I Don't Know How She Does It

I never thought* that I'd be a mother desperately, guiltily, secretively, passionately and unsurely trying to navigate the world of career and child. Nineteen and twenty through my pregnancy and birth with Dakota, I quickly and immediately knew that I would never* be able to leave him or any baby of mine to go to work full-time, and the jobs I held bringing him with me- nanny, gym daycare- along with the schooling I kept up nights (thanks Mom) wasn't a path leading toward high power career woman. In fact, due to a mammoth insecurity and struggle with math, I have yet to finish my AA degree. ( Two classes! Two! Jesus! )Years, babies, went by like this: low paying jobs as lover of children where I could bring my own. I was able to stay at home for a year with Dakota (thanks Mom) and almost three with Lola (thanks Mr. Curry) and Ian was at home with either his mom or Mr. Curry his first few years as well- Mr. Curry remember we are talking about a 23 year old man at the time took a night job as a security guard so that he could be at home with two year old Ian during the day.

And now, Ever. And now, writing. And now, I'm thirty-six years old and finally believe I can make a living doing what I love have loved since five years old I wrote my first play called the Sun and Moon about how the Moon was jealous of the Sun and am best at, writing. Meanwhile, I still have to work full time. Ah.

The movie with SJP coming out soon is based on the novel I Don't Know How She Does It
I read (and really enjoyed) years ago. Unlike the protagonist of this modern working mommy dilemma, (who has a full time nanny) I don't believe anyone would look at me and ask themselves that question, because I believe in fact it's obvious how I do 'it'. Let us count the ways:
1 My house is a mess. A rotating disaster of a mess, but still. We get all the dishes done and kitchen cleaned and this still leaves the four loads of laundry all over the living room and dog hair balls all over the floor. We scrub the bathroom and there are cups and dishes growing small new colonies of microscopic dopplegangers who cry Don't Eat Me! Digression...
2 My style is... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
3 My children have parents who scramble to find that field trip form we signed and turn it in late. We give last minute or late gifts for things like Teacher Appreciation or Pizza Party For Dying Ducks. We don't do many field trips. We have been late to school approximately two hundred billion times since EE was born. Dakota is the one suffered most from this. His first period teacher hates me I'm sure.
4 Our fourth child, the inimitable EE, goes to work every day with myself leading to sickness and illness including her current pitiable state, and is now what Mr. Curry calls a 'daycare baby' meaning a baby with a chronically snotty face and slightly under the weather visage.
5 My writing output has slowed.
6 My children criticize my parenting. Mom, a bar and apple is NOT breakfast. Mom, why can't you stop writing for TWO SECONDS and come here, I want to show you xyz ! They are politely supportive when I tell them I just got accepted in an EBook publication (more on that later) or that a poem of mine is going to be published or that I have an idea for a column I'm fleshing out, but really? They'd rather have their eggs sunny side up, please, and a mother available daily for art sessions when the child feels like it, thank you much, and not when the schedule allows. Dakota tells me how TOTALLY AWESOME his friend's mom is who makes them a huge dinner when Dakota spends the night and then teaches them how to make a dessert he's never had. And I feel sad, because you know what? I'd like to be that mom. I have been! I love spending time with my son and his friends.

But you can't have it all.

There aren't enough hours in the day came about for a reason- this phrase was clearly invented by a working mother devoted to her children and the necessity of not only following her passion but making a damn living who cannot afford a nanny or a maid.

I have to push, push push and work hard, work very hard right now to break through and make money writing. I have a line up of projects I'm working on and this year began seeing results from the work of the last few years, largely on this blog and the people I've met and the offers I've been given. I read an essay in a magazine recently, maybe Vanity Fair, where a well seasoned journalist said in all the years interviewing powerful women, only ONE was willing to say that she had great desire for success and had worked hungrily to achieve. If you listened to 99% of these women, success just accidentally came about while they were happily skipping round doing what they love and oops! look at that, a Grammy fell in my lap, or wow! what do you know someone just gave me a publishing contract. The one who would admit it was Catherine zeta Jones, by the way, who said she was proud of her husband's Oscar but while proud, it wasn't HERS, and she wanted her own!

Me too. I want my own. I want all the countless hours and days I have spent writing- largely entirely unread material- since I was five to begin to pay off, I want my dreams to come true, I want to write for a living and I want to make money.

I also want to be a wonderful mother.

Maybe I can do both those, but I know that for at least right now, I cannot do both of those AND have a beautiful home with a tidy front yard and remember everything on the calendar and call my friends back and get enough sleep and exercise...you get the point. I was telling Mr. Curry the other day that I have finally realized when people say 'you can't do it all' they don't mean it. What they mean is 'you can't do it all but you better do the parts I think are important'. When Lola's teacher nods in solidarity during speeches by successful women with children talking about the sacrifices, do you think she remembers that the next day when I can't bring brownies?

I know in one way the circumstances I'm talking about are very specific to having a baby vs. a child or even children. Babies are all consuming, and a breastfeeding co-sleeping teething keepsgettingsick baby even more so. When I'm not the walking dead all the time, balance will be easier, the see saw not so tilted.

For now the guilt is an ever present cloud. I have something to compare this to- I know what it's like not to have to work full time with a new baby, and God is it WAY BETTER IN EVERY WAY.
Meanwhile I'm not the best mother I've ever been. I'm exhausted, a bit snippy, I fall asleep during story time, I am writing when the fairy garden needs to be maintained and I am writing when Mr. Curry is making dinner and I am writing when the living room is covered in clothes and toys and stuffs. I am trying SO HARD. I snuggle, I play when I can drag my ass ( I love that line in the spectacularly bad J-Lo movie where she has had a baby and is looking at a picture of her old self from behind: The old ass is like the new ass, but way hotter!) I give my husband quickie a la carte orders, I talk about their days, but man. It's hard out there for a G.

When Lola tells me I'm the best mommy ever, I look at her veeeery suspiciously. But so far, she still looks like she means it.












*the amount of life experiences I could head with that phrase is staggering

*so far...