GET A JOB?!?!?!?

by: Carol Wiepert

A well meaning "professional" suggested last Friday my home would be "more stable" if I got a part-time job to supplement our income.  Along with running a household, my family, our finances, THIS WEB SITE and running around with my Mom on errands, etc., we have been raising our great-niece pretty much since birth (she just turned 2 last month).  OMG!  Do I have a few things to respond to that one, just as soon as I can peel my laughing self off the floor!

I have been a stay at home mom since BEFORE the birth of my darling Rachel (17 years ago).  Now let me tell ya' how that happened.  Pre-baby days, I was a career woman earning the same amount as my wonderful husband and we REALLY enjoyed a nice life.  We also enjoyed a nice fat bank account.  I had a nice home, nice CARS (note the plural there), my hair AND nails were done at LEAST once a week by a professional and I had my own housekeeper who knew better than I did where everything went and KEPT IT THERE.  I dressed nicely, had a well manicured lawn, and well, you know.... I had all the perks a married, childless, career woman could want.

Along comes a friend who needs a home for her unborn child and we happily agree to a private, OPEN adoption (the equivalent of adding a whole new BRANCH to our family upon said baby's arrival).  Darling husband and I are all about family and the more the merrier we thought.  In fact, we sorta' kinda' unofficially adopted the Mom as well!  I guess you could say we got two for the price of one!  Life was a merry go round and we had captured the brass ring.

Sooooo after months of planning, OB-GYN visits, sonograms, lawyers (expensive ones), home study, psychiatric evaluations, physicals, collecting every known piece of documentation in one's life known to man, attending classes (voluntarily) for parenting, birthing (I was the elected "birth coach"), collecting an astounding library of parenting books and magazines, assembling "safe" (was it really?!?!) furniture, debating names and colors for baby, scouring every baby store in a 200 mile radius with expectant mother in tow, covering every square INCH of Home Depot for color charts, learning more than I wanted or needed to know about non-toxic paint and floor coverings, learning more than I EVER wanted to know about custody law, sociology and psychiatry, figuring out how caps, bottles, nipples, and rings all managed to lose their mates even before the baby came, test driving diapers and polling parents to insure you get the "right fit" with no leakage, finding the "perfect binkie," allocating storage (all over the house and losing "personal" space in the meantime) for said baby, gasping at the thought of how sticking a "syringe" up baby's nose to remove clogged nasal passages (ewwwwww!) or HOW a thermometer in her rear could possibly be done without injury, worrying about WHO would change the poopy diapers since I had a weak stomach...... along came baby. 

Now, before that glorious day which will forever outshine any other in our lives, darling husband and I, being the practical sorts that we are, decided I'd stay home for 3-4 months and we'd hire a nanny so our daughter wouldn't be in danger of some grumpy, inattentive day care worker.  Nothing less than Mary Poppins would do for OUR little one and found her we DID!  We moved her in two months early to "make sure" she would meet our expectations.  Life was going to be ohhhhhh so sweet and perfect and WE WERE READY!! (Yeah right!) 

It should be noted I'd spent several months toning my body, eating the most perfect of diets and avoiding anything that had a hint of anything "unhealthy" (while the pregnant "Mommy" ate whatever the heck she pleased under the name of "cravings") PLUS spending several hours a day hooked up to a breast pump so I could feed our child "naturally."  While my husband found this particular chore amusing, I did it because I'd been convinced by the La Leche League (referred by birthing coach who was referred by parenting classes who was referred by social worker who was referred by lawyer who was referred by... errrrr... I forget) this was the only way to go or she'd be sick before the first week if I didn't provide her immunities.  And hey, truth be known, I wanted to be as natural a mother as possible for my little darling.  Did I mention I was working 70-80 hour work weeks while doing all this? 

During that time, somehow, my corporate usefulness seemed to wane (according to my superiors) because I became somewhat preoccupied prior to the stork coming to roost on our roof.  The fact I was asking for a short maternity leave (even though I wasn't officially "pregnant" ) seemed to piss 'em off.  I didn't care.  My store's profits were higher than the projections because I was the happiest person on the planet and it rubbed off on my customers!  We had a store calendar counting down the days to the big "B-Day" (Baby Day).  (Note to those who are pregnant: NEVER DO THAT! If nothing else, they'll fire you for gambling! LOL)

The very day my daughter was born, somewhere inside, I knew I could never leave her to the care of another.  It REALLY hit home the day I had the last of my "perm" cut out just a week before she was born.  My shrink (a.k.a. hairdresser) and I were hotly debating whether or not I should keep the nails.  I was already having to adjust to a whole new realm of doing my own hair and nails, finding that darned "binkie," losing the housekeeper (not so bad the first year or so, if you can wade through 500 loads of laundry generated by one child with G.E.R.D. which you knew at her 2 week check up and the pediatrician FINALLY diagnosed at 9 months, but only AFTER he labeled you "eccentric" because he didn't quite believe you knew the difference between "spit-up" and "PROJECTILE VOMITING"!) AND keeping up with dust bunnies you never knew existed, well-baby checks, boo-boos, lovies, finding a darned replacement "binkie," teaching, nursing, rocking, socializing, cooking, and well, lists, lists, never ending lists of those things you can't quite accomplish because children don't operate on approved corporate schedules, PLUS pulling money out of hats because you just never knew how much one kid can cost until you have to meet her needs and finally finding the darn "binkie" only to realize your daughter is bringing your future son-in-law for dinner TONIGHT!  All I can say is, "Where, oh where, does the time go?" 

Add the fact that you knew too much the value of having a Mom at home.  To this day, I don't remember a lot of detail about my childhood, but I carry with me very warm, fuzzy "moments" spent with my mother until divorce forced her into an arena that was NOT, at the time, very friendly to professional working Moms! There were little things like my coffee-milk in a bottle (1 tsp. coffee to 8 oz. formula makes a kid feel "grown up"), sitting on a porch with Mom watching the sun come up and waving bye-bye to Dad as he left for work.  Those days she managed to clean house, do the laundry, IRON the laundry, cook 3 meals and make it all seem fun, only to sit on the porch again, this time in her arms, without a care in the world, watching the sun go down again and wondering where it went.  Mom always had an answer for everything, and if she didn't, you can bet by day's end she'd either read it in one of her books, gone to the the library for due and diligent research or she had a plethora of other Moms who would have the answer lickety split.  (And yes, we used to test her!  And yes, she ALWAYS passed!)  And then there were lazy days drifting down the creek, or the simple joy of taking a long (instructive walk), having picnics and laying in some farmer's field soaking up the warm sun.  There was bird watching or trying to imagine what each cloud in the sky "looked like."  I knew things like what most trees in the forest are, what flowers are named and what lived beneath the murky waters of the creek from the time I could talk (which was EARLY because I "helped" with crossword puzzles before I could say "Ma-Ma"). 

I remember boo-boos getting kisses, pats on the head when I broke a glass trying to "help" clean up, Mom's laughter when I'd just soiled my brand new dress making mud pies, Mom saying how "neato" my pet snake under the porch was instead of running for the hills, an old tire swing, being embarrassed when Mom had the goofiest Halloween costume, getting angry because all my friends had more fun at my house and never wanted to go any where else.  I remember the adventure of getting "lost" every week-end (my brother and I choosing which way to go at every highway intersection on long Sunday drives and Mom never getting lost because she "seemed" to have some inner compass), going to the drive-in every other week-end with my Mom in a car packed to the hilt with many loud-mouthed, laughing children hidden under blankets just to save 50 cents (like they never knew we were there when SOMEONE would inevitably giggle when she paid the attendant).  There were many other nights spent sitting on the edge of Mom's crowded "communal" bed after she'd worked 12-15 hours listening to me and my girl friends babble about high school and boys and everything under the sun, or to my brother and his friends talking about girls and football, wrestling or whatever it was that pesky little brothers talked about.  To us, it seemed she was always waiting patiently to finish that last chapter of her favorite book or grab a shower before she crashed.  It's a wonder she could read back then. 

There were regular game nights with all the neighborhood kids drinking 5 cent bottles of Coke and nights spent crying myself to sleep in her arms because some girl had made fun of my hair or my home made clothes (little did I know I had designer clothes and I STILL wonder where she found the time to make them!).  But more than anything, I remember the sense of safety and security she always gave us.  It just seemed she was always there for whatever life threw at us.  We were never jealous when Mom "adopted" all of our friends at one time or another and sealed it with her "Notary Seal" which made it official.  They got equal billing for her time and attention when their parents were to busy to notice they were falling apart and we knew she must have been exhausted.

All of these things were swimming in my mind the day my daughter was born.  The day I entered MOTHERHOOD.  Enter one well meaning social worker who said (right about the time I was re-considering going BACK to said well paying career), "Carol, WHY would you want to adopt a child and then have her raised by someone else?"  Enter the Guilt-Trap!  She had me hook, line and sinker!  Aside from that was the fact the universal populace of wild elephants and the entire United States Military COMBINED could not have torn me away from my gummy grinned, blue-eyed, slobbering little angel!  Her every move was an absolute, positive miracle to both of us.  I couldn't stand to miss even one hiccup, much less pry myself away and my live-in nanny had been reassigned to "companion" (for me) status because I couldn't tear myself away from this curious, entertaining wonder called my daughter.  For the first time in my life, money didn't seem as important as her first tear, her first smile, her first EVERYthing. 

For 17 years, in addition to being a "stay at home Mom," I've had various "jobs" working from home, like building/rebuilding computers for profit and some not for profit, writing the occasional article for profit (mostly not for profit), counseling people caught up in the foster care/adoption system, advising people on what resources are available for troubled families, three foster sons over a span of 5 years, various and asundried children in and out of my life, some "in distress" and some not but just hanging out because they love us, crisis intervention and referrals, helping my mother and her husband maintain their farm, helping my brother and his wife with their problems and their brood, and (oh yeah) running this website for the last 10 years! For 17 years we have lived to see Rachel smile and, during times of adversity, we've taken the opportunity to instruct her on how stand up, stand tall and face life as it comes without fear, because her family is always here for her.  So far, it appears we have done our jobs and soon, we will send her on her way to her own adventures. 

It is here we get to start all over again at paragraph 4 above with our great niece if you just replace the word adoption with custody.  It wasn't planned or expected, but I must say, I wouldn't trade a day with our niece or any sacrifice we have made or will make on her account.  I'm 52 years old and I may not remember all the details of my childhood, however, the things I definitively DO remember are how much time, nurturing and love my Mother gave me as a child.  How could I give my own daughter or my niece any less?  And by the way, my daughter was just born yesterday!  I'll go to work when my husband, my daughter, my niece and my mother don't need me anymore.  Until then, I'm too damn busy with my current jobs (note the PLURAL here).

So, humbly I say, "Ma'am. Motherhood is a full time job!  We may not have a fat bank account, we are getting older but NOT rusty and our cars may be old and rusty, but we have riches the tax man can't touch!"