"What do You Do All Day?" or The Used to Be's

Last night, I asked my daughter to fold the laundry.  After school, she went and hung out with some friends and went swimming at the "beach" at Green Lake.  (Yes, swimming in Green Lake.  In May.  In Seattle.)  After dinner, she was going to work on her Personal Passion Project for school.  I asked her to help fold about a weeks worth of laundry before she worked on her project which is due in two weeks.  Folding laundry for 20 minutes was not going to set her back.  Naturally, she was annoyed. Reading and writing about Greek myth is far more interesting than sorting socks.

"What do you do all day?" she asked, implying that since I don't have a job outside of the home, I should be folding all of the laundry.

What do I do?  At first, I was a little defensive, thinking I am busy and productive.  I run errands, do PTA and school volunteer work, hangout with friends, manage the house, pay the bills, cook most meals and write.  I didn't know what to say.  Jack came to my defense and told her she was insensitive and rude, a trait shared by many thirteen year olds.

The next morning, I went to my office and picked up both of my yet-to-be published books.  One is the story of becoming a mother after losing a child.  The other is the story of my brother's lost battle with schizophrenia.  I plopped them in front of her while she was looking for a pair of socks.

"This," I said, "is what I do all day."  She stared at the ream and a half of paper.

"Oh," she said.

I let the stack speak for itself.  This was way longer than the 15 page "prezi" presentation on Greek mythology she had created for school.  The longest prose piece she has written was twelve pages.  It was a lovely gothic romance, a fiction writing assignment for school.  In all of past, present and future K-12 education, I doubt she'll approach 180,000 words if we were to total up all of her work.

"Oh," she said again.  She seemed remorseful and impressed.

"This is what I do all day," I said.  "And I'd do more, except I have to run to the grocery store during the day to buy you peanut butter."  The fancy kind of peanut butter from QFC where the machine grinds the nuts right there at the store.

"I used to work at a day job.  A day job where I worked 60 hours a week and traveled almost every week,"  I said.  "I traveled so much one year I paid taxes in California even though I was living in Chicago at the time."

"Oh."

"I couldn't keep traveling with your father's schedule," I said.  "We'd need to get overnight childcare."

"Oh."

I wasn't trying to beat her down, but I didn't want her to think I was a slacker.

But really, I have mixed feelings about all of this.  I've talked to several friends who have also walked away from workaholic jobs to raise kids.  I'll call us "The Used to Be's."  One of them used to be a manager at a large dot com.  Another was a music promoter for a major record label who traveled around the world accompanying rock bands.  International tax accountant.  I could go on with the women I've known who gave up the all consuming job for their kids.

"I know myself," my friend Helen said.  "I get wrapped up with work and I can't turn it off.  If that happens, how can I be there for my kids?"

I haven't read Sheryl Sanberg's Lean In, but I understand the premise is that there aren't enough women in the C-suites.  I completely understand.  However, the only way I could have maintained my career would have been to
a) live in the same town with the grandparents who could have raised my kids,
b) married a guy with a 9 to 5 job, or
c) paid someone else to raise my kids.

Since choices a and b were not options, I was looking at c.  After my first child died, I wasn't ready to outsource parenting.  I wanted to be there for the ones who lived.

So here I am.  Me, a Used to Be.  Yes, not having a day job causes internal conflict and turmoil at times.  No, I am not certain I made the right decision.  I question it all of the time.

And now, I have another reason to question it: What will my daughter think of me not working?  What kind of role model am I being?  It used to by hypothetical, but now it is real.

My friend Helen mentioned to her boys that she used to work.  "You mean workout?" one replied.  She was mortified.

And yet, some of us chose careers that were simply ill-suited for motherhood.  I have lawyer, psychologist and doctor friends who have flexible schedules.  Others of us aren't so lucky.  "I can't work during tax season," said my accountant friend.  She shudders when she talks about it, and quickly changes the subject.

And how do we go back?  My music promoter said it was a young person's job.  She can't go back to globe trotting with two kids.  She would never be home.  Now the challenge is what can she do: she had a job she can't go back to.

I don't have an answer for us Used to Be's.  In the meantime, I'll be at the grocery store in the peanut butter aisle, writing my blog, and working on my books.