Working Parent

Women’s Day in the Air

As some of you may know, March is Women’s History Month and March 8th is International Women’s Day. Here at Raise A Mother, we spend a lot of time thinking about women and how best to support them, so Women’s Day holds a special place in our hearts.

I’ve recently been trying to make a concerted effort to take self-care more seriously, and set aside time for myself. One way I’ve found to incorporate this time into my day is by listening to podcasts on my commute to and from work. I get to clear my mind and listen to whatever I’m in the mood for.

Incidentally, all of my favourite podcasts at the moment are hosted by women. So, to start off this women-focused week, I thought I’d share some of these fabulous programs with all of you. I hope you’ll share some of your favs with us too!

FAV MAMA PODCAST: ONE BAD MOTHERonebadmotherlogo

From the hosts:

“One Bad Mother is a comedy podcast hosted by Biz Ellis and Theresa Thorn about motherhood and how unnatural it sometimes is. We aren’t all magical vessels!

Join us every week as we deal with the thrills and embarrassments of motherhood and strive for less judging and more laughing.”

Highlights: I look forward to the new episode of One Bad Mother every week. This podcast has a very similar theme to what we try to do here at Raise a Mother – support mothers as the unique women they are, without judgment. I especially find that the weekly genius and fails are a great reminder that none of us are alone in this epic motherhood adventure.

 

FAV CURRENT EVENTS PODCAST: THE CURRENT WITH ANNA MARIA TREMONTICBC_Radio_thecurrent

From the host: 

“The Current is a meeting place of perspectives, ideas and voices, with a fresh take on issues that affect Canadians today. Based in every major region of the country, our team of journalists think locally and globally. If major news is breaking, we’re on it. We bring new insight to stories that Canadians are talking about now, and we uncover stories they’ll be talking about next week and next year.”

Highlights: The Current is a radio show that airs daily on the CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster. They cover a wide range of stories, both based in Canada and around the world. I love the way this show gets my brain going in the morning. As an added bonus, the podcast version of the show is divided up into the day’s different stories, so you can listen to the parts you’re most interested in if you don’t have an hour available to listen to the whole show.

 

FAV LADY-FOCUSED PODCAST: STUFF MOM NEVER TOLD YOUstuffmomnevertoldyou

From the hosts: 

“Hosted by Cristen Conger and Caroline Ervin, Stuff Mom Never Told You is the audio podcast from HowStuffWorks that gets down to the business of being women from every imaginable angle. Fueled by boundless curiosity and rigorous research, Cristen and Caroline are girls-next-door gender experts who skillfully decode the biology, psychology and sociology of ladies and gents, from their evolutionary past to millennial present, to better understand all the Stuff Mom Never Told You.”

Highlights: I’ve only recently discovered this podcast, and already I’ve learned so much. The hosts really delve into their topics, but still manage to make intensive research interesting and engaging. Their newest episode is about the history of International Women’s Day – I can’t wait!

 

FAV ENTERTAINMENT PODCAST: SERIALserial logo

From the host: 

“Serial is a podcast from the creators of This American Life, hosted by Sarah Koenig. Serial tells one story—a true story—over the course of a season. Each season, we follow a plot and characters wherever they take us. We won’t know what happens at the end until we get there, not long before you get there with us. Each week we bring you the next chapter in the story, so it’s important to listen to the episodes in order.”

Highlights: I was a latecomer to Serial, so many of you may already know about this amazing show. If you have not yet discovered it, get ready for the urge to binge-listen. Each episode is so well written, it leaves you eagerly awaiting the next.

 

Parenthood is Not a Project

I’m re-reading my favourite parenting book: Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman. This is the third time I’ve read it in under three years, and I love it because it’s funny, it’s relatable, and each time I read it, I’m struck by new things. So don’t be surprised if I bring up Druckerman’s ideas in more blog posts in future.

Today I was reading her chapter on “The Perfect Mother Doesn’t Exist,” where she talks about how American-style (and I’d say, Canadian-style, too) parenting involves an intense amount of “concerted cultivation” – in other words, parenthood is a project. Druckerman admits that as an American living in Paris, “my project is to make my kids bilingual, international, and lovers of fine cheese.” It struck me that perhaps one of the reasons I had great difficulty during my first maternity leave is that I too, thought of my time at home as a project.

I’m not surprised I viewed mat leave this way. Most of my life until that point had been a series of projects – from completing each class and each year of education until I was 22, and then continuing that ‘project’ mindset as I moved on through a series of contract jobs, buying my first house, and the nine months of my first pregnancy. All these experiences had definitive expiry dates, finish lines, and clear goals.

So of course I saw mat leave, with it’s defined months – six, in my case – as another project. I had an actual spreadsheet of goals, and I thought I was being very reasonable to only put one major item on the slate for each week. This didn’t work out so well for me. I did manage to check off most of my goals (probably because I had been so minimal with them in the first place), but I still felt like I hadn’t managed to accomplish much as my return to work neared.

Looking back now, I realize the problem wasn’t that I had tried to be organized, or that I had tried to ‘make the most’ of my brief time off work by having a clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish. The problem was that the point of that time wasn’t leave from work. The point of that time was my entrance into motherhood. I had been thinking about those six months as an isolated block of time, rather than as just the beginning of a lifelong experience with no expiry date, no finish line – the experience of being a parent.

Of course I felt I hadn’t “accomplished” anything – because my relationship with my child, my motherhood, my family, isn’t something to be “accomplished.” It’s something to be lived.

This isn’t to say I can’t have goals while I’m away from work this time around – I can, and I probably should, to keep connected to my independent adult self, who loves to-do lists and accomplishing things. But I won’t tie those goals to the finite period of my mat leave; instead, they’ll just be part of my life while I happen to be home every day, and they can and should go beyond my return-to-work date.

As I thought about this, I set aside my book, rubbed my big round belly, and promised baby #2 that this go round, our time together won’t be a project. We won’t try to accomplish things over the next year. We’ll just experience living with each other, getting to know each other, and cherish the fact that we have so much time to devote to the start of this new relationship that will last forever.

Motherhood is not something to be accomplished. It's something to be lived. (1)

 

Confessions of a Hot Mess: Hamster in a Wheel

hamster-wheel-03-600Hello, dear mamas. Long time, no see. Once again, I have been remiss and Lindsay has been holding down the fort here at Raise a Mother. She’s been doing a fantastic job, I’m sure you’ll all agree. If you haven’t yet read her post “Letter to my Post-Partum Self“, do. It’s lovely and thoughtful, just like her.

Lindsay also wrote recently about bonding, and about how many of us are allowing ourselves to become “too busy” to connect with the people in our lives, instead collapsing at the end of each day in front of a screen. Reading this post made me feel uncomfortable and guilty, though I know that wasn’t close to Lindsay’s intent when writing it. You see, I am the hamster in that wheel.

Ladies, I have a confession to make: I am a hot mess. I eat more than I should, drink more caffeine and wine than I probably should, and weigh more than I should. I don’t sleep, or exercise, or floss as much as I should. I may or may not have finished the last bits of peanut butter from the jar by pouring in some chocolate chips and then scooping it out with a spoon (I totally did).

My absence from this blog comes down to one thing – I am terrible at taking time for myself. I work through my lunch break on a regular basis. I feel a compulsion to make sure that all my chores are done before I do something fun. Of course, with a toddler around, my chores are never done. They’re on an endless loop. I constantly feel “too busy” and collapse on the couch at the end of the night.

Here’s the thing, my lovely mamas: all things considered, I’m doing ok. I might personally feel sometimes like a human disaster, but I know my son, my husband and my family feel loved. I do need to do better on making time for myself, and I am working on it. At the same time, I know that my slightly OCD tendencies mean that I need my house to be tidier than many people need their houses to be in order to feel truly relaxed.

I know I’m not alone. We all have our quirks that shape the challenges we face in balancing our lives. I’m sure I’m not the only one of us to feel like I’m currently on a bit of a merry-go-round.

And so to you, my fellow hamsters, I say: You are not alone. You are doing a wonderful job and your kiddos love you. This particular marathon won’t last forever, so just do the best you can to make it all you want it to be. In the meantime, I’m waving from the next wheel over.

The Professional-Me and the Parent-Me

It can often seem like our professional-selves and our parent-selves are two separate things. When we think about how these two identities intersect, it’s usually in the context of “work-life balance” (that dreadful catchphrase of modern life!), laden with implied meanings about the incompatibility of these two constantly-battling halves, as inevitable as the push between ego and id.

But laying this usual dialogue aside, I’ve been thinking about a different angle on how work-me and mom-me interact: how does who I am and what I do professionally impact my parenting priorities and values?

For some professions, tangible connections are easy to see between work-and-parent identities. My dad, for example, an intensive-care pediatrician, could always be counted on for a valuable (if not always welcome) dose of perspective when one of us was losing our minds about a minor cut or scratch: “Are you bleeding? Do you need surgery? Then no, you don’t need a band-aid; it’ll be fine.” Pretty obvious correlation there.

For some of us, though, the connections might not seem so noticeable, so I’ve been thinking more big-picture, about how what I do in the environment where I spend 40 hours per week impacts my outlook on the world:

  • What beliefs do I have about how the ‘real world’ works?
  • What life skills seem to be most important for everyday success?
  • What principles/attributes are reinforced for me as normal and valuable?
  • What is reasonable/appropriate in interpersonal interactions?

 

blonde-business-woman-in-office-looking-out-window-skyrise

Getty images

The answers to such questions will surely influence how each of us parents our kids as we try to raise them ‘right’ (whatever that means!). And I can’t imagine that the place in/tasks on which we spend so much of our waking hours don’t affect our perspective. So how do we know that we’re parenting thoughtfully and deliberately, rather than just being consumed by our own work ‘bubble’?

A few issues related to my field, university academic counselling, have been popping up in mainstream media lately (and they seem to be simply everywhere in the news streams and blogs I follow professionally): increasing mental-health crises, a lack of coping skills/resilience in young people today, and a rising collective sense of entitlement.

I realized, as I was ranting to my partner last night, that living in this particular work ‘bubble’ for the last three years, and working on some specific projects/problem-solving of late that’s directly related to these issues, has had a huge impact on my thoughts about parenting:

  • I’ve come to believe that in the ‘real world,’ young people are increasingly incapable of dealing with disappointment, frustration, anxiety, or stress of any kind, and that this rings all kinds of alarm bells for a future full of fragile, helpless adults who will not be up to the task of solving big-picture problems of the world if they can’t even deal with the run-of-the-mill stresses of everyday life.
  • Resilience, self-organization, and the ability to form realistic expectations for oneself seem to me to be the most important life skills for my kids to have in order to succeed.
  • Entitlement seems to have been normalized, so self-management, initiative and gratitude are heightened in value.
  • My daily interpersonal interactions consist mainly of people requesting and/or needing things from me, and involve mainly those who are struggling – which results in a bolstered belief that it’s most vital for me to model and encourage self-sufficiency and resourcefulness in my kids through our interactions.

It’s easy to get sucked into my own little bubble, which, when I articulate it in writing, presents a pretty bleak picture of what I expect of my kids and of my priorities as a parent. Thankfully, among the recent avalanche of alarm-ringing, there are a few making cool-headed counterpoints (such as this article here, if you’re interested in the topic).  Finding these alternate perspectives really helps me to emerge from the echo-chamber of my work environment.

And while doing this reflection doesn’t change the fact that I still think teaching resilience, self-management, and coping skills for everyday stressors are still highly important in my role as a parent, it at least helps me to remember not to lose sight of some of the other goals I have as a mother: things like teaching my kids passion, joy, and kindness, which, unfortunately, are not so consistently reinforced through my everyday work.

Now I’d really love to hear your thoughts on this, dear reader! How does your experience of work influence your parenting outlook?

 

The (Un)Working Mom

UnWorking MomHey Mamas – I’m back! Lindsay has been doing a great job of holding down the fort here at Raise a Mother, but I’ve still missed touching base with our village.

The truth is, I’ve been a bit dumbfounded as to what I should write. I lost my job on October 19th, a consequence of the Canadian election results. The fact that it happened was unexpected and the fact that it happened in a very public way — I literally watched my job (and those of many of my friends and colleagues) slowly slip away on national television — have made it particularly difficult. Almost a month later, I am only beginning to stumble out of a sort of fog that has surrounded me.

The reality that I no longer have a job that I loved is hard to take. The other day I told Lindsay, “I’m supposed to be at my office right now, doing my job”. Because that’s how it feels to me – like it’s my office and my job, and that fact that I’m not there doing it is what’s wrong with the picture.

Of course, what’s really wrong with the picture is that it isn’t my job at all. Despite all my best efforts — the long and tiring hours, the weekends away from my family — I lost my job. Someone else is sitting in what is now their office, doing what is now their job. I am sitting in my house, trying to figure out where to go from here. That’s a bitter pill to swallow.

I am definitely results-oriented. I like planning, organizing and checking off lists. I am the person who will add something I have already done to a to-do list, just so that I can have the satisfaction of crossing it off. And like many people I know with this type of personality, I place great value on these aspects of my character. They are intrinsically connected to my self-worth.

This has probably been the biggest personal challenge that I’ve faced in becoming a mother. During maternity leave I had an ongoing to-do list, to keep my mind busy and give me some structure. But I also had to learn to accept that the list was not going to get completed as quickly or efficiently as I might like. Some items might not happen at all. Because no matter how well you prepare or organize, life with children does not always go as planned. In fact, it very often takes you in a completely different direction.

Now I need to learn that same lesson in my professional life. I planned to still have my job and worked hard to keep it, but I can’t cross that goal off my list. I am actively reaching out to my network and applying for jobs, but until I land a new one, I can’t count that as a task completed. I need to find new ways to feel like I’m contributing, and I need new ideas.

One place I know I’ll be spending more time is here with you mamas at Raise a Mother. Have any of you gone through losing a job? How did you cope with the challenge of being unemployed, especially with kids? 

We’d love to hear about your experience in the comments section, or in a guest post! 

When the going gets tough, the tough need go-to cookie recipes

The past couple of months have been busy times of transition for both of us mamas here at Raise A Mother. Earlier this week, Lindsay shared her challenges in trying to find a work-life balance when both parents work. Meanwhile, almost immediately after returning from maternity leave, I have found myself working in the longest election campaign in Canadian history.

Like many people (and furry blue Sesame Street characters) I know, I find that times of stress bring on cravings for sweet treats. And while this is definitely not the healthiest coping mechanism in the world, it is certainly not the worst. I have accepted the fact that a little bit of cookie goes a long way in improving my mood. There’s also something about baking that makes me feel connected to my home and family.

As a fun post today, I thought I’d share a few of my go-to cookie recipes — ones I’ve made over and over. They are all easy, relatively fast, and always yield delicious results!

I’d love to have you share your go-to cookies too. With everything so busy, I think a virtual cookie swap is exactly what we need!

— Shannon

Peanut Butter Banana CookiesGo-To Healthy Cookie: Gluten-Free Vegan Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies by Two Peas & Their Pod

First of all, if you haven’t yet discovered Two Peas & Their Pod, let me be the person to introduce you. I’ve yet to find one of their recipes that wasn’t just flat out delicious, and the instructions are always solid.

These are probably my most-often made cookies. They are a great option for every day baking in general, but especially if you’re dealing with family or friends with dietary restrictions. You can make these slightly less healthy by adding extra chocolate chips, but they are plenty good without them as well.

Honourable Mention: Chocolate Raspberry Cookies from “Veganomicon” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

Coconut oil chocolate cookieGo-To Chocolate Chip Cookie: Coconut Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies by Gimme Some Oven

My ideal chocolate chip cookie is soft and chewy, and that’s exactly what this recipe delivers. My husband is not a big sweets guy, but these disappear super quickly in our house. The recipe takes slightly longer than some because you have to chill the dough (the same is true of the Honourable Mention recipe), but it turns out that this makes all the difference. I haven’t tried it yet, but I suspect these would make fantastic ice cream sandwiches.

Honourable Mention: Chocolate Chip Cookies from “Cooking With Mickey, Vol. 2”

peanut butter cookieGo-To Peanut Butter Cookie: Old-Fashioned Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies by Une Gamine Dans La Cuisine

These are the peanut butter cookies that look and taste just like the ones you remember from childhood. I made them without espresso, and with milk instead of cream, and they were still delectable.

Caramel cookieGo-To Showstopper Cookie: Chocolate Caramel Cookies with Sea Salt by Two Peas & Their Pod

And we’re back to Maria and Josh at Two Peas. It may seem unfair to include two cookie recipes from the same source, but here’s the thing: these are just incredible. For the past five years, I have hosted a Christmas-time cookie swap with my girlfriends. I made these cookies the second year, and they are still the ones my family talks about. A quick note: the first time I made them, I couldn’t find caramels, so I used squares from a Caramilk bar instead, and they worked just as well.

Pity Party For One…

This week, stay-at-home parenting seems like the only reasonable solution for life.

I’m hoping this will sound familiar to someone else:

We eat out an unreasonable number of times due to a lack of groceries, and of time to get any. I manage to stay on top of a few loads of laundry and a bit of tidying only by getting up early enough in the morning to be ready for work 20 minutes before I have to head out the door. I’m in desperate need of some girlfriend time, but already feel like teaching dance for an hour and maybe going to yoga once a week is the limit of time I can be away from contributing at home without feeling guilty. Our evenings entertaining friends (and I’m not ambitious here, just another couple sitting on the couch eating popcorn and chatting would be amazing) seem few and far between, almost a thing of the past. My partner and I both feel like we wake up, are in ‘go’ mode all day at work, come home to dinner/bath/bedtime for the baby, and finally plop down for a a brief period of half-focused-doing-nothing in the same room before collapsing into bed, knowing in several hours the cycle starts all over again.

I get it now. I get why for generations, and in many cultures still, the norm was/is to have one stay-at-home-parent: this whole two-working-parents standard we have is just unsustainable. A colleague who’s a grandmother says, “I don’t know how you’re making it work.” I say, “Well, you did it with your three kids,” eagerly hoping for some tips, to which she replies, “Yes, but I stayed home!” Another colleague says she only got through this stage by hiring someone full time to care for her daughters, cook, clean and bake while she was at work.

In moments of bleakness, my husband will often shake his head or dejectedly sigh and say, “Cycle of productivity.” This week, I really feel the weight of that. The crazy thing is, I don’t feel like I’m that productive, not in a creative/achieving sense. Busy, sure, and productive at work, yes, but what is this garden-variety productivity really worth if you don’t feel you have time to appreciate or savour your life as a whole?

I want to live in the moment with my son when we are home together. I want more than an hour at home with him per day that’s not swallowed up by the evening ‘schedule.’ I want to feel like I have more time for relaxing in the calm space of my home than it takes to get that home to a state of calm. I want my husband and I to have the energy to really be involved with and invested in one other after our kid’s in bed, not just find comfort in our solidarity through the slog.

I’m sure there are lots of things we could do to work towards these goals, but in moments of bleakness, those solutions just seem like something else I don’t have the time or energy for. Maybe it’s also okay, though, to spend a little bit of time having a pity party every once in a while. I know the cloud will lift eventually, and when it does, I’ll be eagerly hoping for tips again, so leave ’em in the comments, dear readers.

When Returning to Work Doesn’t Break Your Heart

I had to go back to work early after the birth of my son, by the standards of most people in my life. Not early compared to my yoga-teacher friend who had six weeks off, or my friend whose mat leave living overseas was only two months, but I went back at six months, which is early to many. Having talked with other moms, I know I was in a great position to return to work – I got to start back at only three-and-a-half days a week, and our parents were willing to do the needed child care until my husband could get pat leave (I know – lucky!) when I started full-time hours.

But in the weeks leading up to my return date, I was a wreck: I was jealous of my mom-and-baby-group friends, looking ahead to a time when they would continue to have play dates with their babes while I sat at a desk wondering what my kid was doing all day (turns out he was still at mom-and-baby group, just with Dad). I was embarrassed about handing my son off for care without a regular nap schedule, as if that would somehow signal incompetence in that I’d had him for six months and still didn’t know what I was doing. I was anxious that my absence would somehow weaken our bond – or, as my sister put it, I “kind of did” want him to stay a bit of a mama’s boy even though I knew meaningful relationships with other caregivers were important and good, and would make my life a hell of a lot easier in the long run.

The moms in my village gave me great support, encouraging me that John could help with the household duties more so I could spend more time with Arlo when I was home, assuring me that all mothers felt this way when they went back to work, and even telling me it was okay if I just cried all day in the bathroom for the first day back.

…

So imagine my shock when I had (dare I say it?) a wonderful day. Everyone asking about the baby and wanting to see pictures, getting to see friends I hadn’t seen much since Arlo’s birth, wearing grown-up clothes with no chance of food smears or drool? Of course I had a great first day.

But then the guilt-inducing thing was, I kept having great days. I like my job. I like my colleagues. I like walks at lunch by the river behind my building, bike rides with friends to work in the morning, and drinking a whole cup of tea while it’s still hot. Best of all, every day when I came home, Arlo was limbs-flailing, goo-goo-ga-ga ecstatic to see me (a reaction that had largely been reserved for working-Daddy or post-babysitter greetings until that point).

This is where assumptions about motherhood paint us all into corners. Here I was, with all the support in the world (online and in-person) to get me through a shit time, but I was actually having an okay time, and the fact that I wasn’t falling apart made me question a) whether I was a good mother, and b) whether I would still have the support of the mama-world or be marked as a deviant of the tribe. I haven’t really tested this theory in the online world (and I’m a little scared of the reaction I could get here, to be honest).  Among my friends and family, though, I was relieved to find that my unusual (or perhaps just less-oft-voiced) experience of being, in some ways, liberated by a return to work, hasn’t reduced the support I’ve felt at all.

We’re all going to have awful times as mamas – hair-tearing, heart-draining, insanity-inducing moments. But we’re also going to have hurdles that end up not being as bad as we thought they might be. For some of us, going back to work is in column A, and for others, in column B. Where we end up probably depends on a wide range of factors. But wherever you fall when you go back to work, it’s okay.

~ Lindsay

Pieces of me

In our house we have recently boarded the emotional roller coaster that is the end of maternity leave and the beginning of day care.

To be clear, the emotional roller coaster part has so far mainly applied to me, and much less to my one-year-old son. Like so many parts of my parenting experience, parenting my way through this transition seems to be about managing my own emotions and behaviour as much, or more, than it is about helping my son with his.

For his part, my son seems to have adjusted remarkably well. One week after beginning day care, our drop-off involved no tears whatsoever. He even willingly went to our day care provider when she reached out for him. In my head, ecstatic. In my heart, dagger.

I want my son to be a confident, well-adjusted kid. I want him to know absolutely that I am always there for him and to feel loved unconditionally — while also being able to trust and build relationships with others. I don’t want him to be the stereotypical “mama’s boy”… and yet, I kind of do. Not really, not truly, of course, but there is a very visceral part of my heart that just wants him to stay my sweet little baby forever, cuddled close to my chest.

A friend of mine recently told me that scientists have discovered that, after birth, some of a baby’s cells may stay inside his or her mother for months or even years or decades afterwards. This makes perfect sense to me. I have found myself explaining to my husband that separation from our son is difficult for me in part because our little buddy has been inside or attached to me for the better part of two years. That’s a hard connection to shake, even without accounting for any cells of his which might still be floating around inside my body.

Another friend told me that her transition back to work after the birth of her son was one of the most traumatizing times of her life. I am beginning to understand why.

Until these past few weeks, I don’t think I truly understood the saying that being a mother is like having a piece of your heart living outside of your body. I always thought, “That’s a nice, sentimental idea”. What I didn’t understand is that watching my son grow into his independence would be at once exhilarating and terrifying, fascinating and devastating. My heart fills as I watch him make new friends, and breaks when he falls. That’s one hell of a ride for we mamas to contend with.

All the more so because I want my son to be blissfully unaware of the turmoil of my inner struggle so that he can carry on with the business of growing up. I don’t want to make him anxious. I don’t want to hold him back. Ultimately, what I want is to watch that little piece of my heart skipping joyfully away from me, ready to take on the world. No matter how hard it is to watch.

~ Shannon

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