The H-Word

I never kidded myself - I knew that my going to work full-time was going to require an adjustment period for the kids. I never told myself otherwise; to be perfectly honest, my sons are young enough to be obsessed with me, and there was no way that my spending more time away from them wouldn't, on occasion, take a toll on their moods.

When I was interviewing for my current position and on a constant rollercoaster of emotions with regard to how I felt about the possibility, I asked nearly everyone I talked to for their opinion. There aren't many people in this world from whom I value actual decision-making advice, but with this decision, I felt the need to bring the topic to the universal table. Perhaps to bolster myself against any future criticism, should I decide to actually go for it.

Most of my friends are stay-at-home moms, and while perfectly supportive, they also Andsounded appalled by my prospective schedule, by the amount of hours I'd actually be at work. Most people stated the obvious, which was that it would be an adjustment in every way imaginable, and let the conversation lie at that. Those who know me best, who understand the internal pull for me to try and be creative in areas other than parenting, provided the most encouragement.

But one of my friends suggested something I hadn't even considered. She said, "I think there's something nice about spending a little time away from your kids during the day and coming home hungry for them. And I also think it's particularly good for boys to have mothers who work because the example provides them with a built-in level of appreciation for and expectation from women when they grow up. I find that boys with working moms are a little less spoiled and babied in general, aren't raised thinking they have everything coming to them - which might pass when they're young, but makes them harder to deal with as boyfriends and husbands later on."

This was something new to think about, and it's what I held onto, kept reminding myself of, in the darker moments of decision-making - the times when I could only see cons.

My first week and a half of work went so smoothly on the homefront that part of me thought maybe the kids wouldn't take it so hard in the end. They were thrilled to greet me each evening, literally tackled me at the door, but never really complained about me having been gone.

The last few weeks have, however, coincided with Ariel's societal debut as a Terrible Two - he's discovered the joy of tantrums as well as the need to grant stubbornness a new level of meaning. But his favorite way of acting out, much to our chagrin, is by using the word Hate.

Yes, Hate. That word that you're not supposed to teach your kids? Well, I'm not sure if he heard it from me, but he heard it, and he understood its impact. He's only two, but when he feels something, he feels it strong, and when he's annoyed by something, he also Hates It. He abhors most everything lately, including his diaper (this was proclaimed while standing butt-naked at the top of the stairs, offending product in hand) and his big-boy bed, which was rejected as such after a week of use, and underlined by a dramatic return to the crib.

He also, once, told me he hated me, and before you go telling yourself you should have become a psychoanalyst you are so damn good at this, it was before I started my job. It made me surprisingly depressed and I felt only marginally better later that day, when, following a tantrum, a time-out, an apology, and a make-up hug, he announced that he "not hate Mommy anymore. Not again."

However, worse than being hated myself was what he said today: "Hate work." I'd been expecting the other shoe to drop, and it did. As a rare treat, Y beat me home, and apparently, wasn't who Ariel expected to come through the front door. My poor, present husband was greeted with tears over my absence, and when I did get home 45 minutes later, both boys fought for my attention. They actually tried elbowing each other off of me. And when we finally collapsed in a group hug, Ariel announced that he hated my working.

And there it was, staring me in the face: the adjustment. The setback. The other shoe. The downside, because I've really just been enjoying my new job more than I think polite to share. There was the downside. I honestly don't believe he's felt this way every day for the past week and a half, but today, for almost an hour, Ariel hated my job.

And yes, I do know that he understands the impact of the word, and that impact is his main cause for its utilization. But my kids are nobody's fools; he also knows what it means.

There are loads of perfectly sane, logical, and true ways to convince myself that my working is ONLY a good thing. I'm well-versed in all of them, and most of the time, it's how I really feel.

But for that almost-hour tonight, I just let myself wallow.

I'm done exhausting the topic.