Morphing into Mama

This is so Wrong.....But I Laughed Anyway

The Landlord

What Am I Supposed to Do with This Voicemail?

"Hi, MiM.  This is Emma's mom.  Yesterday I had to spank Emma to discipline her and she tried to hit me back.  Can you please work with her on her aggression today?  Thanks.  Bye."

Ummmmmmmmmmm.......yeah.

Functioning Incompetent

Did I tell you what the kids gave me for my birthday this year?  I didn't?  Oh, well!  They were extremely generous.  Not only did I get an unlimited supply of mucous, which I spent the last four weeks coughing up, and the worst laryngitis I've ever had, I also received my very own case of pink eye.  Their generosity knows no bounds.  And, as you might guess, it was a birthday I'll never forget.  No matter how hard I try.

And though my birthday was on a Saturday, I was still celebrating on Monday with Bah-bie who had her own goo-filled eye and a nice hot yet chilly fever of 104.  We had a lovely time putting drops in each other's eyes and huddling underneath all the throw blankets in house while watching Thomas get chased by Diesel 10 for a reason that continues to baffle me no matter how many times I watch that horrid movie.   But what was even more horrid than that movie was the fact that I had to call in sick to work for the 20th time in six months.

First, there were those two weeks in November when the family had the "throw-ups."  Bah-bie brought it home, then Husband got it, then Tod-lar, and then me.  From that one illness alone, I lost 10 whole days of work and school.  A month after that, I got the flu.  A few weeks that, Tod-lar had a fever of 105 with no other symptoms.  Then Bah-bie got a cold, Tod-lar had pink eye, then we all got colds, and Bah-bie, Husband, and I had pink eye for what seemed like a week.   

So . . . I have already missed over two weeks of work in just six months.  (And this doesn't even include the days Husband took off to take care of the kids.) 

Having to take all this time off work so my kids could strengthen their immune systems got me thinking about MomsRising, an organization ". . . working toward cultural and political change to build a more family-friendly America" (as their website states).  MomsRising wants to stop discrimination against mothers in the workforce.  They want mothers to receive equal pay for the same job as men.  These are necessary and important goals.  But I can't help but wonder: Is this enough to create a more family-friendly America?

Equal pay and laws against discrimination are necessary structural changes.  But it seems to me that something else needs to change if we ever want to be truly "family-friendly."

I had a friend who used to be an attorney.  She was well-liked at her firm and was given great cases for which she had a lot of responsibility.  When she got pregnant, her partners remained supportive.  They even gave her a trial the latter part of her pregnancy.  At nine along, she may have been huffing and puffing from the weight of that baby, but she was cross-examining witnesses.  Then she went on maternity leave.  When she returned to work six months later, she decided to go part-time, which meant she would only work 40 hours per week and not the usual 60.  That's when the well dried up and she began to die on the vine.  No one gave her work.  She literally spent the next eight months writing a few research memos and doing a lot of online shopping.  Angry, frustrated, and bored, she eventually quit. 

What had happened is that the structure of the firm's benefits had changed.  The new structure enabled my friend to take a six month maternity leave and return working only 40 hours per week.  This was definitely a change from the 4 week leave and no option to work part-time, which had been the structure only a few years before.  What hadn't changed was the perception her partners had that mothers who are trying to balance work and kids are less committed to their work and, therefore, can't be trusted with important assignments. 

It seems our society values those who give their all to their work.  These are the people who are usually promoted and perceived as successful.  Sure, we talk about balance and how it's better for our well-being and all that crap, but the fact is that people who can devote what seems like endless amounts of time to their work are the ones who get ahead and all the accolades. 

This is why I felt so awful calling in sick to work for the 20th time.  I was concerned about being perceived as a "slacker" by my employer, especially when compared to all the other interns who are mostly single and childless and, thus, are able to devote far more time to work than I can.  But the awful feelings don't stop there.  Instead, they morph into guilt.  That horrid mother-guilt that wakes you in the middle of the night because you think your first priority is and should be your children and that employer be damned.  And how could you even feel bad about calling in sick to work when your little one's eye is swollen shut and she's so weak all she can do is curl up next to you and say "Mama" in that tiny voice over and over again.  Then the guilt turns into feeling torn.  You feel you can't do anything really well.  You feel as if you're a functioning incompetent.

Structural changes are a good start but, to me, it's only the tip of the iceberg. 

It's A Syndrome

I had a friend who while in medical school was constantly freaking out about his every little ache and pain.  One day it was, "I think I have brain fever."  The next day it was, "I'm afraid I might have cancer."  But the most ridiculous one was, "I was reading about cervical pain last night, and I swear to GOD I've experienced it." 

No, my friend was not an idiot.  He was merely suffering from medical student's syndrome, otherwise known as having TMI.  Having TMI is common among those who not only study medicine but psychology as well.  I admit to sitting in psychopathology class and breaking out into a sweat more than once because I was convinced I'd exhibited some behaviors of some mental disorder (oh, please, haven't we all?? and, no, I'm not telling which ones).  After self-diagnosing, I'd then start rehearsing how to break the news to my husband and children.  Eventually, after being indefinitely hospitalized in my mind's eye, I'd remember I have TMI and begin the process of talking myself down from the ledge.

What's worse, however, is when you start applying TMI to your own children.  Suddenly, every slightly abnormal (for them, anyway) behavior begins triggering thoughts of disorders requiring years of treatment.  Next thing you know you're logging this "strange" behavior and describing it in vivid detail to your husband every night until the kid finally stops doing it and you realize it was nothing, but your husband already knew this so he just rolled his eyes behind his New Yorker and said "uh-huh" over and over again.  See, when you apply TMI to the children, it's a little more difficult to talk yourself down from the ledge.

Thus, the important thing to remember when you have TMI (besides the fact that you have it) is to NOT let your children know that you are projecting your own irrational neuroses onto them.  However, at times, no matter how cognizant of this you are, you're bound to fuck it up.  Like I did.

The other night, as I went in to sing Bah-bie her bedtime song, I found her in her crib banging her little fist against her forehead. 

"Bah-bie, we don't hit ourselves," I said to her quietly, catching her arm before she could knock herself upside the head again.

"Because it's a syndrome?" she responded with a sly smile.

Obviously, I failed to keep this information to myself when I first caught her doing this two months ago.  Now she has TMI.