York Times Interview:

Q: In the 1980s, you wrote about how while the sphere for women has widened to include more work, men haven’t taken on as much domestic responsibility. Do you think that things are beginning to change?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: That’s going to take time, changing that kind of culture. But looking at my own family, my daughter Jane teaches at Columbia, she travels all over the world, and she has the most outstanding supportive husband who certainly carries his fair share of the load. Although their division of labor is different than mine and my husband’s, because my daughter is a super cook.

Q: Can courts play a role in changing that culture?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The Legislature can make the change, can facilitate the change, as laws like the Family Medical Leave Act do. But it’s not something a court can decree. A court can’t tell the man, You’ve got to do more than carry out the garbage.

LOL!

Recession Mama Drama

According to a Time Magazine article, women are bearing the brunt of the recession, even when it's their husbands who are laid off.

Here's my favorite part: To be sure, many of these cuts affect both the husband and wife, but women — even those who work outside the home — still take on more household responsibilities, including cooking, cleaning and taking care of children, whatever their ages.

There's actual data to back this up in this article from the New York Times: "The most recent figures from the University of Wisconsin’s National Survey of Families and Households show that the average wife does 31 hours of housework a week while the average husband does 14 — a ratio of slightly more than two to one. If you break out couples in which wives stay home and husbands are the sole earners, the number of hours goes up for women, to 38 hours of housework a week, and down a bit for men, to 12, a ratio of more than three to one. That makes sense, because the couple have defined home as one partner’s work.But then break out the couples in which both husband and wife have full-time paying jobs. There, the wife does 28 hours of housework and the husband, 16.

Where the housework ratio is two to one, the wife-to-husband ratio for child care in the United States is close to five to one. In a family where Mom stays home and Dad goes to work, she spends 15 hours a week caring for children and he spends 2. In families in which both parents are wage earners, Mom’s average drops to 11 and Dad’s goes up to 3."

Fascinating trends! Some of us "modern women" are getting wise to this. Kudos to you working ladies who are solely responsibility of their household chores, but I have no idea how I could work all day, come home, take care of MacBaby, cook dinner and clean up. So, I don't. MacDaddy is the Executive Chef of the family (and will be blogging here about cooking in the near future) and the Trashman (most of the time). I am the Baby Food Provider, Laundress, and general cleaner-upper. Diaper duty is divided equally.

MacDaddy and I never sat down and created a chore spreadsheet, our division just happened naturally based on our strengths and weaknesses. However, gender chore sharing is a movement! With actual names! It's known as Equally Shared Parenting or Third Path.

Perhaps another silver lining to the recession, in addition to helping the collective "us" curb spending, is the media attention to traditional gender roles.

How do you deal with chore division in your family? Has the recession impacted your routine?

I Love My Country Execpt When it Comes to Maternity Leave (Happy 4th!)

To mark Sarah Palin's decision to stop governing Alaska, here's an article that appeared during election season about what her potential vice presidency would say about working moms.

According to the article, Palin went back to work a mere three days after giving birth to her son Trig and breastfed during meetings. Three days after giving birth to MacBaby I still couldn't walk to the toilet by myself, much less check and respond to an email. As for breastfeeding during meetings, this isn't really an option for most of us. I don't think I could ever look our CEO in the eye again if my boob accidentally popped out. So, politicians, advocate for maternity leave rights. While this is a great country, let's look back to Europe for the example of post partum care for mamas and babies.