Just a Parent and Stress at Home

My husband Jack was at a social event with our daughter last night when he ran into a friend of ours. She asked how my life was with one kid starting middle school and the other starting high school.

"I hope she isn't too involved.  I hope she is just a parent," she said.

Just a parent: nope.  I am the PTSA President at my son's middle school.  At times, I wish I were just a parent, but I was drafted last spring and I accepted.  I know the word "no."  When asked the first six times, I said no.  I gave in the seventh time they asked.  (I guess they knew my limit.  I'll have to up it to eight next time.)  One thing I love about being the PTSA President is that I meet so many new and interesting people.  The problems we get to solve are relatively fixable, or within range of being fixed.

And yet,  I find being President of a school based PTA is harder than when I was President of the city wide PTA where I was representing thousands of parents.  Why?

Let me digress.

A friend of mine recently sent me an article from NPR about how for some moms, work is a respite from home.  There was a study in 2012 that showed working moms reported "significantly better physical and mental health."

As a stay-home-mom who has at time been a full-time volunteer, I can see the truth in this.  Being a parent is hard.  Being married is hard.  Having a mom who lives in another state who has Alzheimer's is hard.  Working has its challenges, not doubt, as I can remember from the days when I was gainfully employed.  I can see how the hard part about working is coming home, making dinner, driving the kids places, and riding herd on homework.  I have a good friend from high school who works full-time and struggles to find time for herself and family.  She feels like she spends the weekends either at the grocery, Target, or cooking dinners for the week.  She is constantly tired.  She scares me into not wanting to go back to work.  The work part scares me less than the "how will I manage home?" part.

The article came out in July, which was when my marriage was in an extremely fragile state as Jack was learning how to manage is workaholism.  With Jack's workaholism, anything outside his job was a distant second.  He did almost nothing voluntarily around the house, and I felt like a nag asking him multiple times to help.  I felt like if I were to get a job, I'd be a single mom.  I'd be working and still managing 100% of the kids and home.  I was terrified about returning to the workplace.

So I was pondering why did the city wide PTA President seem easier?  It wasn't.  It was a ton of work.  It was challenging and I had to learn new skills, most of which I asked my friends about and/or made up as I went along.

Then I realized:  Even though I didn't get paid, it was a job, a real job.  No wonder I was happier.