Tonight I got together with a number of moms I know. Around the table, we chatted. I realized that a number of them are like me in terms of work. Yes, it looks like we work part time. We’re only gone some of the time during the day. However, in reality we work full time. We freelance, we teach night classes, we act as web designers and writers and all sorts of other bits and pieces.
I live in a very, very expensive city. Unfortunately and fortunately, it is also the place where my parents and my husband’s parents live, and it is the place where we grew up. While we love living close to family, we really are not that fond of the need to work so hard. Yes, we could rent a home instead of owning one, but even rent around here is about equal to our mortgage. It’s a tough place to live, and one best suited to a dual income family.
Many mothers I know would love to stay at home with their children full time, but the cost of living here makes this very challenging. However, their strategy is to limit the daytime hours they spend outside the home. This means that they work in the early mornings, late at night, or in the evenings when a partner is home. They struggle with flex schedules and try to make ends meet, both on the financial side and on the time with family side.
How does this impact our parenting, though? For me, I really have to focus on my daughter when I am at home. I have to turn off all external distractions or do any business while she is watching her half hour of television or playing with a friend outside. It makes me very efficient in my daytime work and very creative at finding niches where I can do a little work here or there.
However, this also makes us tired as parents. We juggle a lot of balls, more than those who have a single job. We’re always planning times to work, often short on sleep, and usually trying to multitask. It’s certainly not the easiest lifestyle, but working part time during the day does have its benefits: the additional time with your small child and the benefit of a dual income.
This seems to be a trend in the work life of parents, at least those in my city. Have you noticed a similar trend in the lives of the parents of small children where you live?