I Want a Full Time Job with a Paycheck

This morning I lay down on the floor of my office and cried, silently, so as not to disturb the three people in the room with me who were watching me, disturbed.  Tears streamed down the side of my face, my fingertips rested on my forehead as my hands covered my eyes, and I just released all the crying I had pent up in me.  My five year old left the room and came back with a tissue.  I blew my nose.  She left again and came back with another tissue.  “For your eyes,” she said, softly.

I had my legs open in a wide V and my four month old was on her back on the floor in between my legs, chewing on her fists.  My husband stood on the other side of the baby.

“What’s wrong, honey?  You’re making me worried.”

What’s wrong?  What’s wrong???

Well, let’s see, I have a head cold, my four month old had a fever the night she got her vaccines that kept me up the same day I got said head cold, and now she’s officially rolling over, so I don’t sleep well because she sleeps with me, and now I’m stressed out that she will roll over in her sleep and somehow scoot down to the end of the bed, and roll off, or get wedged somewhere I haven’t thought of and suffocate.  We just passed peak SIDS age, and before I could breathe a sigh of relief, she flipped over from her back to her front.  So now I have images of her flipping over in her sleep, going facedown in the mattress, and suffocating, while I enjoy a heavy sleep because of this head cold.  And the more sleep I lose, the more I worry, because now am I sleep deprived enough to roll over and smother my baby?  Will I fall into a blissful sleep that keeps me from my natural tendency to wake with her every move? 

Also, my five year old has leapt into a more mature physical stage now, so she enjoys riding her scooter barefoot downhill and climbing to the top of rock structures in playgrounds that she would normally avoid. “No thank you,” she would say to her friends when they suggest a nice climb.  She has also leapt into a new level of challenging me and questioning me at every turn on every issue.  She is quite comfortable in the knowledge that I will explain myself and my reasoning whenever asked, which is exhausting.  I’m a mostly free range mom, so I let my kid develop at her own pace, find her way in the world, and explore her curiosities.  I also let her “be bored” and find her own ways to entertain herself that don’t involve screens.  So I come home one night to find a pile of mud swirled with paint and 5 opened bottles of sidewalk paint on my front patio.  At 10 PM. So I get to clean that up.  Or make sure I organize its cleaning. Well, I think, she was apparently entertained. 

Needless to say, being a full time mom keeps me on my toes.  And, sometimes, the toes are stressed.  The toes.  Are stressed.  

Then last night, after I kiss her good night, and remind her to go to sleep and not get out of bed, I get into the shower.  Five minutes later my husband comes into the bathroom to tell me she broke her nightlight.  “But it’s no big deal.”

First of all:  if it’s no big deal, why did you need to come into the bathroom, literally my only 10 minutes alone all day, to share that with me?

Second of all:  it is a big deal.  She was supposed to be in bed, not breaking a nightlight.  Also, the nightlight was an expensive gift from my husband to her when she was younger.  It is a Thomas Kincaid depiction of Winnie the Pooh bought from the gallery in Capitola when she was fully obsessed with Winnie the Pooh. 

So, when I get out of the shower, I head into her room.  The door is open, and my brother is in there.  “I asked Uncle to sing me one more song.”  She says quietly.

“How did you break your nightlight?” I ask.

“Well, I was pushing on it with my foot, like this, and kind of bending it back and forth, like this, then it just broke.”  She reports.

“Wait,” I say, barely holding on to my patience, as I hold onto the towel wrapped around my drying body, “so you were supposed to be in bed, I specifically told you to get a good night’s sleep because you’re coming to work with Mama tomorrow, and instead you were up, kicking your nightlight, a special gift from your father, which you then broke, carelessly, disrespectfully, and now you want another song from your Uncle.

“Do I have that right?”

My tone is serious, incredulous, and barely controlled. 

“Yes.” She responds quietly.

“Say goodnight to your uncle.  Get in bed.  All the way in bed.  Lie down.  All the way down.  Close your eyes.  And go to sleep.  Right.  Now.”

My brother left the room, and I followed shortly after, closing the door with a firm click.

I’m a terrible mother, I think.  I haven’t taught my child the value of gifts, the importance of respecting the things she owns.  I can’t teach my kid anything.  She’s basically raising herself and I’m keeping her alive.  I’m a terrible mother.

I nurse my four month old to sleep and head out to watch a movie with my husband and brother.

“Ugh,” I say, “I can’t believe she broke that nightlight.  I basically just shamed my child to sleep.”

“Babe,” my husband says, having no idea where my temper is at this point, “it’s no big deal.  You always tell her it’s no big deal when she breaks things.  Why should this be any different?”

I can tell from his tone that he is slightly mocking me, because this is true.  I don’t place a lot of importance on “things,” so Celaya draws all over her dolls faces, puts stickers all over her toys and the cabinetry in her play area, and scribbles all over the front patio.  When she accidentally knocks something over or breaks something and gets terrified that she is in trouble I calm her down and say, “honey, relax, it’s just a (insert object here).  It’s no big deal.  It can be replaced/fixed/remade.” 

“This is different because that was a gift, a special gift, and she shouldn’t have been out of bed, and she broke it.”  My temper at this point is just at about boiling point.

“Uh oh.” My brother, who is quite adept at picking up my tone, says.  “Am I going to watch someone else get shamed to sleep now?”

“She’s not scared of you, Shanna.  She does whatever she wants.  And shame doesn’t work on me.”  My husband says casually, slightly playfully.

So now I’ve reached full on explosion boiling over the top of the pot fury.

I spend every waking day of every waking hour raising children or worrying about how to raise my children, wondering if I’m doing the right thing in the right way at the right time to raise strong, independent, civilized, decent (hopefully liberal) human beings.  And my primary means of raising my children, directing my children, guiding my children, is through an abundance of love and affection, and, yes, through fear.  Celaya fears displeasing me.  It is one of my greatest points of pride.  When she is running with friends and I say “stop,” nine times out of ten, she stops.  When I use my mean voice, she comes to immediate attention.  She does, for the most part, what I tell her to do.  I don’t hit, I don’t yell, I don’t belittle or ridicule.  All I have are fear and shame. 

Don’t.  Tell Me.  She’s.  Not.  Afraid of me. 

I say this in so many words, and then we basically don’t speak again for the rest of the night.  He falls asleep on the couch as per his usual Friday night.  I go to bed with the baby and manage not to smother her in my head cold addled sleep, curling around her body in a protective position that all but guarantees her safety even in the event she rolls over.  It helps a lot that when her side is pressed against my front she sleeps deeply and doesn’t move.  And she’s pressed so firmly against me that when she does move I can’t help but wake up. 

All of the week’s worries and stresses spilled over to this morning.  To me lying on the floor crying. 

And I’m thinking to myself, this would all be so much easier if I worked full time.  If I put my baby to sleep in her crib.  If I left the bulk of raising and disciplining to someone else.  If I left the schooling up to an institution. If I got a paycheck at the end of a fifty-hour week that was a tangible reward for the hard work I do.  

My kids would be fine.  Kids with two full time working parents, who go to traditional school, who have another primary caregiver for the majority of their waking time, turn out just fine.  Many of my friends have attested to that. 

And, sure, it would be hard in its own way, time management, temper tantrums, sleep deprivation from trying to “get it all done,” figuring out how to manage a marriage and shared duties with both of us working, and on and on.  That lifestyle has its own struggles.  But I would be getting paid!!  An actual, regular, tangible, proof that my work is valued paycheck. 

But.

Would my five year old be the same kid she is today?  I am quite proud of her, even when she infuriates me.  I can say with complete confidence that there is no child sweeter, kinder, brighter, more secure in her place in the world, or more well-adjusted than my child.  I do not pretend that she is an angel.  She’s not.  Or that she and I don’t have battles of will.  We do.  But on any good day of the year, and I have very few bad days, more like bad moments, I can look at my kid and not wonder for a second whether I am doing all the right things. 

I may be in debt up to my ears.  I may not get tangible, or immediate, reward for the 24 hour on call work I do at home (that’s what the part time job is for).  I may not always have all my ducks in a row.  Okay, I rarely have all my ducks in a row. 

But my husband listened to me as I explained through my tears everything that I just wrote here.  He assured me that the house revolves around my command.  That, yes, of course, everyone is afraid of me (except my brother.  I’m still working on that one.)  That I run the household well and that my work is valued.  That our oldest is who she is because of what I do, and that, I if I can just remember what I did with my oldest and repeat it, the baby will turn out okay too. 

And my daughter finally understood the full impact of what she had done the night before, and she and her father put their heads together and figured out how to fix the broken nightlight. 

So yes, sometimes I want a full time job, with breaks, two tens and one thirty, Starbucks coffee on the way to the office, time alone in my car to listen to my own music, talk on the phone, listen to a book on tape, clothes to dress up in, colleagues to commiserate with, a mainstream to just naturally belong to, instead of having to seek out like minded individuals (and hope they're not too crazy), and a world that sympathizes with the plight of the working mother in America.  And money!!! 

But.

If I had all that, would I still have the daughter who brings me two tissues when I cry?  One for my nose, and another for my eyes. 

I obviously can’t know for sure.

But I don’t think so.