I complained to my Hubby Sunday night about my writer’s block for the mediation brief I blogged about trying to write on Sunday.
His response: “You don’t have The Fear.”
“The Fear?”
Thoughts of one of my favorite teenybopper flicks, Fear, starring a young Mark Wahlberg and even younger-looking Reese Witherspoon (both pre-stratospheric stardom), came to mind.
Further clarification: “The Fear.”
Maybe he’s referencing Lily Allen’s lyrics lambasting materialism in The Fear? That doesn’t make sense. (But it’s still a great song).
Hubby: “It’s what keeps me going at work all day long. If I’m not good — make that damn good — at what I do everyday, I’ll lose my job. That’s The Fear. And you don’t have it.“
Then he added (in pedagogic tone),
“You should produce your best work product everyday.”
Hearing this instantly ignited my “Aaaahhh!” response. Don’t tell me something I already know.
This is probably the worst part about working part-time and working at all, for that matter, when you have young children.
For part-timers, you have shorter office hours and/or days, so you try to squeeze in as much as you can in as little time possible. As Hubby would say, “Those days are your ‘work days,’ and you just jam it all in during the day and after the kids go to bed at night.” It’s a great plan – in theory.
But running at full steam on the designated work days only works when you’re firing on all cylinders, or at least most of them. When you’re scraping by on only fumes, it’s all you can do to stay awake in front of the computer screen and remember to state your appearance correctly during a Court Call.
It’s not only the lack of sleep, but the lack of focus and motivation that comes with it. In a totally zapped mental state, you are expected to function like Joe and Tom sitting in the offices to your left and right. Not only is this impossible, but it makes you tear your hair out.
Good thing I have an office and am not in a cube , so I can keep my self-reprimanding moments private: ”Focus!” or “Stop!” when my mind wanders or “No!” when I reach for my iPhone for a diversionary game of Words with Friends or Memory. (Although, Memory has been getting a lot harder lately).
I know I used to have The Fear, but I don’t think I know what it is anymore – at least in the sense that I used to. In the numb haze my life and mind have become, The Fear doesn’t have the same intensity. And having been blessed with the faults of procrastination and sloth, living without The Fear is virtually not living. No motivation has me drifting aimlessly through day after day.
Maybe subconsciously, I’ve worked to erase The Fear because I want to get laid off. Goodbye handheld device, goodbye Outlook calendar, goodbye billable hour! And goodbye worrying about staying on top of my game when it has become perfectly evident that I’ve slipped. In this fantasy, I am 100% mom, 100% happy.
That’s the key word: fantasy. It’s not just unreal because it’s not my life, but because I can’t fathom the idea of not being a lawyer anymore. As much as I want to be a full-time mom, no work hassles involved, would I be happy as “just” a mom? What would this new identity be like and would I like it? My mind reels with the unanswered questions and worrying about whether I could take that leap when I’ve always thought I would be a career mom, working full-time, setting an example for my kids and conquering the world.
Back to Hubby’s comment: Okay, maybe I don’t have The Fear. But, that’s not to say I’ve completely lost the will to be my best and succeed. Now something else has the power to motivate me to give 100 percent (or as much as I can muster) instead of The Fear. Something I didn’t have before that pushes me to succeed because those two little ones’ very existence depends on me. I don’t need The Fear. I have The Love.
Today’s verdict: Hung jury.
Man, at this point, you must think I’m stalking your blog- but I’ve gotta tell you- you are writing about a lot of the things that tortured me for the two and a half years I worked like a dog while completing my second graduate degree, with a newborn.
I tried so hard to be everything at work and everything at home. I’m not proud of it, but when my supervisor “helped” me out by issuing me a secure laptop to work from home on those days when my kids were chronically sick, that’s what I did. I didn’t do it when they were awake. I did it beween the hours of 8 PM and 6 AM. I drove them to daycare at least once a week without having slept a wink- fearing the rapid eye movement would be so vigorous that I’d never wake up if Iet myself go down. My husband was away for training for 6 months. The kids were always sick. I couldn’t find a nanny where we lived. So, I worked. And, I was still falling behind. I wasn’t meeting my deadlines. I was running late.
I was starting to become the worker I used to loathe and judge. I recall my time as a military commander. I didn’t have kids. Subordinates (harsh term, I know- but that’s the Army), would come in to my office frazzled, unable to meet mission requirements because of some family issue- particulary young single mothers. I had no kids. I had no reference. I had zero compassion. They just needed to get up earlier. Get more organized. Stay a little later. Work a little harder. I have few regrets about how I led and managed. But, I do regret those times I lacked empathy. It was all about the mission then-
Being a parent makes us better workers, better managers and better leaders. I believe that now. For me, I reached that threshold where the pros of not working outweighed the cons. I realized that, for me, I’d been afraid to be seen as “just a mom”- which, by the way, is a gross epithet.
I’d been afraid to throw away all those degrees, that prestige.
There were several things that helped me on my path to becoming a very fulfilled SAHM. One thing that opened my eyes….we had a series of deaths in our office one month- 3. One morning, on the day of one death, I got a call from a co-worker about an upcoming teleconference. I stopped her to inform her that a co-worker in our group had died overnight. There was about a 20 second silence- and then a reminder to come pick up the supplies in the office that had been shipped from headquarters.
For me, I realized that I’d sub-consciously been concerned about what all my hundreds or thousands of co-workers past and present might have thought if I did the unthinkable and resigned having received pretty steady promotions each year. And, the three deaths in the office showed me the machine keeps rolling with only a very slight hiccup with such tragic and permanent losses.
Anyway- I’ll try to stop stalking your blog- but a lot of your posts remind me of thoughts I had a year and a half ago as I agonized over whether I could ever become a not-working mom. Now, I keep busy and active in the community. My kids accompany me on clean-ups. I’m a citizen journalist who chronicles the great things in our community- this is a labor of love because it directly benefits my family- It gives a sense of fulfillment. And, it probably takes as many hours as if I were drawing my old paycheck. But, the difference is that I’m now paid in memories, the feeling one gets from volunteering and making a place better, and connection to the place we live-
I wouldn’t say my life is any easier. When I worked full time, I got a break. I might have been suffering to meet a deadline-but I could focus for 10-12 hours a day while the daycare watched the kids. We didn’t eat real food- We ate out. I had a maid come. I didn’t do laundry. I used the gym at the office at lunch. These are luxuries that no longer exist. I’m lucky to brush my teeth alone now. But,I’m okay with that.
Phwew! Good luck if you read all that! You can always message me and tell me to leave your blog alone! haha!
Ha ha, no I do not think you are a blog stalker! (You ARE a blog stalker – kidding). It’s nice to know that at least one person has shared my thoughts and struggles with the whole working mom issue and that the complexity of the decision to stay home or stay at work isn’t just something I’ve concocted in my head. So many women have a child and *bing* they’ve decided they want to stay home and that’s that. The decision to change my schedule and figure out what works best for me and my family wasn’t so simple.
You make a really good point that working is such a break and you really do get a fair amount of “me” time even though you’re technically working or en route to and from the office.
I think there comes a point when what you think is an acceptable level of performance at work and home slips and you’re faced with somewhat of an ultimatum: continue to give 100% at work and let the family slide or scrap the job and devote yourself to the kids. The difficult decision, for me, lay in determining what point that was: 90%, 80%, 50%?
No one ever talks about the intricacies of the personal struggle working moms go through in making these decisions and unfortunately, we often don’t find sources of comfort or guidance until we’ve decided one way or the other on our own. If I had talked to someone like you two years ago, I’m sure you would have helped me a great deal in at least framing my perspective on the whole issue.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments and I’m really glad that you’re in a place you enjoy and spending some great time with your family now
(Keep stalking, it’s fine!)