r/workingmoms

Three quick edits:

1. TLDR: I don’t want to be a SAHM but I also do not dream of labor
2. The post title is a quote from the poem “The Summer Day” by our queen Mary Oliver
3. I’m a writer and have been musing on this for days. I wrote this in a document (with my human brain and human fingers on the keyboard) and edited it several times over several days to arrive at the well-articulated “thesis” below. It is SO frustrating as a writer (by trade and by hobby) to be accused of (using? being?) AI because of well-crafted, polished writing with proper grammar. My fingers were ITCHING to use my beloved m-dashes, but AI has stolen those from me too 😭

Original post:

Lately, I’ve noticed a recurring battle on here between two camps:

“I hate being a working mom. I wish I could be a SAHM. I feel constant guilt that I’m not giving enough to my kids.”

and

“I love being a working mom! I love my career!”

And I’m pretty firmly in a third camp:

I have zero guilt about working/zero desire to be a SAHM. But I also don’t think you’ll ever see me on here praising work or capitalism and talking about how much I love being a working mom, because liking aspects of my job is very different from loving a system that asks us to spend so much of our lives working.

I like intellectual stimulation and solving problems and staying sharp. I like feeling competent and accomplished. I like using and growing my job-related skills. I like engaging with other adults. I genuinely think I would struggle with being a SAHM and I love the relationships & opportunities that outside childcare has provided my kids. (And let’s be real I like financial freedom and having money etc, but that’s bc I’m a product of the capitalism I hate).

But I also hate the grind.

I hate capitalism’s insistence that so much of our finite time and energy should be devoted to producing economic value. I hate that work is so rigid and inflexible. I hate being treated like an employee who needs to be managed rather than an adult who can be trusted to get her job done when and where I choose. I hate the constant logistical gymnastics of fitting my kids’ schedules around my employer’s schedule.

I hate how little room that leaves for the rest of life. Between work and kids, where is the time to exercise? Have hobbies? Walk around outside for no particular reason? Read a book? See a friend? Paint? Garden? Make something? Watch a movie? Sit in the sun? Putter around the house? Just be? (Not to mention adult table stakes like feed the family and keep the house clean.)

I feel like we’re still stuck in this weird binary inherited from the patriarchy, and it’s been amplified on this sub lately: either a woman devotes herself to unpaid domestic labor, or she enters the workforce and becomes devoted to paid labor.

And I don’t actually want either of those things.

I don’t want liberation to mean becoming better and better at sacrificing my life to the labor market. But I also don’t want the answer to be returning to a model where women are expected to find fulfillment primarily through unpaid domestic work.

I want a third thing.

(And yes, I realize this is idealistic. I don’t have a magical solution for how we get there. I’m talking more about what I think a good life should look like, even if our current economic system makes it difficult to achieve.)

I want to be able to work because I like some things about working, while also believing that work should occupy a reasonable and bounded place in a human life.

Motherhood is hugely meaningful to me. I don’t need an “identity outside of motherhood” that my career provides. Motherhood is probably the greatest thing I’ll ever do, and I’m happy to carry that identity with me everywhere. But I also enjoy being intellectually engaged.

I don’t want to be a SAHM.
I don’t want to be a work martyr.
I don’t want to climb the corporate ladder until I die.
I don’t want to spend my life optimizing myself for productivity.

I want work to be one good thing in my life, not the thing around which my whole life has to be organized.

In another life, I want to live in a matriarchy.

This is only working mom adjacent really, but I have nowhere else to put this and I know y’all will understand!

Two working parent household, I’m a teacher so the school year is wonderful but exhausting. One 3 year old boy who is also wonderful but exhausting 😂 We are very fortunate to have enough disposable income where we can enjoy taking our little guy out to dinner a couple of times a week. Nothing fancy, fast food or our local Tex-Mex favorite- just something we don’t have to cook, a break from the routine, and a fun reason to get out of the house and do something different.

Then a few months ago, my son and I both got diagnosed with celiac disease. A crumb of gluten will damage our intestines and provoke severe symptoms in my little guy (me less so, which is how I went undiagnosed for so long). I was determined to find safe restaurants but I just… can’t. I’ve tried so many that say they’re safe, I test to see if I have a reaction before risking it on him, and I keep getting glutened.

So now, the one time saver everyone suggests for working parents (just do takeout!) is out and we’re cooking every night. No more fun Saturday night enchiladas with our best little restaurant buddy. No more midweek pasta takeout when we’re exhausted. It’s really hard. I know we are so lucky because our health issues could be so much worse!! But I’m just sad and needed a safe place to have a pity party for a minute. Thanks for joining me 😅

Today I made the decision to finally leave my stylist. I no longer need color as I’ve chosen to embrace my 2 gray streaks and actually realized without all the warmth color was adding to my hair, the gray/silver against my dirty blond actually looks better than covering it up. I cut off the last of the hair that had previously been colored, so now my haircuts alone should cheaper to maintain than the $220 I was spending every 8 weeks. I might even start going to Supercuts after a friend recommended a decent stylist at our local one.

We fired the cleaner 3 months ago (none of them were worth what we were paying biweekly IMO) and now that my son is older and less messy, that’s actually been fine. The dusting/sweeping/vacuuming ultimately wasn’t making a huge difference in our lives when the bulk of the work for us is laundry, dishes, etc and the surfaces that were being cleaned get dirty faster than the biweekly visit anyway.

We no longer order take out - the shrinkflation has really started to hit our local food places in bad way and I’m not going to spend $90 per meal for 3 people to eat sub-par food a few times a week. If we really need something quick and have literally no options, we’ll Instacart a rotisserie chicken + prepared sides from our local grocery or stuff for charcuterie and it’s actually way cheaper than getting take out, comes just as quickly and tastes better.

What about you? What are you all doing to save money these days?

I am so fucking grateful I get to be a working mom. I am not forced to stay home by a society that doesn’t think I am capable of contributing in any other ways. I am so glad I have the choice to work, to provide for my family. I am not meant to be a SAHM and I’m so glad I don’t have to be. I feel like so often working mom conversations are full of people working against their will to make ends meet, or talking about mom guilt, and those stories are real and valid, but I’d also love to celebrate the fact that we can work, that some of us LIKE to be working, and that it makes us better human beings and better moms. Tell me about why you love to work, or how you working has been good for your family!

My husband has just come back from a 3 week work trip, the (almost) culmination of a +10 year project. We weren't even dated when he started working on this, now the whole thing is reaching a crescendo. This whole thing has taken up most of his bandwidth this year. During this trip our kid started school - I handled everything for this transition, school shoes, uniform, attending the meetings, filling the forms and navigating the total lack of aftercare options available.

well husband is back! and he's sick. Literally landed and 36 hours later he's redecorating the bathroom. He's done one day of drop off and I'm back with it all on me, now with the added bonus of a pile of sweat drenched sheets that I had just changed. We don't have a dryer. This isn't his fault of course but honestly I really really didn't need this. I want to cry, but I of course, will run out of work and pick up our child. What a dumpster fire.

All of the local camps ended on August 16. School doesn't start until September 10th. Looking for ideas on how other families handle this down-time.

This year is shot but I need to put something new in place for next year. In the past I've taken at least a week off, but this year work is hectic and I can't, and anyway my vacation is gone from the 4 weeks of holidays they schedule during the school year.

We usually go stay with my in-laws so they can mostly watch him while I and my husband WFH, but this year it's such a mess. They're all getting older and just cannot handle a rambunctious 5yo boy who wants to run around outside and ride his bike.

Yesterday it came to a head (on day two, lolsob) because he was having a huge energy spurt and my MiL really wanted him to bake cookies inside with her. I had to take off the afternoon to take him somewhere more fun. My husband has somewhat PT hours (but is somehow super busy this month aughh) but took off this morning.

(Other mitigating factor is that we've been mostly screen-free all summer and it's been SO MUCH better for my kid but obviously screens are the answer right now.)

Anyway just needed to vent but if someone else has solved this differently, please tell me your secrets!

I just am feeling the resentment towards me build and build from the team I work with. I totally get it. I’m part time and very pregnant. The issue is that the resentment is building but I still get near perfect yearly reviews and no correction to action or guidance. I am just guessing what they are upset with. Probably mostly the fact that they have to cover some of my work, which I just can’t control when I get work on a day off. I’ve been there for about a decade working with the same people and it’s been fine until recently. It’s such a shit show at my work with a ton of lay offs so I know not all of the hate is from me. I think a lot of people are sick of working there in general. Sorry, just venting because I am trying my best at home and never seem to catch up and I am trying my best at work and everyone is so pissy all the time. I feel like a sahm and a working mom in one and I just can’t keep going. Unfortunately since I am very pregnant this is not a time to get a new job. I don’t know where else to complain because I don’t want to burden my husband with my troubles. I know every mom feels this way. Just feeling down today.

I'm not sure if I even have a question or if this will make sense. I'd love to hear from anyone who has made work meaningfulness a priority and how you balance that with parenting.

Without getting into specifics, I have always done work that I considered personally meaningful and beneficial to the world (intersection of technology and healthcare). I got a job offer earlier this year that opens up a lot of doors. The money is great, the mission is great, and it creates an opportunity to potentially do a LOT more good than any other avenue. It's not perfect but it is incredibly well-aligned with the change I want to make in the world.

The down side is that it requires a major move. My husband and I both agreed it was the right decision, but my teen is not happy. And as I have tried to rationalize it to her, I often find that I just can't. Like what am I doing? Is having a "cool" "important" job really more important than my kids' stability and happiness? Kind of yes, right? But then again, not at all? What if I'm wrong about this whole endeavor and I'm just sniffing my own farts?

And then when I discuss / read about other people's jobs, I literally never hear anyone talk about meaning / mission as part of the decision. It seems like for most people, especially in mid life, the decision is: am I making the most money I can, doing something I can stand most of the time?

Am I wrong? Do you also need meaning in your work? Is it basically really spoiled to want that? To prioritize it over your kids' happiness? Am I making a huge mistake?

Thank you for listening to my crashout, all advice welcome.

my 6 month old is starting daycare and i’m wondering how ya’ll transport bottles / snacks / diapers / change of clothes etc back and forth to daycare? do you have your own cooler bag for her? backpack? what stays at daycare vs goes home with us daily?

I feel as though my last shred of confidence was torn down today at work - I’m dealing with sleep deprivation, daycare illnesses and child tantrums and still front up and put 100 per cent care and effort into my work. Today my manager aggressively cut me down in front of my colleagues during a meeting, simply for asking for a routine update on a piece of work. Something in me just broke. I could really use some words of encouragement 🙏🏻

I'm on maternity leave with my 10w old daughter and 3x a week I do daycare pickup for my 2y9mo son . Dad works full time and does all the other pickups and drop off. I love my son and spending time with him, he's at the cutest age saying the craziest stuff. But daycare pickup time is like the absolute shittiest time for infants to like .. Exist. I pick up between 430 and 5pm, and 9/10 times she is just screaming the entire time. She doesn't love the car seat yet, so the 20m drive to pickup doesn't put her to sleep, so it's like 45-50 minutes of her having no time to settle down, and I can't catch up with his teachers because I have her to manage. Today I swear she damaged my hearing permanently. I drive with one arm ratcheted into the back seat trying to help her with her pacifier and stroke her cheek which is obviously super safe

He also just transitioned into the preschool room and that's been it's own whole issue (he's doing great but the teachers just like ... Stopped putting updates in the app and he's mid potty training so I'm in the dark about how he's doing. I've asked 4x now for them to keep doing updates like they did before in toddlers and they keep saying they will but don't).

Anyway. I know this will be very short lived and my daughter won't always be a little hellion at this time of day but for now 🫩🫠 a glass of wine please. Anyone else in this boat?

(My son just ran into the room and whispered good night I love you so he doesn't wake his sister so not all is lost 🥰)

I don’t know, I just feel like it would fun and encouraging.

I’ll start: I showed my kid a video of someone doing something I thought was impressive. ok it was Mayor Mamdani speaking Chinese. I thought it might be nice for him to see another non Chinese person learning and speaking mandarin like he is learning to do. He didn’t understand everything in the video so I translated it for him. His reaction was “oh I just didn’t learn these words yet”. I swear my child self would’ve just felt ashamed that I didn’t know these words, and would’ve felt like I should’ve already known. Instead he had this super positive mindset of “I just need to keep learning”. He did this too when a friend came over and had trouble with a video game they were playing. His friend was getting frustrated at not being able to do a move and he was like “you just need to practice a bit more, you’ll get it”. Maybe I can also take a little bit of credit since my parents always implicitly shamed me for things I didn’t know whereas I try to keep the positive attitude of it’s ok if you don’t know, you just gotta keep learning and working at it

I used to think weekends would be when we could finally relax.

Instead, there's no school, no routine, everyone wants to do something, and somehow I spend the entire day cooking, cleaning, driving somewhere, finding snacks, breaking up arguments, and getting everyone ready for the next thing.

By Sunday night I'm more tired than I was on Friday.

What does a genuinely relaxing weekend with kids actually look like for your family?

Maybe I'm getting targeted left and right but has anyone had any experience with some of these mom coaches on Instagram. I have seen a few, examples:

Meant for more

We are more than moms

Nicole burke

I'm sure that there are others!

I'm sure that there are others but just wanted to see if anyone has had any experience, good or bad, with these coaches. I have tried therapy and that doesn't seem to be working ...

Moms. When your spouse or a family member or even friend asks what’s wrong and you just say “I’m tired” because how do you explain the emotional exhaustion of everything…what do you actually wish you could say and be understood and heard?

I had a baby two years ago so I am no longer in postpartum, but my energy levels still feel like a shell of my former life.

I feel like I've tried everything:

- consistently getting good hours of sleep (~8hrs a night)

- working out 2-3 times a week

- no caffeine to avoid crashes (never was a big caffeine drinker in the past, used to do it occasionally but stopped in the last few months because of how I'd feel the next day)

- vitamin d daily supplements after some bloodwork showed low levels last year

- regular support from family for time off from parenting (we usually get 2 sleepovers at grandma's a month)

But I'm still exhausted every day and feeling like I can barely get through my day.

Any suggestions on what worked for people??

Edit to add: I realize what I wrote above is better than what a lot of people have access to and I'm thankful for that. I just don't want this to continue as I keep getting older (currently early 30s).

Dear hive, I have a 12 year old. She is generally well behaved and helps out. I was wondering how do I build resilience in them. She is a bit laid-back and I have to nudge her at times. She wants to swim competitively. I am ok with it as long as her grades don't fall. How do you manage to make them independent?

I am not a helicopter parent and would love for her to learn to plan ahead and be independent. I work full-time and have a long commute. Don't have the mental bandwidth to deal with this. Help me please!

Laid off two weeks ago after returning from leave and basically not really having any major responsibilities returned, plus constant berating. I could go on. It actually started before maternity leave. No i was not on FMLA before anyone asks but my state still had some job protected leave.

Anyone else on here laid off and looking for work?

It sucks and what sucks even more is that my children are too young to understand.

Please tell me it will not take 6+ months to find something that pays even close to what I was making. Some sucess stories from the past few months would be nice to hear.

And no, I don't want to be a SAHM and frankly we need me to earn money to live without scripping.

Edit: surely there must be people who took under 4 months to find a new role. 5 months, 8 months, a year sounds pretty dismal.

I’ve dealt with crazy working mom guilt since my daughter was born just over 5 years ago. It’s wild because wanting to be a sahm was not something I would have ever considered before marriage. In fact, I wasn’t sure that I wanted a child at all. I’ve been in a lot of therapy and worked on this. Things are better now that she’s starting full time school, but over the past 5 years I’ve just felt like I was doing something wrong- something I’d regret- by working. Wishing I could spend more time with her and that all the time I am with her needs to be super count.
I kept working because I am the breadwinner, kind of by a lot. It’s a high paying job and even though full time, I really only work like 30 hours, from home. I want to provide all the extras for her- the schools, the extracurriculars etc..
But like, I have so little time as is! How could I possibly add more to this puzzle? And how guilty would I feel about splitting this time even thinner with another? These are the things I just can’t wrap my head around. I find myself frazzled and at the end of my rope by the end of the day. I worry I’d have even less patience with more.

I'm in California, and I wfh for a company based on Maryland. I started in June last year and gave birth in May this year. I took off 17 weeks with California disability, and my work paid the gap between the state disability wages for 12 weeks. I have decided to return to work on September 10th. My mom will come and care for baby for a month while I work, then MIL will do the same, getting us to early November before we go to daycare.

Technically I can still take paid family leave although it is partial pay. So I could do that after our moms leave and it would take us through the holidays. I haven't brought this up to my boss or HR yet. My husband said he's not concerned about the money, but he'd worry about my standing at work if I go back for two months and then take two more off. I really wouldn't want to put my job in jeopardy, especially since wfh is not always easy to come by.

WWYD?