52 reasons: Due Diligence

It was a dreary rainy Sunday here nearly fall in Vancouver. A perfect cloister it makes for spending extra time with kids or a latte or ... Often a good day to do some extra hours at work. Peace and quiet at work to catch up and get extra prepared for my busiest time of year that starts in about 10 days.

This afternoon as my kids rested I went into the office. But, not to work. Sure I shuffled a few emails and cursed the boot up time needed for my ailing workstation but I was really there to cop some photocopying power for our coming Block Party next weekend. Zoinks!

And, as I made my way up abandoned Sunday afternoon stairs to my office I was sad. Again. Like I have been so many times -- at times -- to not be doing the work. This return to work has not been simple for me, for a few reasons. Some were expected, many commonplace but others blindsided me. Like this one.

Such a sad lonely craving to be my former self in the employee department was not something I would have predicted. I have at times a profound yearning for the days of overtime. I tremble in the fear of regular hours, undertaking decisions with a hesitance characteristic of ill-preparedness. I worry constantly about the risks I take with directions or commitments because I don't have my old suit of armor. Hours and hours of overtime, overkill?, professional preening, contingency after contingency. Leadership borne of haggardness was my feeble mantle then. Now what?

One of the reasons I thought I could never be a SAHM is that I love my work too much. But in the rain of today it is tricky for me. I am torn between all my babies, including the one this job represents. I peer through the ages of work hoping to find, and wondering how, mothers manage(d). Catching a whiff of shit in all my machinations. Plucking myself up to find that it must be a crock of something. Picturing my Baba planting potatoes while her second youngest of five rocked the baby's basket. God help me.

The work experiment continues.

Stuck

I remember when I named this blog. It was a joke on a self-address I used to make on behalf of my daughter. An script for shakey know-nothing moments where I could look into the dark eyes of my newborn and repeat the mantra.

"Yeah. Right. Whatever you want to tell yourself Mother-Woman."

That is what I thought she was thinking as I fussed over breastfeeding or acted like I could arrange a perfect learning environment or in those hours I chased ideal work-life arrangements. She is my child, her snarky humour was destined; I am glad she either had it or helped me create a theatre of it.

When I published that I was Mother-Woman it was important to me. I see now it was my public progress to an identity not of growth but of attachments. Till now I was always stepping up on goals, I was a very typical modern American in that way. Motherhood changed that. Now I am more or less a splat. A SPLAT. Everyday I am a messy tornado of identities, responsibilities, successes and failures not quite successes. I might liken my future, my self [sic] as splat. Splat or splodge -- sticky and stuck. A woman yes at the core, but a hyphenated woman. Fully formed into woman think of me a potato head, jam in this hole CAREER-mother! over here COMMUNITY-mother! the smile on my face MOTHER-woman! in the earhole mother-FRIEND! the weight of my ass parent-CONSUMER! The appendages are endless. Her Bad mother wrote recently about a grafting. Her appendages different from mine but perhaps not disparate.

My life has been pretty linear. I stand in awe of the sage nonlinear. I wonder if I ever could become more comfortably random, multifaceted and/or dynamic. Motherhood has made me try it on but maybe it didn't take? Me is a simpleton. I wuz a zygote once and then I grew. Gaining and growing out, on, up; dems the marching orders. Modernity. Linear.

As my work life has swollen in prominence there has been some return to the woman I was four years ago. Revisiting the straight and narrow, right in there -- the rat race. I wander the halls forward. I connect the dots, complete steps, fill in blanks. The halls are narrow and with each step a small piece seems to nap off of the mother-woman. I feel a bit naked. Damaged and, well, snappy. Mother-woman, a biplane down the sewer pipe.

What is it that could keep all the stuff glued on? What??? Is it creativity? Perseverance? The 7 habits of highly effective mothers? What?????

Tell me!!!!

52 reasons: If I was a tree?..

I never really wanted any of the 52 reasons to be why I can't be a go-to-work-parent when I think it's that maybe I should be SAHM but here's the exception. Maybe some days I should be a stay-at-home Mom because I don't work as hard as I used to? I no longer work 10 extra hours every week. Instead I show up late. I don't spring to answer whiny customers. I get enough of that at home.

It is a charm in the end that I didn't change jobs after my leave because back in place I can still feel a bit like my former high performing self. As one compatriot put it... if I suck today at least I have a bank of credibility there. But I can't say I am really at ease with the 'permission to suck' thing.

I do love my work. I am currently reacquainting myself with my vocation and career; this is not just a job to me. I was utterly devoted to it. I believe it helped, helps, me remain utterly devoted to my family. It taught me the degree to which I could devote myself, my time, my identity to something that no other job had ever given.

But it isn't the same as it was those few years ago.

One thing you don't know is that when I started this blog I wanted to call it "Working Mother: like there's any other kind." Back in November 2005 I was in my exploding job share, 2 months **SURPRISE** pregnant, childcare arrangements falling apart; all the while asking asking... "How am I supposed to do this?" and "This is a mess. So I give up. Let me out. I abdicate." I am at odds with the paradigms of mothers with careers. I definitely have one, and while I was away for those 2 years I feared for the health of it still it did not pull me to hurry. Maybe its because I started working at 14 more than 20 years ago and never stopped that now I feel I can. Sure but also it is that I believe what Katherine Hepburn said about motherhood -- you can't do it all, no half measures she said. Me neither! chimes mo-wo (Don't I always want to be Katherine Hepburn? of course). Supermom is crap.

I apologize for every lateness and those in the know just scoff at me. Still, I want to be the one with a work around then in another moment I'm some post-post-Annie-Hall all Baby Boom and crap... my disregard for basic professional standards and etiquette SUCKS! I pine for the pace of production I used to offer and then I question who they might get to do better, anyway. Oh, I'm vain.

Last week I attended a retirement party for one of my superiors a quite gracious man who has worked for the Board for something in excess of 30 years. I enjoyed that lunch after a good morning, one where I had hit all the bases for a change. I looked around at my friends and thought about the work life of the man being honoured. I wondered if he ever sucked like me. I bet he did, ya know except he's a man -- but that's another post. Generally, I don't worry that I am denying my kids anything by working, they are supportive and at this point they are enjoying their very active lives in daycare and with their grandparents Monday to Friday. I think they don't do math the way we do. They have enjoyed having me home for two years great but this is good too. They don't see less they see different. What is different now is not about hours or minutes but rather about commitment. I am now otherwise occupied and that's really about it from their end. I have commitments at work that I must keep. I am doing my best to keep them and that's the big deal, but that's my big deal. I think it will get better.

Experiencing and expressing the commitment intrinsic with my job is about as hard as I thought it would be. But the example it shows my kids can't be all bad hey?

And if you tire of my 52 ponderences, I was very flattered to see the topics getting chewed over here by one smart chick!

**Further to the Hepburn thing... I'm not quite sure what species of tree I am but they way I vacilate you can bet it's deciduous.

Internet Burkha

I fear working full time but that is the work I have taken. A while back I tried on a fearlessness of working full time on this blog.

It was a lie. Sorry, friends. A lie made possible by your unknowing of me. A lie that aided me then, and now. An alternative identity to test.

It is something I have a come to adore about blogging the privileges of anonymity. Like many of you, no doubt, I look down my big ole Western nose at any image of the burkha but maybe I am a hypocrite?

Think about it. Am I alone? Wherefore Mommyblogging?? Is not the facelessness (discorporea?) a part of it? Maybe there is something inherent to certain aspects of the feminine that begs a sort of blindness? Things like motherhood? Dead babies? Wretched disease? Maybe the burkha is not so myopic as my western views attest. Yes, it is a uniformity of women as a class. I get it. I get it. But, it is also a multiplication of identity. Woman within and without the dress, more than a single being, in a manner of speaking. That is how I feel, how I enjoy feeling, in here sometimes.

Burkha, the ancient avatar?


Ah yes, another patented, half-post. But since it never seems one I can finish, might as well put it out there?

ps. nice pic, eh? it belongs to natalie.

Where am I?

Sorry to be such an itinerant correspondent.

Sorry. I have been keeping things from you.

I do have a new appreciation for all those brilliantly frank, forward and philosophical bloggers out there. I am not so much up to it. Totally uncharacteristic of our breed sometimes I fail to chronicle.

I am, of late, a bit sad.

It is my predicament of work - lost job. Not work -- Qu'est-ce que c'est nanny?? Mostly the former. I have been actively looking for work for a couple months now and no bites. I had one interview that I was highly qualified for and they concluded they would leave the job vacant???

What are these jobs dying out? (Technical Services department heads, for the librarians in the crowd)

Aside from that I have trooped out some lackadaisical applications to seek fresh pasture but they are not interviewing me. It is painful for me. I run about trying to put in applications and do renovation shopping while someone else plays in the sunshine with my kids. Now having a nanny is one thing when you are at work but otherwise?? As my husband, at great personal risk, noted I am not really enjoying my time with the children in this scenario. Duh. I make the sandwiches, do the laundry and then hide from my children 3 days a week only coming back on 'shift' at 4pm. It is humiliating, and that's not the half of said humiliation.

I can't get arrested in this town. My mind keeps raging. When I get notes from my former coworkers they are laden with terms like awesomeness, smartest, funniest, goddess and sage. When I write an application I get ... silence.

I am deep in a professional disconnect spewing into identity crisis.

And, I can't blame my family. Or can I? It is true I have had moments when I figure Hirshman was right. Two babies are a career killer. I am too far gone and I better just start mastering my hot dog day techniques and suck it up. That would be sad wouldn't it?

There is another very mad part of me that gets quite riled up at what I perceive to be professional snobbery. My most recent work was with our Metro School Board, I managed a $1 million+ budget, served 108 locations, led a service group of about 150 people and administered a database with more items than some city libraries. But I am hayseed it seems since I worked K to 12? I didn't work with other professional librarians I worked with, gasp, teacher-librarians. So I guess my work wasn't important or challenging???? You know being a teacher is sooo easy, yada yada. I'll tell you I never did the overtime when I worked in public libraries or even for the newspaper reference library. I know that all sounds arrogant. So let's kick in the self-loathing to make me sadder.

I do not mean a moments disrespect to public service library staff. I suppose they have a right to think that if I haven't worked a regular ref desk in 5 years my license should be revoked? Give me a break I have been in this business 16 years. Somebody tell me whither the labour shortage. It makes sense I'll never get a job again; rinse lather repeat.

I have got to admit something today. If I think critically I guess am used to things coming pretty easy. That seems to be changing. Count me near the head of line in loathing all things supermom. I never felt I could have it all. But this less than having anything at all is a lot more painful than I could have imagined.

Earnings

I have been looking for work for a couple months in earnest. So far a few bites but nothing to write home about

Do I care?

You know I don't know. I sit down to write applications and I am less than enthused. Now if someone offered me a job on a silver platter tomorrow I know I would polish up and shave all over and present myself bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Hell if my old job came calling -- and they do call about every two weeks to say how much they miss me which is nice. If my old job came calling I would leap into action and leave the Mother-Woman behind. But I like being Mother-Woman full time. At this point I struggle to get excited about telling someone how effective and dynamic and effing visionary I am as an employee. Let's face it I have babies to hold so their parents can eat with two hands. I have an imp addiction to feed with snotty nosed kisses. In front of me stretches at least one to two years of frenetic juggling of lives among horrid childcare choices if I work.

There are lots of reasons to stay away from the workplace.

At the same time I am -- as the cliche goes -- a passionate worker. I have loved each and every great library where I have worked. Surely there could be another love out there for me?

I don't know.

It will likely be harder to find work than I think. Over and above the apparent downsizing of a lot of professional staff complements my expertise seems to have gone quite stale. I am not an entirely conventional librarian. I am system-administrator/cataloguer at heart with a generous dose of hyper-vibrant training-oriented manager. The populations I run in somewhat mimic those of the spotted owl. Of late I have fully realized that as a technical specialist it is do or die time. Due to a couple little things like the collapse of conventional library software systems and the rise of thoughtful little movements like open source, oh yes and this thing called the internet if I don't work now I might as well scrub my resume clean and start all over. Librarians have to work hard to market themselves as relevant in the face of technological change these days, unemployed librarian/system administrator/cataloguers even more so.

Funny but for everything we might tell ourselves about our rights for in/out to our careers in practical terms (I don't think this is just me) "Polly put the kettle on!" I must be an idiot but I have only recently fully realized/come to terms with the fact that working only one of the past four years has had an affect on my career. Likely it was only this week that I have achieved any measure of self-acceptance that I just am not as serious about work as I used to be. Call it Mo-Wo the worker 2.0.

I am kicking myself a bit this is something I could have planned for if I had thought it through at all. Hindsight is for assholes I know, but still. Of course I could have avoided much of this by just keeping my old job but from where I am I now have quite a profound understanding that I wouldn't have avoided all of it. Work is work, it is a world. There isn't a tap I can just turn off and on. There was no pause button.

ps... thanks again to my husband for going to work everyday and busting his butt that I might even have this navel gazing exercise. I am one lucky duck.

Finally.. like the new tag line?

Hi, Mo-Wo!

Despite my love of good childcare I have always held a certain reserve about how it applies. My parents don't regularly babysit and when I was working I cut every minute of daycare to the wire. Now after a week of our shiny new nanny and no work I am in the thick of a paradigm shift.

Hi, I'm Mo-Wo and I'm a momaholic.
Queue the claps please.

Yep, I have been through the detox. I have gone four days with someone else looking after my children and really? This is what it's like to be sober? I had sort of imagined but I didn't really know til' now.

I am full of questions right now. What do I want professionally? Do I fear staying-at-home? Do I resent it? Is Hirschman right about the two kid thing? Could I make the PhD program entrance this September? Could I make it ever?

Add to all these the following: Could I justify being absent from my children for a reason other than being a wage earner? Wow. That one came out of left field! This is a wild concept to me. But of course I feel like the last one to the party. I am sure better women than I... stronger ones have seen it all along? The sweet songs of parity singing out that they can step away for "no reason"? How long can I do it? How much is enough? Too much? At least I'll have a shower, eh? Maybe it would cure me of my recent fantasies of release from mom-itude. I cannot deny I wanted to get back to work to 'get away', have a break from the failures challenges. But is work really the only means to that?

I have talked the talk people. But hmmmm...

Thursday's Child

When it came time to decide on our nanny I was uncharacteristically pragmatic. I said, more than once, "I have a tendency to believe that things turn out as they should."

Although, I really do not have that tendency. I merely wish I did. So fake it til' you make it right?

Then Thursday's news came and I wondered if I was possessed. Did the impatient bitch who was fed up with my dithering finally channel herself? Was I speaking her voice a few days ahead of the news that really begged the question where are you going, Mo-Wo? What do you really want?

I said in that post "... the snow falls harder and in bigger chunks. All the paths previously made will need to be worn anew." I can't deny that part of me can envision a multitudes of ways out. A plethora of new routes. I am fortunate for that.

I'm off for me meeting now. Thanks to all for wise words and kind thoughts. It means a lot having you guys. As my favorite old CBC radio show used to say... Stay calm, be brave, wait for the signs.

Later. Hugs from
Bertha Submersible Slug

And, what is your authentic Indian Name?

Lost it

The snow is falling softly here but with density. As we pass towards naptime most of the street is quiet. Hush of the noiseless weather taking over.

I am trying to be quiet. But I am all noise myself. Tremble, fear, worry and nausea. I have thought for days about writing to you. Faces, voices... ears out in the ether. I am peering at you now through this screen wondering if my petty misstep might meet some response.

I have made a stupid, stupid mistake. I am sort of known as a wise ass with some smarts and since Thursday afternoon I have struggled with a bit of news that shows such to be a lie. Any smarts, as I often wonder, are a joke, I'm a fraud. I am about as dumb as they come. You see it seems I have lost my job.

Seriously.

Lost it.

No one can find my job. Not me. Not my boss. My job is quite possibly gone. Such are the wonders of a career bureaucrat's career. Où est ma travail?? Sort of...

After the agonizing decison of returning to work. After the nerve-wracking nanny selection, inclusive of expensive nanny agency fee and pending contract... I got a phone call from the HR cats last week to discuss my return from Parenthood leave. The call came with the news that the extra six months of leave I had taken had triggered a forfiet of my beloved position administering school libraries technical services and our district educational media collection. A job I love and one that, I do dare say, loves me. A job that I leave only for one thing and that is for the love of my children. I lost it and did not once twig until now.

That job is gone they tell me, from me. Assigned instead to my mat leave replacement permanently. I have been advised to consider postings as a buyer or a member of our planning and facilities staff.

??????? really??

I have spent days since the news turning over how stupid I must have been. Did I just read into the optional leave what I wanted to hear? Once the HR staff explained it I just could not understand how this was news to me. Again, what am I stupid?

It was likewise, by the way, news to my staff... my boss... and perhaps still to the guy who now has my job. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark my friends. I will wait until a meeting on Tuesday for some further news. I am so sad. I feel this is a true test of my identity. A sort of metaphysical assault on the -- largely false -- dichotomy of go-to-work-moms and "other" moms.

... the snow falls harder and in bigger chunks. All the paths previously made will need to be worn anew.

Full Up

I was explaining a little something about going back to work to p-man last night. I really do feel there is a certain stigma that I am going back to work full-time. That is a question I get a lot... "Are you going back 'full time'? Eye brow raised.

Yes. I reply, downward glance of shame.

I don't like that really but I do understand it. We live in such a frickin' literal culture. I know they are all thinking that if I give a full day at the office I won't have anything left for the kids. Hahahahaha.

No Success

Hello all... I write to you today from the frumpiest pants imaginable. For you I have decided laundry can wait.

The topic today... Childcare-search + New Moms + Old Dads -Second-childing. Sounds scintilliting doesn't it.

I spoke with my husband's second cousin today. She sounded a bit harried and tired with a noisy 3 month old in the background. My heart went out to her as she apologized for having to run. My "no worries" rang a little hollow and she had sort of an audible blush of nervous motherhood. She is a real dear. When I first had my second child I got a lot of 'aren't you sorry' about my first parenting experiences. A lot of people will ask you if, comparably, you wished you'd appreciated how easy it was to have just one.

Bullshit.

What I feel is that when I had just one I had a different 'handicap' than juggling two and it was acutally harder. When I had one I knew nothing. I mean at least with the second I knew how to breastfeed and swaddle and do elevator drops and dare I say it CIO a little. I knew how to serve my boobs in public and generally how to treasure little things. With my first I was always learning -- I still learn by the way thus this post -- with my first I had not yet experienced success and for me, at least, no success is akin to depression. Surprise, Mo-Wo is type A!

Do you know what I mean?... no success...

You worry they won't walk if they're a month late to it since you have not yet reared a 'walker'.. you fear they won't talk... or eat their vegetables. That these things simply won't happen. The sleeping recriminations can eat both of you alive. I was thinking about these dynamics as I hung up the phone. I recalled them as I read about the Juniper's latest sleep wars and Mad's daycare woes.

My thoughts lie in reference to a bygone hazy rosy mythical time when I was first back to work and my dear only child went to N's daycare. It was a time we weaned effortlessly and when she had really perfect manners (thanks N.!). It was the time she was ahead of the curve for every developmental milestone and before I realized how little that matters and, in fact, how I fear that parental pride can do some damage. In that time long ago I felt like a successful parent. Many mornings now when I try to juggle two little ones deadlines on my own I can thank that feeling for the depth of my self-flagelation. Sometimes I wish I'd never known that 'success'.

I have mentioned before my belief that the only thing new parents really need is unconditional support. As I am weaving my way back home to my desk in January. As I try to open our family up, warts and all, to a new childcare provider. As I urge myself to 'let go', as one wise soul puts it. I wobble and weep at times. I scramble to 'know' to find the right answer to choose the path of success for them and for me. Then I try to forgive myself a little bit, take the leap of faith and cannibalize a bit of that resilience my children ooze from every pore.

Let's face it new or not... we all need the unconditional support. All the better to deal with the fact that any success is fleeting, if real at all.

No Garbage

They picked up the garbage today. I suppose I should be happy. But I'm not. They picked up the garbage and we can all swim in the pools again. Little people will find their preschools open. But I am not happy.

We still have no libraries. It has been three months and we are getting desperate.

People don't always get it when I say we are in trouble at my house without the library. I have attempted to redecorate our bathroom without the benefit of free magazines and brilliant art and decor tomes from any of the 22 branches I request send me one. My son has spent the three months from one year staring at me daily without a moment's relief to publicly flail about to Johnny Works with One Hammer while giggling uncontrollably. These things matter to me.

I think about my former coworkers suffering through three months with no pay. People who are fighting to see that this city pay those who shelve copies of The Englishman's Boy after its 387th circulation as much as the folks who file the parking ticket payments.

I think too about my early days and my introduction to library patrons. I worked at the old Central Branch newspaper desk and man, we had the regulars. What are those guys doing now? The smoky old guy who habitually reads the Irish Times. The lady who did the crosswords in The Province everyday even though she wasn't supposed to and even though we 'busted her ass' for it everyday. What about that homeless man with the green coat, his tent in a tube on his back and that startlingly handsome face? Is he just reading 24hrs now? Never mind all the unemployed who would be otherwise offered job workshops from the Business Division? Forget those new Canadians out to cram for their citizenship tests at their local branch. Let the children rely upon the Internet for all the answers.

Quite possibly those blank stares we get when we say the library strike affects us masks the fact that this isn't only a problem at my house? I think people may forget what libraries are. They are our common space. They are a social contract to share knowledge. Amazingly the terms of this contract stipulate a free exchange. So free it seems that sometimes the public forgets it does cost some money to raise a library above the standards of dusty book warehouse. We forget that libraries began as private enterprises and that at some point this society determined that was wrong; that instead we might all invest in a common enterprise of knowledge and need and talk and quiet and song and learning with no admission fees. Whither the investment Mayor Sullivan?

This week the CUPE 391 Library Workers' President said "we're all about social justice". I'm a skeptic so I wondered if that was true. It made me turn over all my insider and outsider information about this strike. It made me think of it and want to say what I know and feel is so poorly understood. It's true, libraries are all about social justice. No garbage in that statement. I hope our libraries can get their fifteen minutes this week. But in my own interest I hope it is no longer than that.

For more you can visit the Local's website here, maybe even sign the petition or at least check out all the neat links there. If you don't live in the Vancouver area do me a favour and love your library tomorrow, I'll be green with envy.

Vacuum

"Do you like being at home?"

The question hangs in the air still. 5 days after I sat over lunch with the dear friend who posed it.

"I like looking after my kids", I said.

Was that accurate? No. It was pretty vacuous, actually.

I turn the question over and over again. No short answers arise. Do I think it is important to be at home? OK. Do I find it satisfying? No. Would I rather be at work? Not really/Only if I could be two places at once. What about work? Is it more important to me? Well it is pretty important, but that's not it.

I think at times about what I miss about work. That's easy. I am VERY good at my job. I miss being 'very good' at something. In my case motherhood has found accomplishment and validation to be rather fleeting. Since any barely good mothering, if not parenting, stresses the need for an unrelenting putting aside of self-seeking.

If pressed I would argue that there are many like me who crave a greater degree of validation in their lives than parenting offers. I would further argue that thousands a few use this unconscious need to fuel cliche judgementalism and peer-parent hating. If the kids won't make us feel valued, hell, at least we can gossip about being lesser fuck ups than the Smiths, Joneses and Changs.

"Do I like being at home?"

Whadda ya mean? This a crazy crazy business. This life inside the consumo-corporate defined family contract. It isn't really a matter of liking it. But for now, I wouldn't have it any other way.

In related news I am so sick of the growing ubiquity of febreze. It is about as extraneous as the phrasing growing ubiquity.

** for more on the should she or shouldn't he of stay-at-homes check the links, hey.

Apples and Oranges

I was at a job interview yesterday. One question went like this...

"Give us an example of a time when you had to think strategically?"

I quickly supplied a workplace example from last year. This morning all I have been thinking is that I should have used a day with two children under 3 as my example. When do I not think stategically?

When I was in Library school our director, a man by the way, made the point that mothers underrate their transferrable skills in the workplace. I think this is true. Tell me, have you ever linked motherhood and your marketability as an employee? Maybe I should update my resume to show my B.A. plus my M.L.I.S plus my M.O.M.

At Home

A tad less than 10 years ago we relocated for p-man to complete his articles. I was unemployed for about 4 months. I found it hard without the regular cycle of action and accomplishment a day job offers. Entering my 9th month of mat leave, the second in 3 years, where I am today seems similar. At times I get the reminiscient absence of confidence that this sort of solitude engenders.

Tomorrow I'll make my application for an additional 6 months of leave without pay for parental leave. I have some mixed feelings about it.