Motherhood Redefined

I feel like a fraud.

But the timing is pretty good.

As you know, I am a twenty-something working mom. I literally built a blog around that reality. I had a plan from the beginning: to help working moms with the same problems my family has faced.

That is still my plan! Here comes my confession….

I quit one of my three jobs today….!!!

Not my important jobs, but my 9 to 5. I’m still a wife and mother. But my heart has been breaking since I realized the fate of my working pregnancy. I tried my best, but I just couldn’t do it all anymore. Not without my husband here. (I could barely do it when he was!)

After suffering an early pregnancy loss in April 2015, I had baby fever! My husband left his military career to go back to school, and I became the breadwinner. I had worked while he was enlisted, but I spent every penny on my student loans and traveling! Keeping me and my husband fed was a new pressure, and I was more than ready to take it on.

My degree went to work and so did I. I landed an awesome job (although I pitifully underestimated my worth and took a lower salary than I could have, damnit!) and we bought a house.

I was pregnant within a month lol. Everything was going along beautifully this time. Super excited, I began to understand that fate I mentioned…. Sure I’d be offered seats that were already taken, and I’d get the pleasant smiles from strangers. But all of that doesn’t make up for those back-asswards policies in place for working mothers.

In my bones, I could feel it. The dread. I dreaded returning to work so quickly (12 weeks post-delivery), but I had to suck it up. I had to! And I did! Honestly, I’m proud of myself for how long I lasted.

How did I know it was time?

After leaving my original company for a less demanding role, things got easier. But that wasn’t the issue. My priorities have always been clear. It’s not money that drives me. It’s time.

Time is the most limited resource out there. I could’ve stayed at my prior job and reduced the stress by working overtime. That was simply unsustainable for my lifestyle. “Work to live, don’t live to work” should be tattoo’d on my forehead.

It wasn’t the work that got to me. It was the time. Not even the time it took me to complete it! But the time they required me to be there. My role was capable of regular telecommuting, but the company and its culture refused to embrace innovation. Ridiculous, and a total turn-off. McDonald’s has robots taking orders, but my back-end operational job required me to be on-site… I’m not buying it.

My husband is in New York for school, and we chose to keep me here for the low cost of living (omg NY is wild). Housework and self/baby care was not allotted adequate time. Yet I spent all day at work just doing blog things and hating every word that came out of my supervisor’s mouth.

I simply cannot justify all that time away from home and family in an environment that makes me miserable.

I was officially spread too thin, and every aspect of my life began to suffer. My baby, my hygiene, my health, my marriage. Something had to give.

So I quit my job!

The relief is HUGE, but it creates a whole new world of problems. Fortunately, we have a little nest egg and my husband’s GI Bill scholarship provides us with a good amount while he’s in school.

Starting next week (because I am due for a weekend that doesn’t end with dreading my week at work), I am going to commit to 3 new things:

1. Bonding with and caring for my daughter. Playing old school mom, the way nature intended it.
2. Hustling my freelance biz all over the interwebs.
3. Pursuing part-time remote jobs to bring in a little something.

No matter what, I know it’s right. It’s going to be difficult, but there is another phrase that I repeat: Nothing worth having comes easy.

And even Dumbledore said, “…we must choose between what is easy and what is right.” Laugh at me all you like, but that’s some real talk right there!

The best advice I’ve received so far was to look at all of the positive things coming out of this. This is the last chance I have to truly enjoy my baby as a baby! I can’t wait to trade stress of obnoxious coworkers with stress of my very own little one. That I can justify.