Thoughts on Being a Working Mom

Not as opposed to being a stay-at-home "non-working" mom, because there is no such thing, but being a mom and having a job outside the home has it's own challenges. So many, I'd say, most of my mom-friends are SAHM or WAHM (work-at-home moms) that I almost feel as though I'm in the minority. Census bureau stats have shown a 15% increase in the number of stay at home moms over the last ten years (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/08/60minutes/main648240.shtml).

I have a full-time job working for a large hospital system as a radiologic technologist. Basically, I take x-rays, among my other talents. I love my job; I work four days a week, from 9a to 6p with every Thursday off, no weekends and no holidays. It's great, but it wasn't always that way. When N was first born I worked as a PRN tech, meaning I worked the hours that the hospital had available, and they weren't always the glamorous day-shift hours. I spent alot of his first nine months working late evenings, night shifts, weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas days, etc etc. But this also meant that alot of times I didn't have work, so I spent that time enjoying my infant son. And since he breastfed the first nine months of his life, it worked really well at the time. I did the whole "pumping" thing and kept up nursing until he weaned himself by May. Now he's older and we have a set schedule, it's working well now too. He spends two days in school at a great at-home daycare and two days with my mom.

Do I have to work outside of the home? No. We lived on just Robert's salary or just my salary for four out of the six years we've been married...one of us always seemed to be in school. We could do it again. Would I like to stay home with N all day everyday? Sure, but I'd go crazy! I often find that I'm more exhausted at the end of my off-days than if I went to work. I love what I do and I feel like the precious time I spend with my son at the beginning and end of every work day is so special I can't measure it. No, my house wouldn't be any cleaner, my child wouldn't be any smarter and my scrapbooks wouldn't get done faster if I stayed at home.

When I first starting taking N to school he was a year old. I cried and cried, thinking I was abandoning him and letting some stranger raise him. I dreaded the day to come when he would run to his teacher instead of me, and when one of the others kids called her "mommy" I almost called the whole thing off. But I decided I can't control everything about every minute of his time everyday, so I let it go. And boy, how he has blossomed. He's so much more social, he loves to read even more, and he's speaking more and more new words everyday.

Does God have this planned out for us? You bet. Even when I didn't know it at the time, I look back on N's first 15 months and marvel at how well everything has worked out for us. He's such a joy and we've been so blessed, in so many ways. I don't know if I will always do what I'm doing now, I'd like to even get into teaching eventually. When we have more children I will keep doing what I'm doing b/c I know God will provide for us.

Psalms 46:1...
¹ God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.