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A WAHM Is Born

Writer's picture: jessica bowersjessica bowers

Updated: Jan 21

When my son was in daycare, about 6 months old, a Facebook friend’s son passed away at the same age.  I saw the post on my way to work and was a mess the remainder of my commute.  I broke down during my first meeting, and my manager walked me outside to talk.  I told her I didn’t know what I was doing with my life and that I shouldn’t be at work.  Luckily, I had an amazing manager and fellow mother at the time. She talked me off the ledge of quitting (at that moment at least) and told me to go home and spend the day with my son. This is a picture from that day.


 

Even though I had previously survived 6-week maternity leave guilt with my older daughter, this day triggered something differently.  Neither of these experiences were ideal and started taking their toll the longer I worked full-time.   I think most mothers fantasize about being a working mom in the same way we fantasized about being an adult. Both were rude awakenings. Being a mom is not for the faint of heart to begin with, let alone one that works full time.  Whenever your trigger is activated, it is never undone.  We daydream about any way possible to be with our children.  We realize how grossly misguided we were about our purpose and laugh that we were still searching for it.  How did we overlook it in the delivery room? We continually tip the scales of financial stress vs. parental guilt and whichever one is more acute at the time wins.  

 

“What do you do all day?”

Some of us end up with our SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) wish and our guilt promptly traded places.  We now have time for our kids. We are rewarded with random validations.  Sometimes I cry wolf when I need this validation.  I will tell my kids I might apply for a job, just to hear them worriedly ask “why?!”. The new guilt is the financial hole this quality time has left. I realize there are, what I like to call, “amomolies” out there that are winning all around, but not the case for most of us. If only the mental load was worth its weight in gold.  

 

It’s true, our priorities get off track sometimes, but we still don’t have time to be still. The list of invisible items is complete, but the cooking, cleaning, and exercising are not.

We have time for the appointments, the trips to school with forgotten items, the errands that don’t have to take up the weekend. We respond promptly to teacher emails now and can make it to sport games. Quitting our jobs didn’t open up a time portal, it just put different meetings on our calendar.  So, while WE know our life isn’t just sitting around eating bon-bons all day, there is nothing for us to bring to Show and Tell.  

 

Enter the WAHM

For a lot of us, we catch our breath, confidently update our LinkedIn status to “Full Time Parenting Break”, and shortly thereafter start job searching again.  This happens for all sorts of reasons. Maybe the ability to bring your kids to rec sports has upped the ante, or you realized you just aren’t going to meal prep no matter how much time you have on your hands.  Perhaps you woke up in a cold sweat and realized you forgot about the cost of college. Either way, might as well put in a few hours while they are in school?  Moms are like potted plants; when given a bigger pot, we will find a way to take up all the space.  This is where I am on my journey.  I have a renewed admiration for moms, from all walks of life, simply trying to thrive wherever they find themselves planted.

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