Can you really have it all?

O.K., so the Mommies, Esquire ask themselves this question quite a bit…

Of course, we are referring to the whole work versus stay at home debate plagued by most moms.  BTW, we’re not going to discuss part-time, flex time, working from home, etc.  If you have some awesome work arrangement…good for you, sister.  Some women may not have these choices.  For now, we’ll just discuss working full time or being at home full time.

Here’s Kim’s view:

If my picture doesn’t give it away…I’m a stay-at-home mom.  Just call me June Cleaver.  I’m just kidding!  Julie is the working mom of our duo.  We often say to each other that we think the grass is greener on each others lawn.  This is usually said to each other while Julie is texting me from a bored board meeting…and I am having to scrub down my son who has found a black permanent marker and decided to give himself a mustache and extensive “body art.”

The bottom line is this:

You can’t win.     Not now.     Not ever.

I’m not being a “Debbie Downer.”  I just think that you can’t have it ALL…not unless you are independently wealthy and can hire out for your cooking and cleaning.  Oh, yeah…and you would need several nannies to help you out if you have more than one child.  Plus, you would need a staff of highly paid individuals who could help you schedule every detail of your life.  An adoring husband who could handle your drive to achieve in the workplace and at home would be a must.   Not to mention, that you could have it all if you had an extremely flexible work schedule.  A personal trainer to keep you in shape is also a nice thing and a vault full of cash to afford an awesome wardrobe.  In other words, you can have it all if you are Kelly Ripa.

Most of us are not Kelly Ripa and we don’t live in a perfect world.  However, I must confess that I actually like being a stay at home mom….most of the time.

If you think that I sit around and eat bonbons and watch the soaps, think again.  I am b-u-s-y!  I feel like my “job” never ends.  I do everything….and I mean everything.  Because I stay at home, most people assume that I have nothing to do.  I get calls to volunteer for this and that and I usually oblige because I secretly feel like I should do more because I don’t work.  It’s a vicious cycle.

When my feet hit the floor at 6:00 a.m., I don’t stop until long after everyone is in bed.  I cook, clean, do all the laundry, schlep kids to and from various activities and school…..blah, blah, blah.   Because I have three little boys under six years old, I always have someone on my hip or attached to my leg.  There are days that I don’t shower until midnight.

Last year my children and I contracted the flu, so my husband (who is also an attorney) had to stay home with us for three days to mind the homefront.  I gave him my “schedule.”  Let’s just say that by day two, he was begging me to get better so that he could return to the “calm” of his office.  As I looked into his bloodshot eyes, I knew he meant business.  I think he developed an eye twitch and maybe some empathy for me as a stay-at-home mom, but I still believe that he could have benefited from a full week in my shoes.

Do I regret my decision to stay home?  Between us girls… I do sometimes.  Usually, these feelings coincide with the arrival of my law school’s quarterly journal…which happens to feature photos and/or articles about my fellow law school graduates who have made partner…or have become a judge…or written a book…won the Nobel Peace Prize, etc.  Then I start thinking about when or if I should go back to work.  Sometimes I panic when I think about returning to work.   Who will hire me after such a long hiatus from the legal profession?  Will I adapt to the workplace without responding in the affirmative with “Sure, I’ll file that complaint!  It’ll be Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!?”  Will I resist the urge to hum “Wheels on the Bus” as I walk down the halls of a law office or hang pictures of my child’s fingerpainting all over my office walls?  Plus, I would have to totally revamp my wardrobe.  All I wear these days are yoga pants/soccer shorts and t-shirts.  I think I gave all of my suits away last year to the Goodwill.  Will I trust someone else to do all of the things that I do for my family if I go back to work?  I really don’t know.  I worry my brain has turned to mush since leaving the practice of law.

Frankly, I have no idea when I will go back to work.  The decision I made to remain at home was the best for our family.  That’s it in a nutshell.  I’m not making some sort of political statement by not working nor do I condemn women who do work.  You’d be surprised how many women think that just because I’m not working, it is an indictment of their choice to work full time.  It just works for our family…plain and simple.  Whereas Julie has told me that she has had well-meaning people make comments about her decision to work outside the home, I have had the same things said to me about my decision to stay home.   There have been many times when my husband and I have been in social situations and someone has asked me what I “do”….and I respond that I am a stay-at-home mom.  Usually, I get a patronizing drawl, “Isn’t that nice?” or “Oh, O.K.”   Seriously.   I have also had other women look at me with disgust and exclaim, “Whatever will you do if your husband leaves you one day…with all those kids?”  I’ve also had someone tell me that she thought it was a terrible “statement” to make to my boys who needed to see an example of a “strong female.”  Yep.  I’m not joking, folks.   It happens.  I wish I was making this stuff up, but I am not.  I won’t tell you what I’ve said…or thought.  We’ll discuss this more in a section, entitled “Smart A$$  Responses.”  More about that later….

It’s funny, but there have been times since graduating from law school that Julie has been the stay-at-home mom and I have been the one working full time.  She and I just can’t seem to do the same thing at the same time.  It just happens that she is working right now and I am at home.

So, is the grass greener on the other side?

Let’s hear from Julie:

“Does this guilt make my butt look big?”

That’s what I ask myself every single morning as I’m getting ready to head off to work, usually as my four-year-old daughter is begging me to paint her fingernails or put some of my makeup on her and I’m saying, “not now sweetie, Mama’s got to go to work….we’ll do it later.”  And of course later turns into never.    Because I’m always running late, running out the door, or running out of steam.   Running on empty.  Running in circles.  You get the picture.

Some mornings as I walk in the door to work I think to myself, “they have no idea what I went through just go get here.”  I don’t mean in a big way…as in all the law school finals, the papers, the bar exam, etc.  I mean in a small way….as in I only slept two and a half hours last night because the baby was running a fever and cried for me all night long, the four-year-old wet the bed (again), the dog threw up on my comforter, I had to peel the baby out of my arms screaming for Mama as I handed him off to the nanny, break up a fight between the other two kids as I stepped in playdough running out the door late again trying to think of a different excuse for why I’m late for another meeting that I have to act like I’m totally here and into when the truth is I’d give anything to still be in my pajamas rocking my sick baby and watching Dora the Explorer for the umpteenth time….

And that is my reality most days.

But the thing is, I had a couple of years at home when I was sitting in my pajamas rocking my babies watching Dora, Elmo and Handy Manny feeling like the last few viable brain cells were being vaporized and I’d walk past my law school diploma just to remind myself that people used to pay me lots of money to give them advice even though the most complicated decision I was going to make that day was whether to have red potatoes or rice with the pot roast.  And I felt….dare I admit this….guilty because that diploma was hanging in my hallway instead of in a corner office?

I thought I’d found it.  That best of both worlds bit.  A less stressful job with a little flexibility to be there for my family.  But yet I still missed my son’s Christmas party to go to an out of town meeting….and I’ll never be a room mother or chaperone for field trips….rarely do I make soccer practice and often I come home after they’ve gone to bed and leave before they wake up.   Sometimes the most quality time I have with them is spent hanging over the side of the bed kissing sleeping eyes and praying that tomorrow will be different.  And maybe it will.

So the answer to that question is, in my opinion, a resounding no.  You cannot have it all.  You cannot do it all.  Not all at the same time.  The best of both worlds would be that proverbial balance…a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and justice for all.  But I haven’t found it.  Yet.

Have you?

Let us know!  We’d love to hear from you….what do you think?