Can Mothers Have It All?
"One the desire for purpose, independence, self-expression, silence; the other a desire to wrap my arms around my children and never let them go."
It’s the week my daughter turned one. The anniversary of my most arduous (and most rewarding) mountain climb. I couldn’t bear to be apart from her, so instead of writing and filming and editing this week, I buckled her into her car seat and took my nine year old son to the science museum. It was pouring but the top floor was warm and bustling. We looked at magnetic liquid and cause and effect and how soft objects float. We watched children perform shadow theatre and held small plastic animals in the dark. She wore her tiny color block Nikes and wrapped her soft hands around my fingers, scouring the room for her next great adventure. We walked in the rain to a cafe nearby, and played connect four over lunch. I marveled at the simple joy of being able to take time off work, alongside the gut-wrenching cleaving that occurs when I’m apart from them.
Can mothers have it all? It’s a question I’ve been contemplating a lot lately, turning two equally weighted gemstones over in my hands: one the desire for purpose, independence, self-expression, silence; the other a desire to wrap my arms around my children and never let them go. Call it hormones, a social dilemma, Patriarchy or just plain juggling, but I find this friction to be one of the most perplexing in the realm of maternity. Can women have a career and a family? If I want to go back to work I risk being considered a workaholic and an absent mother, but if I stay at home with the kids, it feels like complacency and career death.
What do I have to give up, to have both?
Q: “Yesterday I cried in my car on the way home to pump during my lunch. I missed my baby so much and just wanted to go and pick him up. Does this get better with time? Like will I just get numb to this or do I really need to consider being a sahm* even though it would be financially difficult?” – pizza_12121, Reddit, Returned To Work And Am Miserable (*Stay At Home Mom)
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