A couple of months ago I made plans to take a day off to take Finley and her sisters, on the last pre-k field trip of the year. I had the niggling suspicion that things would not go as planned. Sure enough, my schedule at work started to grind and churn, each day feeling more and more like a log jam bearing down on me. When the field trip day came I made sure that everyone still wanted to go.
Briar looked at me nodding, “Of course we do, Mom.” I smiled remembering her first day of school and the blur of firsts and lasts that followed.
Avery looked up at me after lacing her shoes. “Yeah, I want to go, I can tell them how much I know about beavers.” The timidity she began school with has been replaced by a brazen confidence, but her inimitable Averyness is still there in spades.
Finley said, “Girls, girls, listen, it’s going to be great. I will show you all my classmates. Right, mama?” She still struggles to make an r not sound like a w and when she wants to look serious she tucks her hair, that I used to pull in messy twists, behind her ears.
The thing I’ve learned over the nearly nine years I’ve been throwing this clay pot of working mom, is that I can’t plan for everything. The truth is that I navigate the school year with a combination of high heels, work gloves, and tissues for my tears. I sign up for some field trips, while others I don’t. Some days I snap pictures of every little thing, other days I put the 18th connect-the-dots worksheet from school into the recycling bin.
This particular field trip is one that I attended several years ago with Avery as the student and Fin as the tag-a-long sister. It was a buggy, overcast day. It was also the time when dragon flies hatch. I’m comfortable saying that I enjoy being in nature, but I am not a fan of living, breathing, flapping nature being on me. My attendance became legendary, as one teacher often reminded me at morning drop-off, “You were just so afraid of the bugs, weren’t ‘cha?” laughing and elbowing in my direction at morning drop off. Over time I stopped caring, playing along and laughing, “You bet, I’m a big, old bug hater.” There are other comments too, “You won’t forget Pajama Day this year, will ya? No, you’re a good mom, that time you forgot you ran right out and bought some.” I wince, owning that details slip through the cracks when a backpack travels in different cars to and from home, school, Nana’s and home again and between dinner, bedtime, and the morning sprint.
But do we have to go back time after time and replay it? Monday we did. She greeted us with a huge shout to the other parents, “Look at Amanda, she’s got a whole pack. Remember the time you came and you were so afraid of the bugs? She’s prepared this year!” I laughed and brandished our Bite Back bug repellent.The big girls raced across the beach busting with pride that as the oldest kids they could tear away from the pack.
As Finley played, the teacher came over and said, “You made it? Remember when you had to miss Avery’s graduation? Remember how upset you were?” then she just walked away. I looked out at Briar and Avery, not wanting to reveal just how fully her words had knocked the breath out of me. It was three years ago. I’d had an awards ceremony to attend for work. Yes, I was disappointed, but we worked through it as a family. I attended the rehearsal with Sean and Finley, we arranged for Nana and Jeannie to accompany her to her official ceremony. I could show more pictures, share more stories, but somehow that doesn’t matter. Other moms swat at the bugs, but I get singled out.
I don’t know when we started graduating from every grade, celebrating every obscure holiday with gift bags and costumes. I don’t know when it became ok to judge parents for not going to every single event. Who gave the green light to the idea that one contribution is worth more than another? We pay for preschool programs to enrich our children’s minds, expand their social experience, and begin to establish a comfort with the concept of parents going away and coming back, right? Instead, here we are, conducting a twisted neener-neener game. I admit that I have had my moments of envy and even a bit of resentment when I see stay-at-home moms chatting in the parking lot, rather than rushing from one place to the next. At the end of the day, we all have laundry to do, toilets to clean, and tweezers to find.
Part of what motivates me during my work day is my desire to be a strong role model for my girls. I don’t want them to think that every opportunity in life is going to come with clear pros and cons so that they can make snap decisions and never second guess themselves. Life isn’t like that. It’s beautiful and magnificent and yours for the taking, but it isn’t black and white. An auditorium seat that one person perceives to be empty, may very well be the symbol to a beaming kid that their mama is out receiving an armload of trophies that represent the efforts and triumph of the entire family.
I am a mom who works.
Briar, Avery, and Finley are my first thought in the morning and the last thank you on my lips at night. If that leaves doubt in someone’s mind about how I feel about them in the moments in between, then so be it.
The truth is, while the judgement genuinely hurts, I’m caring less and less about what someone else thinks of me.
Tagged: daughters, education, working mom
The truth is, even the moms who don’t work — like me — can’t be everywhere all the time. I have a child graduating 5th grade and elementary school, a child graduating kindergarten and leaving a private school, and a child having his third grade class party all between 9 and 10:30 on Friday morning. Unfortunately, I have not perfected the nose-wrinkle time travel Bewitched trick. Instead of sending the kindergartner to slide down the playground slide to his graduation certificate in front of every other kindy parent without us, we have chosen to hold him out of his ceremony and deliver him there in time for the party afterward. It’s the best we can do. He will, I hope, have many more graduations for us to attend. Some of the other kindy parents are a bit aghast at our decision. I see it as an unfortunate problem of having the blessing of many children. I haven’t made every field trip, and I haven’t made every class event. I have forgotten the crazy hats and the sunscreen and the field trip money. But in general, I’m still hitting above average. I’ll take it.
I’m sorry she made you feel less than the amazing mother you are. And you are an amazing mother, Amanda, and the people who count know it very well. xoxo
Thank you for sharing this with me, Allison. It’s so easy to think that you are the only one making decisions that are different. Or that no one else is frazzled. Here’s hoping your relay of events goes without too many hiccups 😉
This hits home for me. Like the previous poster, I don’t work either–and not for lack of want…but because I don’t have a Nana or any family or even close friends in our area that would make it feasible. And I still can’t be everywhere. I have thought in the past that the school and preschool must coordinate to make things more difficult! I’d like to hope her teacher is trying to connect with you in a “See I remember you!” way and not in a dismissive or negative way. But it is certainly not coming across well. I’m sorry that you had this experience when you were trying to have a good memory with your girls. I love your last line …”The truth is, while the judgement genuinely hurts, I’m caring less and less about what someone else thinks of me.” I feel that more every day that I am a parent. I am honestly doing the best that I can. And not caring what someone else thinks makes me stronger and more sure of myself.
Here’s to stronger!
I think you are amazing. Your love for your daughters shows.
Haters gon’ hate. That’s their problem… Not yours!
Preach!
Oh, Amanda. I have so much to say, and also nothing, because you’ve said it. The things I’ve missed, as much as I made up for them, and dealt with them, and lived with that at the time, still haunt me. My desperate need to be at EVERYTHING is increasing, not decreasing. Oddly I find that it’s the other mothers who work who also seem to share this, who are at every “class knitting introduction” and random science open house. I don’t want to miss anything, but I am also aware of a newly intense pressure that I SHOULD not. Not everyone seems to feel this pressure, though, do they?
I have the same fundamental identity as a mom who works. It’s essential to who I am and to what I hope to convey to my children. But it’s complicated, as everybody’s road is, whatever their particular roadblocks and switchbacks, I know. Thanks for being such a companion and inspiration on this particular journey. It means more than I can express. xox
Yes, yes, yes. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could say, believe, and practice, “Just have fun with it.!”
My sarcastic and passive aggressive side says that the bugs were clearly not the only icky thing with this particular field trip. And that really is awful because you deserve better. I have worked really really hard in my 8 years as mom to embrace one major truth. It is none of my business to examine or judge how another family gets through their day. What works for them may or may not work for me and that is more than just OK. That is awesome. It reminds me and it shows my daughters that life is full of options. It teaches them to find what brings you strength and joy and then work for it. I hope you can continue to let the negative fall into the gutter. Your girls know they are loved. And that is what counts. xo
Thanks, Kristin. Right back at you!
I am a mother who stays at home. Yet, I don’t feel it is necessary to go on every, single field trip or attend every school volunteering opportunity. Sometimes it is because it doesn’t work out due to other commitments, but sometimes I think it is beneficial for the kids to be able to come home and tell us about the grand adventure they went on that is solely their own.
I think all mothers sometimes feel shame, either due to others’ expectations or to their own. You may feel it because of something you’ve missed and I may feel it because I am not earning a living or being a working role model for my children. And in both cases that feeling of shame has no merit. I’m learning to shake it, and it sounds like you are, too
Yes, funny how parenting teaches us so many things that apply to all of life.
That teacher has an issue.
I get passive-aggressive emails from my kid’s school all the livelong day. One afternoon, dining by accident with another mom after yet ANOTHER half day that cut my work short by five hours, I blurted, “Doesn’t anyone in this school WORK?”
And I looked around and moms of the moms don’t work, or they are professors who have some control over their schedules. Here’s what I know for sure: I cannot be there every single time. And sometimes I can only stay for 15 minutes.
But when I’m there, it counts. All those other times I am feeding my family. I try to take that with me when I feel the eye of judgment falling on me and mine.
You are my role model.
I battle with the sensation that sometimes the scheduling is literally intended to challenge. Looks like a hopscotch chart: school, no school, half day, haf day, full day, no school, afternoon half, morning half.
Argh!
You inspired me before I had children, and now that I have two little guys, you inspire me even more. I don’t work outside my home, but I don’t go to all the field trips because I just don’t want to. When my son spent the day with his class at our local park, I made a brief appearance and then left, because that’s how we spend most days on our own. I’ve sent my children to school to help them learn and socialize, but also to have some quiet time to myself. That makes me a better mom, and if I have to spend five hours at a muddy farm with twenty preschoolers, then come home and parent my own cranky and exhausted children, I won’t be my best self. Do I feel guilty about it sometimes? Yes, but it works for me.
Thank you, this comment is so sweet.
The other thing that I try to remind myself is that they are having their own childhood. Some of the things we fret over are going to be their favorite parts of childhood. We just don’t know.
One word: AMEN (from a fellow working mom juggling 3)
XO. Go Sox and working moms of 3 😉