{"id":15593,"date":"2013-01-28T14:21:25","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T22:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/?p=15593"},"modified":"2013-01-28T14:21:25","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T22:21:25","slug":"i-dont-know-how-you-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/?p=15593","title":{"rendered":"“I don’t know how you do it”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I came across an interesting piece<\/a> today on things not<\/span> to say to a mom who works outside the home. (I don’t love the term “working mom,” because every<\/em> mom works.) The author’s tone is a bit defensive, and\u00c2\u00a0I find it\u00c2\u00a0hard to believe she has personally heard all of these things (though perhaps I’m just lucky to have not encountered\u00c2\u00a0such judginess about my choices<\/a>). But still, a few of her responses resonated with me:<\/p>\n

I don’t know how you do it. It must be so hard.<\/strong> It is. I don’t know how I do it. But I don’t think that’s because I work, I think it’s because parenting is hard whether you stay at home or go off to the office. I don’t know how any of us do it. It’s glorious and rewarding and full of love and it is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.\u00c2\u00a0Balancing kids with anything else, whether a paying job or running a household or finding time to watch Honey Boo Boo, is nearly impossible.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

You must be so organized to be able to balance everything.<\/strong> I have a love\/hate reaction to this statement. At first, I bask in the affirmation. I believe I am organized. Then I remember — I am one set of lost keys away from a meltdown. I have mismatched socks, my kid went to school with jelly on his face and I haven’t exercised in a week. I have piles of books and clothes and god knows what else in my bedroom. I forgot a conference call yesterday and lost the planetarium permission slip. I let something slide every day. There is no balance. Only carefully controlled chaos. Pretty much like everyone else’s life.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Don’t you worry you’re missing out?<\/strong> Every day.\u00c2\u00a0 But then my son runs into my arms when I pick him up from school and climbs into my bed in the morning to tell me I’m the “best mommy ever,” and I know it’s going to be ok.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

-M<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came across an interesting piece today on things not to say to a mom who works outside the home. (I don’t love the term “working mom,” because every mom works.) The author’s tone is a bit defensive, and\u00c2\u00a0I find it\u00c2\u00a0hard to believe she has personally heard all of these things (though perhaps I’m just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-79-two-kids-jan-mar-13"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15593"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15603,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15593\/revisions\/15603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}