Working-Mom Guilt: Why I Don’t Have It, and Why No Mom Should

Last year, I wrote an article for American Baby magazine called “Can You Afford to Quit?” It’s a perennial subject for parenting magazines — how-to advice for making a smooth work-to-home transition. I remember when I got the assignment. On the phone, my editor and I batted around the details of what to include, and she asked me what I thought would make a good sidebar to the piece.

I hesitated a bit, but then I broached this idea: What about a sidebar addressing the case against quitting? My idea was, maybe moms who are sure they want to stop working haven’t considered the economic downside of giving up their jobs — income, of course, but also retirement savings, health insurance, and so on. At the time, it was a subject close to my heart: my husband, who is now once again gainfully employed, was at the time in the midst of a protracted period of unemployment. My freelance business was keeping us afloat, and I was as grateful (and proud) to have my income.

I don’t want to get into the should-you-or-shouldn’t-you about working moms — but let me briefly address it, just to get it out there. Whether or not you quit your job to stay home with your child (or how often you change your mind and your work-life situation) has everything to do with your comfort level, your financial reality, your career focus, and your family’s  needs, and nothing to do with anyone else’s ideas, choices, or judgments. I have no judgments myself. As much as I know my choice works for me, I also see how others’ choices fit their needs. Don’t get me started on the so-called Mommy Wars, with working moms pitted against their stay-at-home counterparts. I’m not going to go there, because in my opinion, it’s a made-up war, whipped to a frenzy at predictable intervals by a media that should, instead, be trying to expose inequality in the workworld, and dismal lack of support for working families in this country.

Rant over!

I went back to work 12 weeks after my son was born. At the time, I was a magazine editor. And I was lucky: I had a good salary, lived 20 minutes from my office, and I found a terrific nanny. What I never had, curiously enough, was guilt. I knew I had to work. It was a financial reality for us, yes, but it was also an inner necessity for me. I loved being home with my new son, but I also loved getting out of the house, doing a job I adored, and coming home with a paycheck. I remember my first day back very well. It was January, snowy and cold, and I felt weird at first, tottering on high-heeled boots, wearing makeup, and handing over my three-month-old to his nanny. It was hard to walk out the door, but with every step toward the subway, I felt more like me. I was running toward work, eager to reclaim my old self. But at the end of the day, I was also running toward home. (Literally, I ran home from the subway, I was so eager to get my boy back in my arms.)

And so began the push-pull of work and home that all mothers feel at different times. There’s so much to worry about, from childcare to career concerns to what’s for dinner, that there isn’t (or shouldn’t be) much mental energy leftover for guilt.

I believe the reason I don’t feel guilty working is that this is as much who I am as any other indelible aspect of my personality. It sounds like the classic working-mom cliche, but it’s no less true: if I were home all the time, I wouldn’t be as good a mom as I am. If being a working person is who I am, then why should it be any less true to say that being a person who works  is who I am as a mom?

But back to that sidebar to my stay-at-home American Baby article. That was written when the economy was still teetering; it hadn’t  yet collapsed to the point it’s at now. These days, more and more moms who’ve been out of the workforce for years are heading back out of necessity, not to stave off boredom or make some extra cash, but to pick up the slack. To pay the mortgage. To get by.

The New York Times published a piece about the new pressure on moms to work in response to the dismal economy. Turns out, the percentage of moms in the workforce always goes up when the economy turns down. Again, I ask, where’s the room for guilt? Ditch it, ladies. You don’t need it, and neither do your kids.

I’d love to hear how you feel about working, staying home, guilt, and high heels!