Working Mom

I got a job offer recently. For months I've been sending out resumes and meticulously crafting cover letters, and here, finally, a job offer has fallen into my lap from a former employer. Technically, it is what I've been wanting for months. But now that I've gotten the offer, I'm starting to freak out over what I think life as a working mom will be like.

I've been obsessing over how I will be able to manage it all - working a stressful job, commuting, taking care of Ella, living a life on a clock-in/clock-out schedule. After all, I haven't worked outside our home in 14 months. To calm my mind I wrote down what our new daily schedule would be like. (Yes, sometimes I am crazy.) We only have one car at the moment, so if Chad and I were both working this would be a very realistic picture of our day:

5:30 am: Wake, shower, eat, feed Ella
6:15 am: Leave house
6:30 am: Drop Ella off at daycare and Chad off at work
6:45 am: Commute to work
7:30 am: Start working a 9 1/2 hour shift
5:00 pm: Leave work, commute home
5:45 pm: Pick up Ella from daycare and Chad from work
6:00 pm: Arrive home, make and eat dinner
7:30pm: Get Ella ready for bed
8:00 pm: Put Ella to bed
9:30 pm: Go to bed


According to my estimation, I would have maybe 3 hours a day with Ella - 1 hour in the morning while we get ready to leave, and 2 hours at night when we eat dinner and clean up and do the bedtime bath routine. I would spend 2 1/2 hours a day in my car - 1 1/2 hours in the morning, and 1 hour at night. My only real time with Chad would be the 1 1/2 hours after Ella goes to bed. We would, of course, have the weekends, but in addition to getting some quality family time, there would be chores leftover from the week.

Not only does the massive schedule change freak me out, but to begin working I must also find a daycare for Ella. For me personally, this is an especially sensitive issue. Nobody can love and care for my baby like Chad and I can, but we will have to find, trust, and pay someone else to do it for 11 hours a day. This kills me. Not only that, but thinking about daycare has stirred up some strange emotions about my own childhood.

I spent so much of my childhood wanting and waiting for my own mother to get home from work. After she and my Dad divorced when I was six, she worked very hard to get her nursing degree, then she worked very hard to be a good nurse and make enough money to support us and her own dreams. But her long absences tormented me - I developed ulcers when I was in grade school, and I would devise crazy, elaborate rituals to fill the lonely night time hours before she returned from her 3 to 11 shift at the hospital. I would scream and beg to stay home from school just so I could see her and spend time with her, clinging to the dark wood railing as she tried to pull me out the door.

I don't blame my mother for anything at all - she was and is a supportive, caring mom who worked very hard to put her life together just how she wants it. But I don't want my own daughter to feel like she is always waiting for me. She is significantly younger than I was when my mom worked - Ella is just one and I was six when my mom started working - so I suppose maybe it might be easier on her. But maybe not.

I can obsess over it all as much as I want, but the bottom line is that we need the money right now. So I am trying to approach the impending new schedule like a puzzle, a game of organization and time management, rather than this big awful thing that I dread. And as for finding a daycare, I suppose I should start making some calls today.