un-Happy Mother's Day

In honor of this year's Mother's Day, I cried for two hour straight. I know that Mother's Day is supposed to be a celebration of motherhood and a day of appreciation for the sacrifice and dedication that goes into motherhood, bla bla bla... but instead of focusing on the positive, I spent the day rehashing all those fleeting year-long thoughts I have about motherhood, which include a lot of guilt, frustration, and fear of failing my family. I'm not talking about the day to day pressures of being a parent, such as discipline, accidents, or lack of sleep. I'm talking about the greater responsibility involved in being handed a life, a soul, a complete human being. When I think about the status of my motherhood, so to speak, I can't help but cry. Let me try to explain:

I spent the last several years in a demanding and highly competitive college. I have a part-time job that I do from home, which keeps me busy in addition to homework. I am also doing a year long internship, because my field requires experience, not just a degree. More importantly, I have a great marriage, a beautiful child, and many blessings in my life (baruch Hashem). You must be asking yourself why on earth I would have anything to complain about. The truth is I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but feel completely overwhelmed and saddened by it.

It would seem that my schedule and lifestyle would better suite a type-A workaholic who preferably has help. I, on the other hand, am disorganized and easily harried, I don’t have any help with housework or nanny-ing, I need too much to sleep to function normally, and I have a problem with procrastinating… In short, I am completely overwhelmed. I find myself always exhausted--too tired to keep in touch with friends, too tired to go out with my husband, too tired to fulfill any household duties beyond what absolutely cannot be overlooked. (So while I’ll make a healthy dinner every night, I might not wash the dishes until two days later. I sometimes don’t even notice how much needs to be done, until there isn’t a clean pair of socks to be found or the like.)

The worst is that since I’m out of the house for so many hours, I send my daughter to a full day day-care. I carefully chose an excellent program where I thought I could leave my daughter for many hours worry free, but I was wrong. Despite how warm and loving the teachers are, and even though my daughter is extremely happy (she asks to go to school on weekends) I still feel horrible that she is not with me for most of her waking hours during her young and most impressionable years. There’s no way to get around not spending enough time with your kids; quality time does not substitute for quantity of time together. My daughter certainly doesn’t act neglected--her behavior and development are wonderful--but I still know that what I’m doing is wrong. For those few afternoon hours that we do have together, I shut off the phone and do nothing responsible so I can focus on my daughter; but that does not make my friends and other family happy when they're trying to get in touch with me, nor does it make me happy when I'm supposed to be doing something important.

So what are my options? I can't be a stay at home mom because that would also be utterly irresponsible. I have one child who's old enough for a full day at school-- clearly not what's considered enough of a 'burden' to warrant not working. Also, staying home would just give me more time to remember that I only have one child, even though I so badly want more; so it's good that I stay very busy. I also couldn't possibly waste my expensive education by not using it--my parents would be devastated (and rightfully so) after having paid so much in tuition.

The other option is that I get my act together and make it work. There are women who have no problem working full time and raising several children, all while maintaining their sanity, so why can't I? I'm no basket-case and I've been functioning fine until now, so with enough work it should all start to fall into place. In fact, I should be proud of my achievements; my daughter is an adorable, well taken care of kid, I am graduating with a totally decent GPA, and I got a job offer in a prestigious institution. All in all, things have gone really well for me (bli ayin hora). But come Mother's Day and I'm still really sad, because what I want to be most, a full time mother up to her neck in kinderlach, I'm not. Instead I'm drowning in deadlines, papers, and projects that all pull me further away from home.

They say it’s human nature to want the very thing you don't have, but I'm ashamed to feel this way. It's a crime that I would even complain at all, considering the real problems other people have G-d forbid (i.e. no children at all, not being able to find a job, poor health, etc). To be clear, 364 days a year I feel busy but blessed, and mostly very happy. On Mother's Day though, I feel totally inadequate, and the fact that my problems aren't problems at all, but rather self-imposed stressors, doesn't make it better. I'm just glad that around here people don't actively celebrate Mother's Day, using the lame excuse that "every day is mother's day" even though I don't think I could handle having to evaluate and judge myself as a mother more than once a year.

So now you know why I waited a full day before posting my thoughts on Mother's Day. It wouldn't be right to everyone out there who deserves a happy and festive Mother's Day--especially my own mother who gave up a potentially fabulous career after having several children one after another. She did what she thought was right for her family and never looked back. I should learn from her example and be more open to whatever comes my way. I truly believe that Hashem only gives us what we could handle. Apparently my combination of work and kids is what's suited for me best--who am I to question or complain? In the end, I'm just happy Mother's Day is over so I can go back to being a busy and happy working mom who hasn't a free moment to self-obsess. Now it's time to carry on, so I wish everyone a lot of strength to do whatever it is that they have to do in this world and a lot of wisdom to be able to find joy and satisfaction in it.