I Suck at Sick Days.
I feel my temperature rising...
I’m going to make a major admission here: I’m not very good at being at home with my kids. I’m not looking for either condemnation or sympathy; it’s simply a fact of my personality. And knowing this fact for sure has been what’s made me able to create my working-and-family life “balance” (which I put in quotes because as any parent knows, there’s no such thing as balance; it tips back and forth maddeningly) with a minimum of guilt.
So I work and my kids go to school (and before full-time school, I relied on daycare, which I still kinda miss because they had longer hours there than they do at school now). I realize I’m extraordinarily fortunate that I have a career I can fit (better word: stuff, or shoehorn) into school hours, with random extra hours at night or on the weekends if need be. I’m also fortunate that when I did have them in daycare, I found one that was both excellent and affordable.
I’ve written about my determination to not be a guilty working mom before, and I stand by that. Sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness, telling anyone who will listen that I don’t feel guilty, that a working mom is the woman I am, not a forced situation or an uncomfortable compromise. I don’t feel that making my work a priority (for the money, yes, but also because it’s who I am) automatically makes my responsibility as a parent less of a priority. My children are top of mind, and consume the majority of my heart, all the time. It’s just that that mind, and that heart, exist in a person who must, must, must work for a living, and must feel free to derive personal and professional enjoyment and satisfaction from that work.
All of this is my long-winded way of saying this:
I am terrible at being, just BEING, at home with my children. Which I am right now, on Day Two of a viral illness my younger son James is suffering. Naturally any mother (or father) isn’t going to love their child’s sick days — that would be, er, sick. No one, whether they work or stay at home, enjoys the disruption to the household, or the drudgery and helplessness of caring for an ill child.
But I suspect that some parents have the ability to just … be while they’re home. To suspend the devotion to schedule. I can’t. I can do all the things I’m supposed to do — take the boy to the pediatrician, administer medicine, make chicken soup, put Cars in the DVD player (again), build a train track on the living room rug. But I can’t do it with patience.
It’s not who I am. Am I alone here?
December 16, 2009 @ 3:11 pm
I’m with you Denise! Those days at home with a sick kid as the longest days of the year. And not only if they are really miserably sick! Even if they are on the mend! The clock does not move! The hands do not budge! I always feel guilty about wanting a day to pass — wanting it to be later — but that’s how I feel too.
December 16, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
You are not alone, Denise. I think what is more difficult for me (patience-wise) is when we are both sick. Then I feel guilty for not giving her enough attention and care while feeling generally rotten myself.
December 17, 2009 @ 9:09 am
I totally understand. It is hard for me to be “Stuck” in the house with a sick kid. It makes me feel cooped up and nutty! So – don’t feel guilty! I totally get it.
December 17, 2009 @ 12:32 pm
Good God, no, you’re not alone. And I am officially a SAHM these days, due to my husband’s work schedule. It’s draining to be emotionally on all the time.
December 18, 2009 @ 3:02 am
No, you’re not alone. As a person who doesn’t have affordable day care, I’m fortunate to have a career that has flexibility and from home but I always feel the pull between business and child. Sometimes it’s hard to feel like I’m doing either of the them well. And it is definitely difficult to just BE, even for us who do it everyday.