A mom’s mental load: embracing and forgiving my forgetfulness
I’ve been thinking a lot about forgetfulness and mental load. I had a boss at work who constantly referred to freeing up your “psychic space” as often as possible. Much like defragmenting your computer in order to free up memory. I have always been considered “forgetful” — even before I had a baby. During pregnancy, I had the luxury of blaming things on “baby brain.” Now that my daughter is crawling, my ability to keep up with everything in my brain seems exponentially worse.
Here are some of the more serious things I’ve forgotten this past month…
I’m Mrs. Breadwinner, he’s Mr Stay at Home Dad, and in 2017 that shouldn’t feel weird
My husband stays at home all day to care for our daughter. He’s also responsible for most of the cooking and cleaning. While I make the big bucks. Even around Boston, stay at home dads are rare. And it’s sad that stay at home dads are rare.
Kids need to see parents living their passions
“My daughter is so much more fearless than I was at her age. She knows how to lean into her fears, because she’s watched me do it. I think that’s the ultimate story of me starting a company: my daughter is more fearless because she’s seen her mom lean into the hard stuff of pursuing her passion. I want to see that be true for more moms and kids.”
The catch-22 of working motherhood
Now what’s the catch-22? Typically, the kids are so desperate for my attention when we are together that they resort to whining and crying and just generally being awful in order to get that attention. Surprising absolutely no one, that kind of behavior only annoys the shit out of me and makes me irritable. Which means I’m short-tempered. Which does absolutely nothing for my ability to properly deal with their whiny behavior. Which means it only gets worse. Which makes me tell them to just leavemealone! And the cycle starts again.
Stay-at-home-dads, breadwinner moms, and making it all work
Stay-at-home-dads are slowly making a cultural creep into relevance: we’re seeing more dads who either by choice or circumstance are finding themselves happily keeping up the homestead while their partners work outside the home. Here’s a recent piece from NPR with more.
Confession: I suck at being a working mom
Friends and family often wonder how I “do it all” but the truth is there isn’t any magic to it. I think of how much time I spend apart from my children, and launch into panic mode. I know I’m being a responsible parent by providing the health insurance, food, and security that my job affords my family, but I can’t help but feel that just as not every parent is meant to stay at home, not every parent is meant to be away.
How I support my family as a sex worker
For all intents and purposes I have the perfect suburban mommy resume. With one enormous exception. I keep a huge secret from my family, neighbors, and friends. After a long day of story time at the library, playing with moon sand, and finger painting… I go to work. I don’t have a typical mom job. Not by a long shot. I’m an escort.
How does it work when both parents work part-time?
So, you’re thinking of both working part-time jobs so that ou have time to spend with the baby. How’s that work, anyway?