Having It All

I don't normally get political or address public opinion, etc, but I have recently been pushed to discuss how I feel about being a SAHM versus a working mom and what I think about "having it all".

"Having it all" is of course possible for women. Lets face it, we're amazing. We can multi-task better than any supercomputer. We can balance making and keeping a home, raising children, and we can conquer the work place. My biggest concern is at what expense.  The concept of "having it all" is heavily focused on the individual; me or I. It's an idea built on a selfish premise. The individual may have the kids, the family, the friends, and the career, but what about the people around her? Do we gyp our family and friends out of a truly deep and meaningful relationship with us because we're far too focused on ourselves? Not to mention the fact that it's just plain exhausting to do it all.  Sometimes we confuse "having it all" with "doing it all".

I am certainly not saying that a woman shouldn't do it all. I do believe, however, that when children are involved things can get a little messy. Children that come from homes where both parents are career driven and work 60-70 hour weeks can and do turn out fantastic. Many parents work those kind of hours and still manage to spend real quality time with their children, but is that really fair?

We want our kids to grow up to be successful. How do we judge success? Is it that they have great jobs and make lots of money or that they dedicate their lives to some cause? By focusing so much on what we do, do we forget to teach our children that who we are is far more important.

My husband travels a lot for work and our kids really miss him. Part of the reason I stay home now is how much he travels and how dedicated he is to his job. When I was younger, I had career goals and worked to be successful in my field. As soon as my husband started his job and we had our first child, I realized that it just wasn't fair for both of us to be so career focused. Our daughter didn't choose to be born, we chose to have her. It didn't matter if it was me or my husband who backed off, but one of us was going to have to let their career "suffer" for the sake of our family. My husband has a real passion for what he does, so it was natural for me to back off.

The other night I had to tell my son that his dad wouldn't be joining us for dinner because he had to work. He looked at me with puppy-dog eyes and said, "Oh man. I miss Daddy." That just completely cemented my thoughts on staying home. My husband spends all his free time with our children and he is a great father; he just works a lot and misses a lot. We could put our kids in daycare or get a nanny so I could work too, but then what happens when both my husband and I can't make dinner. I can't stand the thought of my son's face hearing neither of us would be home for dinner.

We chose to have our children and they should be our priority. They aren't something we should check off on our list of accomplishments. They are human beings that need our guidance to become good human beings. I don't want them to remember their childhood as memories built in between their parent's work schedules. Careers come and go, children and grandchildren are forever.

That does not mean the woman has to be the one to give up or tone down her career. I know plenty of dads who have chosen to put less emphasis on their careers to make sure their family is taken care of. It also doesn't mean that one parent's career has to be over. Raising a family is a full time job and I don't think we should be hiring that job out to carefully vetted strangers.