I am a full-time preschool teacher, and a single mom.

One of my favorite things about my job is that warm and fuzzy feeling I get because I am doing something good for others; contributing to my community I live in by teaching its smallest members the basics of life.

What can be more rewarding?

Yet, my altruistic bubble was burst the other day by my seven-year old son’s comment, “Mom, I wish you had some other kind of job, so that you are not all done playing when you get home.”

He pretty much nailed it.

My work typically consists of eight hours per day of the following, in no particular order: playing, finger painting, singing, cutting and gluing, reading, hugging and laughing. Of course, there is also curriculum planning, graduate student-teachers supervising (we are a lab school for graduate-level students), talking to irate parents and cleaning up all the artsy messes.

When I get home after five p.m., I’ve had enough of kids. On most nights, this upbeat, energetic and fun teacher turns into a surly-burly mom. And this is the mom my son is stuck with. I am just not a very fun mom.

Most of my friends who work outside of the house spend their days in front of a computer monitor, communicating with other adults in proper complete sentences and with outstanding vocabulary.

I get to teach language arts to four-year olds using puppets and songs. My corporate world friends’ ideas of a great, relaxing weekend often include combining several other families of kids for a game of basketball, or having a noisy kid-filled pizza party in their backyard.

I usually want to find the most secluded spot at the beach and read or write, while Alex is playing in the sand by me.

Their ideas of weekend relaxation are often my ultimate weekend nightmare. It just feels like work. I try to justify myself thinking how would all these moms/execs feel if I made them sit in front of a laptop in a contained environment droning through endless spreadsheets on their weekend?

And, yet, sometimes I am worried sick. I love being a teacher, but will my son resent me for not having enough “kid-time” left in me by the time I get to be with him? 

Labels: full-time working mom, good mom, pre-school, Svetlana Nikitina, teacher, working moms

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I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I know I had something to do with it. 

I started working again at my old company.  Doing the same things I’d done before the call to write my book practically blew me out of the office park.  Maybe I needed proof my masters’ degrees hadn’t gone to waste.  Maybe I was sick and tired of the startled reactions I got when I answered the ‘what do you do?” question with “I’m a writer” and nothing hardcover to back it up.  

Most likely it’s because I was tired of not making any money.  I wasn’t pulling my weight financially; just the three kids, laundry, groceries, dinners, lunches, bills, dog (yes we have one now) social calendar, team snacks, and carpools. 

I mentioned to a realtor friend that I was going ‘back to work’ and she got all excited – too excited, actually. That’s when I realized I was way more interesting to her than the mom who wouldn’t take phone calls during the writing hours of ten to twelve.

So the first day I show up, there’s the inevitable, “Hey I was here when this company was still an idea around Martha’s dining room table!” that makes me sound historic, if not informed.

I’m walking around, trying to remember that authoritative strut I had then; they obviously need the visual reminder of who I am around here.  One of the new guys, who’s working on the kind of healthcare reports I used to do in my sleep, stops to hear my spiel. He’s never heard of Martha. Then he asks me, “So what have you been doing these past FIVE years?”

The emphasis is mine, not his, but that’s how I hear the question.  I stumble over my answer, honestly because I hadn’t worked on the list that I’ll kick myself for not organizing ahead of time (had a baby, carted her around to above list of duties; wrote content for a global warming non-profit; wrote my book’s first draft, chaired a search committee for our school).

The point is I had an answer – lots of answers.  But after my hesitation lasts two seconds too long, he nods with a smile, “Hey, just being a mom is a lot of work.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I said, feeling humiliated without understanding why.  He walks away with his coffee mug, and I recognize his jaunty gait.  

He REALLY works, it says to me. 

By Kimberley Kwok

Labels: kids, Kimberley Kwok, mommy wars, non-working moms, working moms

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