Financial Security/Home

Enough

Posted on by noemikjames / 14 Comments

At our school district, it usually takes the entire academic year for the negotiations team and the district to agree on a salary. When that happens, we are paid retroactively for any cost-of-living raise we may have been granted. We recently got such a raise (1%–woot!–for LAST YEAR) and were paid retroactively. Finally, in February, we got to see what our new pay check looks like.

It was a meager difference–I didn’t expect much–but it prompted me to look, really look, at my pay stub for the first time in a long while.

And for the first time, in maybe forever, I was struck with a thought. I make a decent amount of money. I absolutely make enough for us to live the life we want to live.

And it’s true. Now that I’m working full time and NOT spending $2K+ on health insurance every month, we have the income to live comfortably. I shouldn’t be struggling at the end of each month not to overdraw on my accounts. I should have enough for what I want to do, AND save for the future.

On a previous post Waterbelle suggest You Need A Budget (thanks!) and I’d been meaning to check it out. This “I make enough” revelation spurred me to go to their site and download a free 34-day trial.

Last night I went to work sorting out my budget, allotting certain amounts of money not just to what I know I’ll need to buy this month, but also to monthly “installment plans” on the bigger things I know will come due (car insurance) and even the ones I don’t know will come due (home repairs).

I was tentative at first, worrying that I’d run out of funds before I’d assigned an amount to all the necessary categories. But in the end I felt I’d budgeted plenty in every category, even putting some away for my kids’ college funds–and I had $15 left over.

And none of this includes the $5,000 I get pulled from my pay check tax-free as part of a 125B childcare reimbursement plan.

When I’m done paying off my credit card debt, that “extra” money will go to my student loans. And after that (only $7,000 left!), all that money will go into savings.

Seeing my monthly check this way, budgeted by categories, made me realize that I absolutely should be able to live within my means. Comfortably. Without feeling deprived. Sure I won’t be able to get everything I want. Sure I’ll have to say no sometimes. Sure I’ll have to be creative in my purchases, by bigger items second hand and defer any travel plans for a good, long while. But I can live comfortably, happily, on the money I make.

And I am incredibly fortunate to be able to say that.

Now the hard work begins. Now I need to keep track of how I spend my money, to make sure that I’m staying within the amounts I budged for in each category. I’ve already gone way over for “birthday presents” this month (we have EIGHT birthday parties and I have two baby showers in March!), so I’ll have to save some money in other areas. Of course in the future, I’ll hopefully have a little nest-egg in the “birthday presents” area of my budget, because I don’t have to buy them every month (at least not as many as I budget for).

And so it begins. My new financial future starts now. I even applied for life insurance last night! At 34 I’m finally getting my shit together.

Do you feel like you make enough? Do you have a budget? How to do keep track of it? Any suggestions for a newbie who’s just starting out?

Minimalism

Decluttering Without Regret

Posted on by noemikjames / 7 Comments

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, but Mel’s post yesterday prompted me to finally do it. I was going to comment on her site but realized I had too much to say, so I came here. I also believe it’s an important part of my continuing discussion on attempting to embrace minimalism.

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In The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, the metric by which each object is weighed is whether or not it brings joy. At first I thought such an obtuse determiner was useless, but since my huge, two-day purge I’ve become increasingly good at recognizing what does and doesn’t bring me joy. Every week I wear something that I realize I don’t really love anymore, and I immediately throw it into the give-away pile when it comes out of the wash.

But what of the things that we don’t love, but we clearly need? What fits into this category can be harder to identify.

Marie Kondo, the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is pretty unforgiving in her assessment of what we actually need. She has helped hundreds of people completely transform their homes and lives by getting rid of stuff, and since I knew my choices weren’t getting me where I wanted, I decided to trust her expertise. Per her suggestion, I got rid of pretty much ALL my paper work, ALL the little junk I thought might be useful some day (but have never actually used), and I’m even set to get rid of most of my photos. When in doubt, I almost always get rid of something. And if I don’t the first time around, I do on the second pass.

But what if I get rid of something I eventually need? This is a big worry for people who are trying to declutter. I understand this concern, I really do. I used to have it. But the more stuff I get rid of, the more I realize that I don’t actually need a lot of what I think I need, even when I end up thinking I need it.

Let me explain.

I have gotten rid of a few things that later I went searching for. What has been very liberating is the realization that even in those situations, I don’t usually end up really needing the thing I previously got rid of.

Recently our BluRay player wouldn’t work. Actually, it seemed to be working, but the TV kept flashing a no-signal message. We tried restarting everything. We tried changing out the HDMI cord. We tried using a different input. After many variations of inputs and cords, it became clear that we couldn’t watch the BluRay I’d gotten from the library. Then I had one last idea, maybe we could try an old audio/video cord. Surely we had one in our “tech box.” Except we didn’t. I had done such a thorough job of cleaning it out that we didn’t have one red-white-yellow cord. I could tell my husband was annoyed. We used to have a dozen of those dumb cords! I felt bad, because I probably should have saved one, but how was I to know our BluRay player would suddenly be all weird and we’d need a cord we hadn’t used in ages? And even if we had that cord, who’s to know if it would have worked?

My daughter was managing her frustration surprisingly well, and when I asked if she wanted to play on the bed, she happily agreed. We ended up enjoying a good 20 minutes of quality mommy-daughter time and it wasn’t a big deal that we didn’t have the cord. I’m going to borrow one from school to see if it makes our BluRay player useable, but in that moment, it wasn’t a big deal that we didn’t have one.

There have been other times when I’ve wanted to let a friend borrow something that I’ve given away. I will admit, sometimes I’m pretty disappointed in those moments, but ultimately I’ve come to realize that it saves me time and energy not to lend so much stuff to others. Finding the thing, putting it in my car and delivering it to its new owner are kept off my to-do list. In a few instances I’ve so wanted to share something with someone I’ve just gotten them one as a gift. And that felt a lot better, and meant more to the person, than finding an old one at home.

So yes, there have been moments when I’ve looked for something and realized I gave it away (and I’m struggling to recall other specific examples or I’d share them), but I’ve never once lingered on that object for very long, and I haven’t yet bought myself any replacements.

All this to say, I have been surprised, and delighted, by how little I actually need. The more I experience this for myself first hand, the easier it becomes to throw stuff away.

Do you worry you’ll need something you’re considering getting rid of? Do you usually end up keeping it, or setting it free?

Parenting & Family

The Two Week Wait

Posted on by noemikjames / 12 Comments

On Friday, March 13th, San Francisco Unified School District sends out placement announcements for the 2015-2016 school year. We should be getting ours in the mail in exactly two weeks.

Finding out where my daughter will go to Kindergarten is the culmination of years of wondering and worry. Ever since we first started talking about whether we’d stay in the city, knowing where she’d go to school has been on our minds.

The SFUSD lottery system is an absolute and utter shit show. We listed only Spanish Immersion programs, all which happen to be relatively close to us (at least on the same side of the city). Our daughter could be placed in a general education school clear across town.

We are incredibly lucky that we have a guaranteed Plan B in place, so if we are terribly disappointed with the school we get, we know she’ll be going somewhere that we really like.

But I really want my daughter to go to a Spanish Immersion school. And I really want it to be one of the schools we can get her to.

So many things ride on this letter, this one piece of paper we expect to get in the mail in 14 days. We may need to hire some help during the work week, if she has to be at school by 7:50am. We may need to buy a second car, if her school isn’t accessible via public transportation. I am a planner. If I’m not actually planning something, I like to be thinking about how I might plan it. Not having this huge piece of next year’s puzzle is absolutely killing me.

So far I’ve been really good about the wait. I registered in November. We found out she passed the bilingual test in December. Then I successfully put it out of my mind. Once or twice I marveled at how fast February was flying by and realized that soon it would be March and we’d be close to knowing.

Now that it is March, I suspect time will come to a screeching halt. I find myself packing my schedule in an attempt to distract myself. I’m actually thankful that my grades are due around that time; I hope I’m too busy to drive myself crazy with anticipation. I’m already dreading the five long hours of classes I’ll have to endure on the 16th.

Two weeks and we get a glimpse of our future. Yes. This feels so very familiar…

Health & Well Being/Identity

The Lows

Posted on by noemikjames / 5 Comments

I am someone who is continually cycling through highs and lows. My highs are generally pretty awesome. I feel great. I am super productive. The possibilities seem endless. I am happy and (relatively) carefree.

My lows suck. I feel depressed and anxious. Things that shouldn’t be a big deal overwhelm me. A gloom of hopeless envelopes everything, like a fog.

I’ve been dealing with these cycles for as long as I can remember. I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar II in college. I’ve never really pursued that diagnosis. At the time it was very new (the diagnosis) and I felt it was pretty much bullshit. Since then I’ve done some research myself. I feel like the only thing a Bi-Polar II diagnosis could offer me is a change in medication, because I already recognize these cycles in myself and I’m pretty good at reminding myself that even though the lows seem endless, I won’t always feel this way.

I guess my point is, maybe there is something “more” to my highs and lows, but I don’t think it really matters whether there is or not. This is how I am. This is who I am. I wish these cycles weren’t a part of my life. I wish I weren’t a lot of things that I happen to be (especially when I’m entrenched in one of these accursed lows), but I feel very fortunate that I can manage (or at least have been able to so far) my specific set of challenges.

I’m putting this out here right now as a reminder to myself, that this is a low and that someday, probably not too far in the future, I will come out of it. Things might feel overwhelming and hopeless at the moment, but that feeling will pass. The challenges will change, the way I perceive them will shift, and in the end, it will be okay.

Do you cycle through highs and lows? How do you manage your harder times?

Identity/Parenting & Family

Mutually Exclusive

Posted on by noemikjames / 18 Comments

A lot of the articles I read about parenting insist on two imperative objectives: (1) parents taking care of themselves, so they will have the internal resources needed to take care of their kids and (2) nurturing a deep connection with your child via affection and quality time.

I’ve always felt these two objectives were in direct contrast with each other for me, but I was never quite sure why. Now that I’m realizing that my daughter and I actually have different temperaments, I’m starting to worry that the two are mutually exclusive.

My daughter needs time, at home, alone (with just her family) to energize. I am away at work for a massive portion of each day, which means that being home with my daughter for that one-on-one bonding time is incredibly important. She needs that time both to foster a deep connection with me AND to refill her cup after a LONG day of being with other people at school.

I need to be out, with other people (adults) to refill my cup. By the time I come home from work I have depleted my own energy supplies and feel starved for adult contact. If I want to get together with someone it’s going to happen right when my daughter needs me to be home, meeting her needs.

Our needs are in direct contrast with each other. At least during the work week, our happiness is mutually exclusive.

In the past two months I’ve done a lot of work to meet new women and foster new friendships. I’ve also reached out to women I haven’t seen in a while and rekindled relationships I felt were worthwhile. This has required a lot of time away from the house, either on weekday evenings or weekend days. I have seen how hard it is for my daughter to deal with my absences during these times. As I’ve become happier and felt more fulfilled, my daughter has struggled.

I have pulled back, saying yes to fewer social activities so I can be home with my sweet girl. I think that has helped, and maybe, eventually, we can find a balance. But right now it’s hard not to feel frustrated. Why does it have to be this hard? Why does the one thing I need have to be in direct conflict with the one thing she needs?

I’ve often wondered why some women (ahem, me) seem to struggle so much more with the transition to parenthood than other women do. Some women fit the role of “mother” so naturally, it doesn’t seem to conflict with any preconceived notions of who they are and what they need. They feel, for the most part, fulfilled by their role and the way it plays out in their daily existence. But some women (ahem, me) are shocked by how difficult the transition. Who I am and what I need seems to clash endlessly with what is required of me by motherhood. I find it mentally and emotionally exhausting.

I thought being a mother would meet all my needs. I thought experiencing motherhood was my ultimate need, something I could not live without. And now that I am a mother, I realize that being the parent my child needs and meeting my own needs, are (at least, currently) mutually exclusive.

I guess it helps to have a better understanding of why I struggle so mightily parenting my daughter. Hopefully now that I understand that the things I used to consider mere preferences are actually legitimate needs, I can better accommodate both of us. Still, I know this will be a continual struggle. In the end, her needs will inevitably trump my own, because she is the child and I am the parent. Parents provide for their children, not the other way around.

This wouldn’t be so hard if my daughter and I weren’t so similar in one frustrating way–we are both high needs individuals. I always knew this about her, and I guess I knew it about myself, but I’m really beginning to KNOW it, in that “solidified truth I must learn to accept” kind of way. My needs are high, and clearly they are not easily met. I am an intense person, I expend a lot of energy, which is probably why I always feel so starved for more. I’ve written many times that my daughter’s cup is like a sieve, the faster I fill it, the emptier it seems. We both require a lot of what we need to fire on all four cylinders. Again, I think this is ultimately a good thing to recognize about myself, but right now it just feels like a burden.

Maybe this will get better with time. Maybe there will come a day when being with her doesn’t deplete me, but fills me up. Maybe one day I’ll arrive at the experience of parenthood I always imagined for myself. In the meantime, I suppose it helps to have identified our particular challenges, and treat us both gently as we learn to accommodate our contrasting needs.

I just wish it didn’t have to be so hard.

How do your needs contrast with the needs place on you by your life? How do you manage?

Connection

Closed Doors

Posted on by noemikjames / 11 Comments

I have made some mistakes in my blogging days. Big mistakes. Massive mistakes. Irreparable mistakes.

There were women, women that I considered close, women that I considered friends, women that won’t have anything to do with me anymore.

Because I hurt them. Badly.

I get it. I fucked up. They had, and have, every right to distance themselves from me. I don’t harbor any ill will or resentment. If anything I still feel lingering guilt for the feelings I hurt, for the damage I caused. I want to say I’m sorry. In most cases I have, but it clearly hasn’t helped.

I burned bridges and now I have to recognize there are chasms I can’t cross. Words are powerful, and there are very real consequences when you wield them carelessly. I understand and accept that.

But sometimes these women write amazing things. Sometimes momentous things happen to them. And I want to say something. I want to write something down, I want to reach out, but I don’t because I know they wouldn’t want me to. They don’t want to know that I read their words, or hear their news. They don’t want to know anything about me.

So I don’t say anything. I don’t post a comment or send an email, even though many times I write them.

Instead I just sit, on my side of the computer, and I keep my sadness to myself. I hold it close,  willing myself to learn from my mistakes, so the next time I won’t let my suffering or my insecurity or my confusion or my pettiness drive me to say something I shouldn’t say. Something that hurts. Something that closes doors, and locks them, forever.

Have you ever destroyed something meaningful with your words? How do you manage that destruction, moving forward?
Identity/Parenting & Family

Introverts Among Us

Posted on by noemikjames / 23 Comments

I almost skipped the chapter in Raising your Spirited Child about extroversion and introversion. I am such a classic extrovert, constantly talking, riding an amazing high after a party or gathering, narrating every step of my life… out loud. I ALWAYS want to be chatting, discussing, rehashing, talking it over. I am an extrovert, to a T.

I assumed my daughter was too–she is always the life of a gathering, insisting that all eyes and ears be on her–but as I read through the chapter, and took into consideration some conversations my husband and I have been having about how best to avoid her meltdowns, I realized that she isn’t an extrovert at all, she’s actually an outgoing introvert. Which is to say, she is the life of the party, and wants all the attention when people are together, but she needs to excuse herself constantly to recenter and requires an entire day at home alone to recharge after a big gathering.

This was a huge breakthrough for me, to realize that while she enjoys being out and about, she REALLY needs downtime at home afterward. No wonder I always find her reading alone at the end of the school day. No wonder she needs the rest of Saturday to “recover” from spending Friday night at her grandparents’ house (where she adores being)–because even a night with people she loves more than anything saps her energy.

My husband is also an introvert. I guess I knew this, but I didn’t really KNOW it. This is such a huge revelation for me, and helps me understand both my daughter’s and my husband’s needs so much better. I should probably read a book about what it’s like to live in our über-social culture as someone who needs time alone, because I find it almost impossible to relate to that experience myself. If anyone can recommend any articles or books on the subject I’d be much obliged. The better I understand my daughter and my husband’s needs, the better I’ll be able to meet them.

Hmmm. I wonder where my son will fall on the introversion/extroversion spectrum. I have to admit, the idea that I could be outnumbered 3-to-1 on this is kind of terrifying. What happens if I’m the only one who wants to spend all weekend out and about? What happens if what energizes me, saps everyone in my family of their much needed strength? And what helps them recharge leaves me feeling depleted?

I’m sure we’ll figure it out, but I will admit, I am hoping my boy wants to spend Saturday meeting with friends and exploring the city, just like his mommy…

Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Where does the rest of your family fall on the introvert/extrovert spectrum? 

Friendship/Health & Well Being/Life/Parenting & Family

I Don’t Know How

Posted on by noemikjames / 18 Comments

I’ve been really down this past week, stuck in a low, low funk. I thought it was my period, which took it’s sweet time showing up, and made me an awful bitch for five days, and while I do think it was partly that, I’m realizing there is more too it.

There has been a lot weighing on me recently, and I’ve been a little perplexed as to why it all feels so… heavy, so burdensome. After a mini-breakdown and some tears cried on my husband’s shoulder, I think I’ve finally figured it out.

I’m dealing with some personal challenges right now, and each of them, in its own distinctive way, leaves me with an overwhelming feeling of “I don’t know how to handle this.” When I don’t know how to do something, or I feel change lies in the hands of someone else, I start to panic. I start to worry that maybe it can’t be done. That the thing that needs “fixing” can’t be fixed, and I’ll just have to keep living this way, forever.

Physically, I am still plagued with lady business issues, and I’m starting to think they’ll never go away. The idea of painful, or at least uncomfortable, sex for the rest of my life makes me incredibly depressed. And I don’t feel like I can talk to my husband about it because it makes him just as upset. I’ve done a ton of research online, I’ve seen or talked to three specialists, and I’m no closer to getting this resolved than I was a year ago. I’m supposed to go see a final specialist in March but the appointment has already been cancelled and rescheduled twice so who knows when I’ll actually get in. I have to admit, I’m not in much of a hurry to see her, because if she can’t help me there is no one who can, and I don’t have a lot of faith that she’s going to have some answer that no one else was able to come up with.

I went to the family orientation meeting at the Child and Adolescent Psychology department at Kaiser. It was fine… and depressing and upsetting and absolutely horrible. Filling out the form, answer the questions, circling the words and numbers, seeing it all there in black and white… It was a lot. I cried. My tears left warped circles on the intake paperwork.

The person I saw was very nice. Talking to him was therapeutic–I was simultaneously sure that nothing serious is wrong with my daughter and also certain that I needed help to manage her intense emotions and chronic, low-grade anxiety. I love my daughter so much, and I want to do what’s best for her, but I just don’t know how to be the endless well of patiences she needs.

I’m reading (for maybe a second time? I don’t think I finished it before) Raising Your Spirited Child and listening to Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents. I’m getting great ideas from both, but I’ll be honest, I’m sick of reading parenting books. I’m tired of not knowing how to handle things myself. I’m overwhelmed by how hard all of this is. What happened to mother’s intuition? What happened to knowing your child best? I guess I do know her best, but that doesn’t mean I know how best to handle her unique challenges. It just feels shitty to not know how to make it better for her, for me, for both of us.

And then there is the money stuff, always the money stuff, constantly in the background. I still have $2,000 left on my credit card and it starts accruing interest next month. I ran my phone through the washing machine a couple weeks ago and getting a new one killed any chance I had of putting anything toward my debt this month. I’m still not using credit cards and ended up overdrafting a few times with my debit card before I realized I was out of money (I was mentally keep track of where I was with my spending but obviously failing miserably at that). I went to the bank yesterday to change $80 worth of quarters into bills and to cash two $20 American Express Traveler’s Checks from 2006 that I found when we cleaned out all the paperwork last month. I have $120 to get me to the end of the month, including gas and groceries. I’ve already spent $45 of it (on groceries) and I have two dinners with friends planned for next week too, so….

That has been my biggest challenge on the money front so far this year. My compulsive shopping probably is almost entirely under control, but I promised myself I’d focus on friendship in 2015 and I’ve actually done a REALLY good job of keeping that promise to myself (more on this soon, I can’t believe I haven’t written about it yet). The only problem is that being with friends is EXPENSIVE. It’s not that I don’t think one can go out without spending a lot of money–friendship and savings don’t have to be mutually exclusive–but I have been meeting with women I don’t yet know very well, and we’ve been meeting after work, so dinner and/or drinks makes a lot of sense. It’s a lot harder to do frugal things with women I’m not close with. It’s also harder to spend less at night, when my kids are asleep (so we can’t meet at my house) and it’s dark out (so we have to be inside).

I know I can make cheaper choices when I am out; I can eat a little before I go to dinner and then just eat a salad or order an appetizer. I can stick to Diet Coke or just get one drink. I have definitely been indulging a bit, because it feels so good to just let go and enjoy myself, but clearly I can’t manage that AND stay within my budget.

Of course, I could always stop doing so much with friends. That is another way to save money. I guess I’m just not sure what the right answer is. Do I stop, or scale back my efforts to make new friends and deepen friendships until I’ve paid off my debt, even though I’ve identified a lack of friends as a very big and very real problem in my life? Or do I resign myself to paying interest on my debt for a few more months and nurture these burgeoning friendships that I feel so lucky to have in my life? I’m not sure what to do.

And in the end, that is what characterizes each of these situations–I don’t know how to do these things. I don’t know what the answers are. These are big issues in my life and I don’t know how to make them better–there may not even be ways to make them better–and I HATE feeling out of my depth in so many areas. I loathe feeling like I don’t know how to make things better, when they are making me miserable.

I know none of these are actually big issues. My physical stuff is not that bad and it only really affects one area of my life. The challenges I face parenting my daughter are real, but they are also absolutely manageable. She hasn’t been diagnosed with anything that requires me to rework my expectations about who she will be and what she can achieve. And the money troubles are of my own making, and very first-world at that. I recognize that these aren’t big problems, and really I just need to suck it up.

I suppose that is why I wrote this post. To remind myself that things aren’t that bad, and that it’s okay if I don’t know how to do these things yet. I can learn, even if it takes a long time and I mess up along the way. I will get better. Things will get better. And someday, maybe even soon, it won’t all feel so overwhelming.

How are you doing these days? Is there anything that feels overwhelming in your life?

Parenting & Family

Toddlerdom, Take Two

Posted on by noemikjames / 6 Comments

My son is 16 months old today, and he’s officially entered toddlerhood.

He is finally walking (ahem, toddling) everywhere, but that isn’t why I know we’ve arrived.

In the past two days he’s spit at me when I asked him to stop doing something, hit me when I took something dangerous away, and had a total meltdown when one of his crackers snapped in half.

Yep, I’ve got a toddler on my hands.

I have to admit, I’m kind of panicking about it. My daughter is already hard enough, and I thought I had a bit more time before he started driving me batty…

Identity/Life/Parenting & Family

My Own Personal SAHM v WOHM Debate (A Conclusion)

Posted on by noemikjames / 8 Comments

I feel like I should wrap this series* up in sparkly paper and curly ribbons, but honestly, I don’t know how (and I’ve always been more of a Dollar Store gift bag wrapper anyway). The SAHM/WOHM debate is so complicated. And so glaringly simple.

The simple of it: We all work hard. We all make choices that we believe are best for our family. We all struggle. We all triumph. We all are doing are best, trying to make it work, and hoping that (we, and) our kids  are okay at the end of it all.

The complicated of it: Each mother’s choice to stay at home, work from home or manage some combination of the two is uniquely intricate and arduous. Even for those of us who don’t have a choice, we agonize over whether we’re doing the right thing for ourselves and our families. When a path that is best for us in some ways is also more challenging for us in others, it becomes impossible to make the “right choice.” We are constantly wondering if there might be some other, better, way to make it work. The reality is, there probably isn’t.

Despite the simple, and complicated, nature of this dialogue, I think it’s an important one to have. When we talk about the challenges and benefits of working from home, or staying at home, validate each other’s experiences and open each other’s eyes to new and different possibilities. A SAHM who is fearful about rejoining the workforce might realize there are ways to manage the difficulties of working outside the home, and the mom who wants to be with her kids might discover new ways to make it financially (and emotionally) feasible. The mom who finds staying at home a grueling, even onerous, experience might feel better knowing that moms who aren’t at home feel just as frustrated with their kids (and life) at the end of a long, exhausting day. And the mom who fears she’s failing both at work and at home might feel a little better about herself knowing moms at home worry they’re messing things up as well.

Parenting is hard work. I have struggled a lot with the maternal ambivalence** that seems to define my own experience. It’s not that I don’t love my kids–I absolutely adore them–it’s the mundane, repetitive tasks required to raise them that send me oscillating wildly between elation and disdain. I cherish the moments of laughter and silliness when wrasslin’ with my daughter and revere the quiet, tender snuggles shared with my son, but I loathe all things related to feeding them and cringe before, during and after every transition. I spend so many parenting minutes looking forward to that glorious moment when I can finally be alone, and then fill the alone minutes thinking about my children, gazing wistfully at their pictures.

Sharing our experiences as stay-at-home and work-from-home moms, expressing how our maternal ambivalence might color those experiences, these are vital endeavors. We need to be having these conversations. We need to be speaking our own unique truths.

Because no matter how unique each of our experiences is, every single one is relevant and every single one is an important addition. The more stories we hear, the more we are able to understand and normalize our own experience, while hopefully putting it in perspective.

So thank you for participating in this little discussion. I know I learned a lot, my complicated feelings were normalized and I gained perspectives I didn’t realize I lacked. I am more accepting of my own “choices,” while maintaining the utmost respect for women who make very different choices for themselves. If anything, this conversation has reminded me that there is no ideal answer, there is no “easier” or “harder,” there is just shifting shades of every color imaginable, coming together in the brilliant and muddled cacophony we call motherhood. I hope others have similarly benefitted from this conversation, and that you’ll continue it with other parents you know.

What do you want to add to the this discussion? Do you think this is an important conversation to have?

*For the first three installments see the introduction and inventories one and two.

**For some really interesting thoughts (and lots of great links) on maternal ambivalence, see Stephanie Sprenger’s recent post. I am so appreciate of the conversation she is starting.