Catching up, with some changes

I've hesitated writing for a while. I had a blip where, again, I was thinking, why do I need to have an opinion about everything, why do I have to (for a very limited, or very anonymous audience) share, share, share my glorious (smirk) thoughts and feelings? Who cares? Maybe I should be more private. Not air any dirty laundry. Change privacy settings. Change them back.

But, I feel like I need an outlet.

Hand-writing in a journal seems so...slow...and closed. I guess I am more used to this by now. Here I have a somewhat continuous tale of life over the past several years, while throughout my house, amongst my things, I have scattered notebooks with a few pages written here and there in fits and starts.

So here I am again.

We just got back last Saturday from a nice trip to St. John for Spring Break. Here, I thought I'd worked through my internet addiction, food addiction and lack of motivation to exercise, but it looks like I have not actually conquered these things completely. Still working on them. I think I could say I am a little better than I was before I left.

The big news is I've accepted a job offer from my big client/former employer to come back and work for them full-time. So, now my off-ramp/on-ramp story will have a nice little full circle thing going on—except for the reality that nothing is really ever settled is it? The whole thing has gone so well, so easy, relatively, that I keep thinking there must be some impending disaster I will face.

It's just not supposed to be this easy. (They are even paying me a significant amount more than when I left—and, riding high on the Sandbergian Lean In ethos, I negotiated for a bit more leave time.)

On the other hand, I have been working really hard for the past six years doing the consulting thing, pretty much being there for them whenever they needed me, staying up late to get things done, feeling, sometimes, like all I ever did was work and take care of my kid. I guess I didn't know how hard I was working, or it didn't hit me, or something...because I was doing exactly what I wanted.

I feel so fortunate to have been able to take the time to be with my daughter when she was a baby, toddler and preschooler.

This year, with her in school most the day, though, it's been really really hard for me. My feelings of missing her overtook any motivation I would have had to do much more than work that I was accountable to others for completing (that would be clients). Marathon training, making art, working out like a madwoman, doing major house-cleaning or repair projects—just really could not find it in me to do them. (Though I did some painting and gardening last year...) Something about work-work, though, writing, designing, organizing, managing, I can do.

As I see my time at home come to a close, I kind of lament the things I had in mind to do these years that I did not accomplish. These things that were not just to be with my child and watch her grow (I can say I feel like I did a good job doing activities with her, setting her up in good stead educationally and emotionally, bonding with her). But things like learning to play guitar, learning Portuguese, getting certified as a personal trainer. I feel, sometimes, guilty for "squandering" my time. But then I think more on it (or rationalize, you might say) and realize all that time I was working a lot for my clients, and that kept me pretty busy, and of course, doing what I was supposed to be doing, just being with my kid. And then there was all the reading and writing I did not for clients over these years, from which I feel as though I nearly completed some independent Women's Studies program! So, overall, not too bad.

I'm excited and nervous about what's to come, but I have a couple months til I start. That time, I don't know if it's good or bad. I am more of a let's-jump-in-right-now-and-do-this kind of person. I don't like being in limbo. But, two months goes by quickly. I want to say I am going to make the most of this time, but I probably won't do that either, as I still have my big client as a client and now of course I won't want to do anything to piss them off so will have to remain very much on. Still, it will allow me to take my child to soccer practice (which starts at 5 pm, so working-parent unfriendly) through the rest of her season.  Next year, the practices are later for older kids, I think, and my husband is going to be on P.M. afterschool duty so it won't be my problem anyway!

He's really going to be stepping up to the plate to make this all work and we are fortunate that he has so much tenure at his job and such a flexible schedule that he will be able to fill in the gaps for me. For example, our child will still have that lazy summer experience instead of a whole summer of camp (she'll just do that for the last couple weeks of June and then in July) because after our trip to Montreal the first week of August for his conference, he will be able to take the rest of the month off and hang out with her at home (popping in to the office on Fridays, my teleworking day). So I think that's the perfect balance. Then when school begins, she'll go to Tae Kwon Do after school for lessons and then hang out in their program til he picks her up. My flexible schedule, with a 10 am start time, will let me have relatively relaxed mornings with her and get her to school without having to use a morning care program.

I couldn't even really go back to work if it wasn't for my husband's flexible schedule, the flexible schedule my job is giving me, and my husband's willingness to help. I read an article recently that told of a woman who asked her husband to go in late one day a week to help her out and he waffled. It's not clear whether the situation at his job was really such that it would be detrimental to him to accommodate her schedule or if he was just not being a team player at home. In any case, I recognize how fortunate I am!


 

What do Sheryl Sandberg and Kate Upton have in common?

A regular chick’s take on Lean In

I am not a career woman. I enjoy my work, I take it seriously and do a good job, but I’m under no delusions. I have a B.A. from a small Liberal Arts university. I’ve never made six-figures. I am working, right now, part time from home. Really, a nobody. And yet, Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In had something for me. I like to take lessons from wherever I can find them.

I’ve been enjoying the many reviews and online discussions about the book, and I  understand, even if I don’t necessarily agree with, many of the criticisms. Other, though, seem preemptively dismissive and angry, as this Salon piece notes.

One of the best commentaries I read on Lean In came from Penelope Trunk who observed, “Sheryl Sandberg is such an incredibly aberrant example of women at work…She is great. Smart. Driven. I get it. I am doing a life that she would hate. I thought I was a high performer, but Sheryl Sandberg has no time for people like me. I spent so many years working hard to get to the top, but the truth is that I’m not even close. I was never in the running. I am nothing like Sheryl Sandberg.” Trunk added, “Sheryl Sandberg gives up her kids like movie stars give up food: she wants a great career more than anything else.” Harsh, I know, but I don’t think she meant it in a mean way or meant that Sandberg doesn’t love her kids. She’s just…different.

I always used to think, regarding women who felt bad that they didn’t measure up to models and actresses, that they were out of their minds even thinking they were in the same league with these women to begin with. Women like Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover girl Kate Upton. The complaints about “the media” and women’s body image never quite resonated with me because I had already faced the reality: I am not a super model. Surely, most other women must know this too, shouldn’t they?

I once read a book called The Secrets of Skinny Chicks and found, really, no secrets, but just what one would expect. These women worked out a significant amount of time and they really, really watched what they ate. As one reviewer said “…this book absolutely does not pretend that you can be a Size 6 US without considerable deprivation; we’re talking 1200-1600 calories a day AND a two hour cardio and weights program, ladies. It’s also honest about wishing it could hate food; this is really not the book for anyone with much gusto about mealtime…” I kind of know. Before I had a kid, I worked out, actively, a couple hours a day, plus briskly walked a round trip of four miles to work. I just didn’t have that much else to do at the time. My life is different now and I accept it. You have to put in a certain amount of work to get certain results.

The same goes for careers. When Sheryl Sandberg was at Harvard, I was waitressing, partying, taking classes a couple at a time at community college and otherwise meandering through my twenties. I somehow made it out the other side with a degree and was able to hold decent jobs, but I don’t expect to be the billionaire superstar Sandberg is (by the way, she was also an aerobics instructor at one point). It really wouldn’t be fair. I can still learn from her, though, just like women can learn from the “Skinny Chicks,” super models and Upton, whose trainer describes her daily double sessions and multiple cleanse diets. Sandberg talks about going home for dinner at 5 and having taken a 3-month maternity leave like these were major breakthrough concessions she made for her family. The dedication to her work and the intensity with which she works is extraordinary and more than I’d be willing to put in, just like double workout sessions and super-strict diets are more than I’m willing to do to look a certain way.

As an aside, Upton’s trainer defends her “porkiness,” which, of course, is laughable, except that I can see that as lean and sexy as she is, Upton is fleshier than many other SI and Victoria’s Secret models. She’s somewhat approachable. Just like Sandberg.  In Lean In, her voice is friendly and diplomatic as she nods to caregiving being important and acknowledges “Many people are not interested in acquiring power, not because they lack ambition, but because they are living their lives as they desire. Some of the most important contributions to our world are made by caring for one person at a time…”

Understanding I’m not Sheryl Sandberg or Kate Upton, and not in their league, I can take notes from aspects of their successes I may be interested in achieving for myself to a lesser degree, keeping in mind the reality that I don’t have the will (or genetics or background at this point in my life) to take it to that level. I can still work out regularly and cut out extra junk and be in nice shape. I can speak up in business situations, be confident and lean in, where appropriate for me, and improve my place in the work world.

So with that, I’ll share some of the best points of Lean In that are applicable to women (anyone, really) in most jobs.

If you want or need something, ask for it. It never occurred to Sandberg, or anyone else at Google, that maybe pregnant employees could use parking spots closer to the building—until, that is, she got pregnant. After a mad rush to the office from a far flung spot, naseuous, she marched into Sergey Brin’s office and made her request. The company set up special parking for pregnant employees. Of course, you might get an answer of no, but you won’t know unless you ask.

Sit at the table. Sandberg tells of a Facebook meeting she hosted for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in which women on Geithner’s team hung back not even sitting at the table with the rest of the group—even when personally invited to sit there by Sandberg herself. I mean, really, I’m just a schlub and I know better than that. If there’s seats, take one. If you’re invited, gosh, it’s weird and rude not to take one. But, apparently the inferiority complex is so deeply ingrained into some women that they need extra cajoling.

When you don’t feel confident fake it. Pretty straightforward, read the book for more nuance.

Take initiative. Sandberg says, “The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.” She cited data from Hewlett Packard that men will apply for a position if they meet 60 percent of the requirements and women only apply when they think they meet 100 percent of the criteria needed. “Women need to shift from thinking ‘I’m not ready to do that’ to thinking ‘I want to do that—and I’ll learn by doing it,’” she says.
At my first job out of college I was hired as a Communications Coordinator making 30K. I quickly realized I could easily do what they expected and was always asking for more work. I got sick of asking for more so instead I just started looking for things the organization needed and doing them. I took over the website (it was 1999 and having taken one web design class in college, I knew more than anyone else there at the time). Soon after, I outlined what I had been doing, suggested a title change and raise to 45K and they agreed. That’s my little pond story of initiative. As Sandberg notes, “…opportunities are not well defined but, instead, come from someone jumping in to do something. That something then becomes his job.”

Understand and work the system, even if the system is wrong. Sandberg discusses the many challenges women face with regard to powerful women being not well-liked and the trap of women who are nice being assumed incompetent and women who are competent assumed not nice. She acknowledges this is not right, but gives great advice on walking the line, nonetheless. Using a negotiation as an example, she advises women to “think personally, act communally,” prefacing the negotiation by explaining they know women often get paid less than men so they are going to negotiate rather than accept the original offer. “By doing so, women position themselves as connected to a group and not just out for themselves, in effect they are negotiating for all women.” Sandberg advises the use of the word “we” instead of “I” whenever possible. She warns, though, that a communal approach is not enough and women must also provide a legitimate explanation for the negotiation.

Combine niceness with insistence. This piggybacks on the previous idea. Sandberg cites Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, who says this means being “relentlessly pleasant.” This involves “smiling frequently, expressing appreciation and concern, invoking common interests, emphasizing larger goals” and approaching situations as solving a problem as opposed to being critical.

Speak up, stand up. Sandberg talks a lot about how men in power can help women by standing up for them in key situations and she gives many encouraging examples of when this was done for her. She notes Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express, as a leader in this area who acknowledged that “in meetings, both men and women are likely to interrupt a woman and give credit to a man for an idea first proposed by a woman.” Chenault stops meetings to point this out when he sees it—making quite an impression coming from the top. Sandberg advises that anyone can do this, though. “A more junior woman (or man) can also intervene in the situation when a female colleague has been interrupted. She can gently but firmly tell the group, ‘Before we move on, I’d like to hear what [senior woman] had to say.’” Sandberg explains that this not only benefits the senior woman who was interrupted but boosts the junior woman as well, because speaking up for someone else demonstrates a communal spirit—and confidence—and shows the junior woman is both competent and nice.

In Lean In, Sandberg acknowledges the systemic issues women face that can make it more difficult to rise to the top, but also offers a useful mix of overarching ideas for society with nuts and bolts tips for women at work. Just like with the Skinny Chicks‘ secrets and a glimpse into Upton’s regimen, I can incorporate those ideas that fit my lifestyle, not expecting to find myself on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition or in a C-Suite, but inspiring me to run that extra mile or to speak up with confidence on something I’m knowledgeable about with colleagues.

Beyond Betty: Moving from feminism to human rights

Was the problem that had no name possibly the lack of Wi-Fi?

I wish that line was mine, but I have to give the credit to Noreen Malone, who in a Slate discussion of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (on the 50th anniversary of its publication this week) noted:

...Work doesn’t automatically put you on the road to self-actualization (as Friedan implies it does), and the degree to which it contributes to it probably waxes and wanes at different points in a person’s life. What about women (or men!) who genuinely do find the bulk, or even part, of their creative fulfillment in more traditional homemaking tasks, or at least less corporate ones, and who derive their sense of mission from helping people—even if mostly the ones related to them? Friedan doesn’t allow for those scenarios, at least among the educated women she’s writing about, and that feels weird. Also oddly missing in the book’s treatment of parenting, was any kind of real consideration of kids’ needs...

To Malone, I say right on!

I won't lie, I enjoy working, and of course I've been lucky to have a very unique situation (enabled by Wi-Fi!) that let me ride the fence of the SAHM thing and having work satisfaction in semi-creatively satisfying work.

But, I don't know that there are sooo many jobs out there that are sooo interesting and stimulating that workers don't have to psych themselves up for just as much as someone at home would have to do some mental gymnastics to make a "baked potato" or "vacumming" interesting. At least when you do those things you're not doing it for "the man" but for yourself and your own family!

I'm also willing to wager that my grandma who worked in a canning factory would have welcomed the life of suburban housewife ennui...

As a friend commented when I posted the Slate article on Facebook, "That's always where the feminist lionization of work breaks down. Those women are writers and academics, which is not the same thing as having a typical job. When your whole job is self aggrandizement, then of course you love your work! When you're scrubbing toilets or asking would you like fries with that?—not so much." So true!

This recent New York Times opinion piece by Stephanie Coontz attempted to answer "Why Gender Equality Stalled" and raises some interesting points. An excerpt illustrates the frustrating bias toward the idea that women necessarily want to work instead of taking on child- and home-care duties:

So, especially when women are married to men who work long hours, it often seems to both partners that they have no choice. Female professionals are twice as likely to quit work as other married mothers when their husbands work 50 hours or more a week and more than three times more likely to quit when their husbands work 60 hours or more.

The sociologist Pamela Stone studied a group of mothers who had made these decisions. Typically, she found, they phrased their decision in terms of a preference. But when they explained their “decision-making process,” it became clear that most had made the “choice” to quit work only as a last resort — when they could not get the flexible hours or part-time work they wanted, when their husbands would not or could not cut back their hours, and when they began to feel that their employers were hostile to their concerns. Under those conditions, Professor Stone notes, what was really a workplace problem for families became a private problem for women.

This is where the political gets really personal. When people are forced to behave in ways that contradict their ideals, they often undergo what sociologists call a “values stretch” — watering down their original expectations and goals to accommodate the things they have to do to get by. This behavior is especially likely if holding on to the original values would exacerbate tensions in the relationships they depend on.

But, it's really not that simple. Pew Research studies show that the majority of women want to work part-time (which is one reason why Obama's recent attention to universal pre-K may be misguided). Most working fathers, though, say they want to work full-time. At least according to this study, it would appear that men and women want different things—and to me, that's OK! It's also fair to note that different men and different women want different things.

No study is going to capture everyone's wishes and no policy is going to necessarily make everyone's path to what they want easier. We have to blaze our own trails a lot of the time.

Coontz observed:

Under present conditions, the intense consciousness raising about the “rightness” of personal choices that worked so well in the early days of the women’s movement will end up escalating the divisive finger-pointing that stands in the way of political reform. 

One one hand, I am skeptical of "political reform" based on almost everything I've read in recently years from feminists that places workforce engagement above caring for young children and goes to far as to view children basically as some sort of commodity or cogs in the capitalist machine. But, the conclusion of the Coontz piece leaves me hopeful that maybe the feminist movement is beginning to see that work is not the be-all-and-end-all of "equality" (or life) and that different people want different things, and that "people" also means men.

Our goal should be to develop work-life policies that enable people to put their gender values into practice. So let’s stop arguing about the hard choices women make and help more women and men avoid such hard choices. To do that, we must stop seeing work-family policy as a women’s issue and start seeing it as a human rights issue that affects parents, children, partners, singles and elders. Feminists should certainly support this campaign. But they don’t need to own it. 

What Coontz might not realize, though, is that for many talented, educated and able women such as myself, putting my "gender values into practice" for me meant scaling back my career when my baby was born, working part-time from home to be with her, and navigating my own on-ramp as she gets older.

I agree that feminists should not own the work-family policy campaign, because based on what we've heard from leading feminist voices in recent years (Linda Hirshman, I am looking at you) they're going to get it wrong!

Grateful or greedy in America

I feel grateful for the material aspects of my life—all the time. Rarely a day goes by that I don't, in at least some small way recognize that I have it really good.

My house is not impressive, but it's in a good neighborhood and is in generally good repair (knock on wood). We don't have cable TV or flat screen/LCD TVs. We don't have smartphones. Our stove should probably be replaced as it doesn't really heat super well or evenly inside, but it can get the job done. Our refrigerator should probably be replaced. I keep a tupperware container in it under a water drip and change it out every so often when it fills. It basically works, though. One of our cars is 17 years old. The air conditioning doesn't work and the ceiling lining has come off, but it runs (full disclosure our other car is just 7 years old and feels luxurious to me). We could probably get new things as we have a significant amount of cash savings in the bank, but we don't. That's just us. If it works, we use it. When it breaks, we'll replace it. So I do get a little twitchy when I read things like this about allegedly poor people in America, redistribution schemes and all the great things government can provide for people.

I do understand, though, that there are other things the poor may not have—health insurance, for example, or savings, or retirement and things like that—that are not mentioned in the following post and study. But still. I'm mildly skeptical of those who say we need big, new overarching programs.

Anyway, I'm not sure why NRO is tweeting this now, as the post and study is over a year old. But, I remember reading about it at the time and it was interesting to me then as it is now, comparing different points about how many "poor" people in America live as compared with how we live in our family.

  The post cites results of a study from The Heritage Foundation (yeah, yeah, I know, conservative, but I think people should be reading and parsing information from many resources) called “Understanding Poverty in the United States” which notes the following tidbits about "the poor":

• Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• Fully 92 percent of poor households have a microwave; two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR.
• Nearly 75 percent have a car or truck; 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
• Four out of five poor adults assert they were never hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.
• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television.
• Half have a personal computer; one in seven have two or more computers.
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as Xbox or PlayStation.
• Just under half — 43 percent — have Internet access.
• A third have a widescreen plasma or LCD TV.
• One in every four has a digital video recorder such as TiVo. 

And the post observes, "TV newscasts about poverty in America usually picture the poor as homeless or as a destitute family living in an overcrowded, rundown trailer. The actual facts are far different:"

• At a single point in time, only one in 70 poor persons is homeless.
• The vast majority of the houses or apartments of the poor are in good repair; only 6 percent are over-crowded. 
• The average poor American has more living space than the average non-poor individual living in Sweden, France, Germany or the United Kingdom.
• Only 10 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or trailers; half live in detached single-family houses or townhouses, while 40 percent live in apartments.
• Forty-two percent of all poor households own their home; on average, it’s a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

On the other hand, "the rich" are richer than they have ever been before, too, as reporter in this New York Times editorial.

Or, are they?

It's hard to say.

But, I have to admit, I get fearful and whipped up sometimes over worry about becoming poor, or not being able to get back into the workforce full-time, or our retirement, or my kid's prospects growing up. Or I jump on conversational and link-posting bandwagons crying out for help for these poor, poor people. But maybe I just really don't need to worry so much. (Yes, yes, yes, I know, middle-class privilege, I've got it, but I've been working in some capacity since I was, like, 13 years old and moved out of parents' house at 18, so I'm no stranger to taking care of myself, either.)

Then there's this article from the Boston Review, "Before Greed: Americans Didn’t Always Yearn for Riches." That talks about how  in the time of Lincoln, people strove for a level of "competency," that is, "the ability to support a family and have enough in reserve to sustain it through hard times at an accustomed level of prosperity. When, through effort or luck, a person amassed not only a competency but enough to support himself and his family for his lifetime, he very often retired." I love this.

I feel, to a great extent, that's how we live in our household.

But, the Boston Review article notes, "Most Americans have come to think of the American dream not as a competency but rather as the accumulation of great wealth." So, it seems to me that those on both ends of the spectrum, and the policy people need to tuck things in a bit on each end. People don't need the lifestyles seen in the Queen of Versailles movie (pre-crash), but it can also be argued that "poor" people don't need flat screen TVs, Tivos, new cars, and all those trappings, either.  What they do need, of course, is affordable healthcare (this links to a must-read, loooong read TIME article) and to not have to bail out banks (much shorter must-read), so, it's a mixed bag.

I just have to wonder if things are ever as dire, across the boards, as the media makes things out to be, and I think, maybe an understanding of the mixed bag can alleviate some anxiety. Gratitude works.

Newest 'final words' on the blog

I've started and stopped this blog many times, frustratingly proclaiming a last post, but always coming back. But this would definitely be a great post to end with, even though I know it might not be my last. Definitely something I need to work on, and the reason why a few posts I had in the works will never see the light of day.

Same dribble Down Under on 'slacker moms'

I follow some Twitterers in Australia because it gives me fresh tweets in the middle of the night when I sometimes get up and read my Kindle, lying in the dark, next to my kid. I've gotten into this weird habit where I'll wake up in the middle of the night and leave my husband's bed then go into my kid's room and sleep with her on the full-size floor futon—plenty of room for both of us and it's firmer and she is a super sound sleeper so the light of the Kindle doesn't bother her like it would my husband, plus she's got a humidifier in there and I just like it!

So I came across this Sydney Morning Herald article that's been making a bit of a splash: Over-mothered? No, over mothering and it's the same sort of theme I've seen in American mommy culture that I think they're calling the "slacker mom movement." The BlueMilk blogger responded to the post with what I thought were some valid retorts and lots of good links.

A big part of the response was pointing out that it's all cool and liberating for privileged white mamas to be lackadaisical, but if a poor, brown skinned mama went this route, she'd be under scrutiny from more powerful elements than the neighborhood biddies and quite possibly at risk of a visit from Child Protective Services. I get that, and that's valid, but I have to say I'm a little weary of so many discussions turning to my privilege. I know I am lucky and I know I am blessed (or whatever)—and yes, privileged—but each in our own ways we're all muddling through. And hearing other white women trot out the white privilege thing seems like their safe place to critique something, you know, get on the side of some underdog, further under and doggier than the hapless slacker moms.

The response had some other insightful aspects on how "the slacker mother movement seems to be taking a nasty turn lately towards judging mothers it sees as being too dedicated to the pursuit of motherhood." Which would resonate with me if I gave a shit about whether or not some random blatherer on the internet was judging me. (Ph.D. in Parenting had a good post about this the other day.)

Maybe it is because of my place of privilege (oh man, now I'm doing it!) that I have never felt pressure to "mother" a certain way. I did the homebirth thing, I breastfed 33 months, I stayed home with the kid in her earliest years, we co-slept. But the child has seen a lot of Dora and Diego. I've yelled, I've spanked (regret, regret, regret). The child had to have several cavities filled when she was four because I just kind of spaced on the notion that she needed to have her teeth brushed after every meal. (I didn't, and I didn't have many cavities, but maybe I have very unusual teeth, or different saliva, or didn't eat as many foods with sugars in them—who knows, I messed up!) I don't feel excessively guilty about the teeth or the TV, but I'm not going to glibly brag about it either and take on "slacker mom" as some sort of persona.

What I don't get about the "slacker mom" thing is why people would revel in this sense of being crappy at something and not caring—especially when it comes to something as precious and important as one's child. "Slacking" seems to be about backlash against some standard of perfection, but I'd argue that this standard was never real and smart women know this. "Slacking" is just too reactionary.

I don't really embrace the "slacker" persona in anything I do, though. I try to do my best at work, I try to do my best eating healthfully and staying in shape. I try to be kind-hearted and compassionate. Yes, I fall short in these areas, but I don't feel threatened by "perfection" and get mad and run to the "slacker" credo, just saying "fuck all," like, forever and always. I just say, hey, I'm human and I'll just try to do better tomorrow.

The real me is the mom who gets down on the floor and plays with the child—when I feel like it, which is sometimes, but not always. I do art projects...sometimes. I bake for the child's birthday (I am not really so into bringing treats to school because I don't believe school is a place for this and if every kid for every birthday brought treats, they'd really just be having too many treats...) I read to her, do math and science projects with her, a lot of the time, but not all the time. I do enjoy building with Lego. Overall, I'd say I'm into it, but I like my web surfing, beery nights with friends and long runs alone, too. That's what being a normal, balanced person is. At my core though, I have to admit I am pretty passionate about my kid, and I don't care if that's not cool.

I understand the Jane Caro piece is supposed to be humor, but I think that joke is played out.

Life in limbo

So last week, I heard from a colleague at my big client, in  my old department, that he's leaving to go to Sao Paulo and get his MBA—some guys have all the luck! Which meant, for me, an opening to get back in to a full-time, in-office position. I didn't think too, too much of it the first couple days after I'd heard his news, though it did cross my mind. Then, my boss/client lead called me, from her home, while out sick, to tell me they were looking at this opening as an opportunity to bring me back, pending budget and staff need factors. I was pretty stoked. While I'd stated that my ideal would be to go back this fall, at the beginning of the 2013-14 school year (so I could spend "one last summer" with my kid), I'd let them know in no uncertain terms that I'd be willing, at this point, to jump back in whenever they needed me.

After the call, I immediately started figuring out childcare options for after school and summer (both readily available) and sorting out with my husband how we'd manage our schedule, how much they'd need to make in an offer for it to be worth our while, and we were ready. (The boss confirmed they could pay at least what I was making before I'd opted for part-time consulting when my kid was born five years ago, and as an on-ramping mom in a shitty economy, that was good enough for me. She seemed very concerned, too, with not "insulting" me with a lousy offer. Imagine that!)

My heart had been so heavy (for quite a while, weeks...months...) not knowing "my place in the world," having this big empty hole six hours a day when my child's at school, not feeling motivated to do much more than whatever paid work I have (which does not take six hours, and often comes at the wrong time of day, when she is around and I'd rather be focusing on her, but can't)...and then I feel so guilty and lame that I don't make better use of all the free time I have during the days. I was really looking forward to diving into the "back-to-the-office" job, if only as a means to shake me out of this place I'm in.

But, I talked to the boss Friday and she said that they are not going to fill the position right away and that she's just going to send me a contract for another year of the work I've been doing in the mean time (with a "raise" commensurate to the raises other people there got, so that's nice...) She said the soonest they'd have me, or anyone else, in the position is May. Now, I know that if they were going to have someone else, they'd need to put an ad out and start looking, like, now, probably (to find a quality person) and she said they weren't advertising, so....

I don't think they're messing with me, trying to be sneaky, lie about what they're doing. I'm aware of a big budget hit they took recently and I think they are trying to save money by having the position vacant for a while. It's unfortunate because things in the department are already so backlogged, but, it is what it is. The boss tells me they are still very interested in having me back, that "nobody does what you do" and that she's told the president that I want a full-time job and may look elsewhere, with them running the risk of "losing" me...

So, I guess I am in a good place because I really didn't want to, ideally, with regard to my kid, do full-time til after summer and any amount of putting it off while still remaining an option is good, for a while (though they might want me in May, or June, or July...who even knows!) but, at the same time, I am disappointed because I was ready to dive in, like now (as in March, April...) and now I really need to find a new lease on life to shake things up for me because the long days of reading the internet and doing nothing are really, deeply wearing on my soul. I will do it, though...