Mom works

I told myself for as long as I can remember that when I have kids I will not work for the first five years of their lives, which, recounting now I see that I would have taken off a lot more than five years unless I planned on having back to back children. At any rate, it was a rude awakening to have to put my child into daycare at 4.5 months old. Luckily, my child is highly social and very easily bored so daycare, particularly the one she attends, is a great fit for her. On the weeks when I do keep her home, either because she is under the weather or daycare is taking a break, she seems to find the humdrum of our daily lives rather unsatisfactory. She seems to prefer when the action knob is turned up, the visitors are coming in and out frequently and the scenery is changing often. While I try to control my child's external stimuli a little bit, fact of the matter is, the girl likes action. The apple once again falling close to the tree.

Believe me, I recite the latter paragraph to myself on a near daily basis. Because no matter how content she is at daycare, I feel an unrelenting guilt about not being able to keep her home. The story I tell myself more often than I care to is that I have failed as a mother, right out the gate, by not being able to observe her every moment of development.

The next monologue that goes through my riddled with guilt mind is that its good for her to see her mommy succeed. The world is a different place. When she is grown, chances are she will be the primary breadwinner. Rates of depression for women have drastically decreased and they hypothesize that this is partly due to much better psychotropics but also because women are doing what actually makes them happy, which by in large, isn't staying at home. The guilt though, which I will continue to go back to, is formidable. I suppose it helps that we don't really have a choice. We could technically live off of one salary but in all honesty, I'm not willing to be that poor. I went to school for 20 years. I love what I do. When E asks me what it is I do everyday, I can't wait to show her.