Mama Byrd » Mommy wars http://mamabyrd.com Tue, 11 May 2010 21:45:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 That working mommy part http://mamabyrd.com/2007/08/14/that-working-mommy-part/ http://mamabyrd.com/2007/08/14/that-working-mommy-part/#comments Wed, 15 Aug 2007 03:22:00 +0000 Jennifer http://mamabyrd.com/2007/08/14/that-working-mommy-part/ So I started back to work full-time yesterday after being off (with the exception of a few workshops) for more than a month. I had kind of lulled myself into the false impression that I was a stay-at-home mom, and it was a shock to my system to go back to work. It hasn’t really helped that Phillip is in a new class, and he has been crying–hard–when I dropped him off at daycare for the past two days.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m thrilled with my new job, and I’m very excited about many parts of it, including coming home from work an hour earlier and being home with the kids during the summer. To be perfectly honest, though, I’ve really wanted to return to my first career as a stay-at-home mom since Phillip was born nearly two years ago.

It’s hard to get really excited about work–even really great work–when your baby is crying when you leave him at daycare.

]]> http://mamabyrd.com/2007/08/14/that-working-mommy-part/feed/ 1 Mommy Wars http://mamabyrd.com/2007/08/08/mommy-wars/ http://mamabyrd.com/2007/08/08/mommy-wars/#comments Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:29:00 +0000 Jennifer http://mamabyrd.com/2007/08/08/mommy-wars/ I enjoyed reading this Newsweek article, “Enough with the Mommy wars!” I agree with much of what the author had to say (I do think that most people who don’t have children are baffled by the fact that these parenting things are debated ad nauseum). I also think that the reason most of us mommies come off militantly crazy is that we genuinely care about how we raise our kids, and we’re just insecure enough to be scared to death that we’re messing something up. In my experience, most of the rabid disapproval that we display for someone else’s decision to work (or homeschool or bottle-feed) is born out of a deep-seeded fear that we might be doing it wrong ourselves.

I’ve been on both sides of most of the debates: I breastfed one child for 18 months, and I bottle-fed another beginning at 4 months. I’ve had two drug-free births and one cesearean section. I was a stay-at-home mom for 4 years, and I’ve been a working mom for 4 years. Just about the only thing I haven’t tried is homeschooling (although I mentioned to my husband last week that I wouldn’t be opposed to it under the right circumstances, which is a big step for me!).

You know what? It doesn’t really matter. All three of my kids are pretty normal. None of them have ADHD. None of them have attachment disorders. None of them are geniuses.

Any other moms out there have an opinion on why things that ultimately don’t really matter somehow matter so much?

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