Jessica Smock, Author at The HerStories Project

Jessica Smock

Juggling Without a To-Do List: Reflections From a Work At Home Mom

It’s a realization familiar to any work-at-home mother of small children: that moment in the day when you realize that your kid is not going to nap and you need to readjust your expectations for your day accordingly.

It’s become the most dreaded moment in my quest for work/family balance. For me it symbolizes every thing that’s missing from the simplistic “lean in”/”opt out” public conversation about women’s lives.

It’s early afternoon, and I have a checklist of tasks — articles to write, e-mails to send, phone calls to make — that still need to be done. That list, that uncompromising and guilt-inducing list, sits next to me at my dining room table, my work station. Usually my son naps for two hours, but sometimes he won’t nap at all, despite my best efforts. As my son screams from his crib, “Mommy! Mommy!” I scratch off items from my daily list, assigning them reluctantly to tomorrow’s list. My work day is over. Now I’m Mommy, not education writer with a doctorate. Not aspiring freelance writer. Not parenting blogger. Just Mommy. And I feel an uncomfortable mixture of pleasure, gratitude about being able to spend a whole lovely summer afternoon with my son, frustration, and failure.

I’ve had this “daily list” since my boarding school years of high school, pinned to my bulletin board in my dorm room. I was a master at checking off every item each day on the List. I had separate columns for short-term goals (finish French homework) and long-term ones (learn 10 new SAT words). Later, my List would sit at my desk at every job that I had through my twenties and thirties. I never missed a deadline, never missed a meeting, never passed over any professional opportunity offered to me. I just added it to the list. In graduate school, I thrived. I finished my research papers ahead of schedule. I juggled research assistant positions, research fellow opportunities, teaching assistant jobs with my class schedule and other priorities. But I had my trusty List.

When my son was born, I was thrown into uncharted territory. Was I a stay at home mom? How would I ever finish my dissertation? Since I wasn’t making any money, how could I justify child care for the large blocks of time that I needed to analyze my data and write my dissertation?

I had to learn to something new to me, how to seize small moments: a few seconds to jot down ideas in notebooks at the side of my bed while I tried to rock my son to sleep, quiet walks in the fading afternoon light to think about my research conclusions while walking my son to the grocery store in his stroller.

During these two years, I’m not sure if I’ve been “leaning in” — making conscious choices to pursue both professional and personal success — or if I’m beginning the slow process of “opting out.”

Last week writer one of my favorite writers, Galit Breen, wrote a beautiful piece about the “gifts and pressures” of working from home. I can’t get some of her sentences out of my head. In all the talk about “opting back in” for women who gave up their careers, Galit’s words resonate with me more powerfully than any media headlines.

According to Galit,

Being a work at home mom is a beautiful gift, wrapped in a juggling act that can be hard to maintain.

And in the New York Times Magazine piece from Judith Warner, “The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In,” I could relate to the mothers’ voices, their compromises, and their joys. What is lost in the public conversation (mostly) about these women is that they are not looking to become — and do not regret that they are not — Sheryl Sandberg.

According to Judith Warner,

And not a single woman I spoke with said she wished that she could return to her old, pre-opting-out job — no matter what price she paid for her decision to stop working. What I heard instead were some regrets for what, in an ideal world, might have been — more time with their children combined with some sort of intellectually stimulating, respectably paying, advancement-permitting part-time work — but none for the high-powered professional lives that these women had led.

Working from home, for so many mothers that I know, is this sort of compromise. Yes, there is the awareness that we will not be the next Supreme Court justice or CEO. We will not be running a Fortune 500 company or a large magazine. You can become discouraged by the goals, the accomplishments that will not be within reach. You miss the companionship and professional support of the workplace. And sometimes I do.

Or, as most women do, you can celebrate the uncertainty, the complexity, the juggling and the possibility, while also acknowledging what has been lost.

My to do list will stay on my dining room table. Every day. I will sometimes check off all of the items on that list. But most days I won’t. But these days, these days of missed naps, playground adventures, and the exhilarating newness and possibility of reinventing myself as a writer, will not last forever. My To-Do List will wait.

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Even At 2 a.m.

We’re so happy to feature our blogging friend, Jean Heffernan, of Mama Schmama with us today at HerStories. Because both of us are educators, Stephanie and I love the perspective of new parenthood from a very funny and warm former teacher that Jean brings to her blog. Check out Mama Schmama! Jean’s essay reflects so much of what we hope for The HerStories Project to be about: emotional and practical support during new motherhood, friendship, patience, and generosity.

As I write this, my best friend is in labor. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, she will have given birth to her first child. Earlier today, I gave her a call and after we talked about what she could probably expect to happen, I made this promise to her:

“I will keep my ringer on and I will answer the phone whenever you want to call, even if it’s at 2am.”

Almost word for word, I was repeating what another close friend said to me the week before my first child was born. I had called her up and told her that this labor thing just wasn’t going to work for me because I was going to poop on the table in front of the doctor and my husband and then what. She responded with the best piece of advice I heard while pregnant: Giving birth lasts such a short time. It’s what happens when you leave the hospital that you should prepare for. That’s the hard part.

Turned out, I was right. Labor did not work for me and I ended up having an emergency cesarean. More importantly, she was right. Even in my pre-labor hysteria, I knew she had spoken the truth because she was a mom and because she knew me well.

My sage friend was someone I had met at work. Our friendship developed in the trenches, teaching children who led difficult lives which required us to be on point all day. We could read each other’s mind with a look or a tone of voice. It helped our instruction and to develop a positive relationship between us and the students. In fact, students would tell us that they loved both of us when we were together. On our own, we were just “okay.”

Years before she made that pre-birth promise to me, she had her first two children. This was while I was still single and wild. While our shared purpose grew our friendship in the classroom, our opposite lifestyles made us a good fit for each other once work ended. Her family life showed me what I wanted for my future. I dragged her out of the house and reminded her that child-free fun was still to be had. My horrible dating stories and drama also reinforced her belief that she had made the right choice because she didn’t have to deal with that ever again.

Two days after I found out I was pregnant with my first child, she called me up to tell me she was pregnant with her third. Our children were due ten days apart from each other. The big difference being, of course, that I was at the start of my family journey and she was having her third and final baby.

Throughout my pregnancy, I would call her and talk about how I was feeling. Now living far apart from each other, we visited each other only once during our pregnancies. We sat and grumped about how it would be really nice to have a beer. Me, thinking “I’ll never have a beer again!” She, grumpy but knowing the beer days would happen again.

So then our babies were born and we started the work of adjusting to our new families. I went downhill quickly and she was the person who helped me the most.

She kept her ringer on and answered the phone, even if it was me calling at 2am.

“Babies do that all the time.”

“Yes, my breasts leaked in public and everyone saw.”

“Yes, it’s obnoxious. In fact, yesterday she farted so loud in line at the grocery store that a woman looked at me like I did it!”

My favorite piece of advice from her about parenting an infant was this: I think about the times I have to get up in the middle of the night as a set number. Each time I get up is one more time crossed off the list. All her advice was positive and motivational. She never tried to scare me with stories or make me feel like I wasn’t doing the best job I could.

I would call with a simple question or complaint and because she could detect the edge in my voice or the way I would repeat stories or use the wrong word from fatigue, she would stay on the phone longer than she had time for just to talk. It would calm me down and helped to center me.

My teacher-friend and I have evolved from that of mentor and mentee parent now that I am past the first rocky year of motherhood. We catch each other when we can over the phone (never at 2am anymore) and meet up once a year without kids so we can talk as long as we want about everything but being pregnant and getting up in the middle of the night.

I look back at my early days of being a mom and feel nothing but gratitude towards my patient friend who gave me her advice and time. I can’t repay her for that but I do believe I’ll be able to do something better.

My best friend delivered her beautiful, happy, and healthy baby. I will not tell you how long her labor took because it might make you jealous.

When I got the news, I reminded her that my ringer will be on and I will be ready to talk if she needs it.

And it’s true. My ringer is on and will continue to be, even at 2am.

Jean writes at Mama, Schmama but spends most of her time chasing around her two beautiful, feisty children. She recently resigned from a career in elementary education to stay at home with them. She’s hoping not to turn her new home into a classroom while she recovers from teaching.

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Yoga Bonding

We’re delighted to be sharing Sarah’s story of friendship during her first years of motherhood. Sarah has a fantastic blog, Left Brain Buddha, where she writes about parenting and mindfulness.

It’s early evening, and I’m six months pregnant with my first child, walking my dog after prenatal yoga class. Not one minute into my walk, a pregnant woman comes running out of her house waving at me. “Hey! We’re in the same yoga class!”

We had been neighbors for months, and had never met. Yet our due dates were only two days apart. We were both pregnant with girls. We both loved yoga. We would be giving birth at the same hospital. I love synchronicity!

We got together a few times before our children were born, but we really came to know each other once we entered first-time motherhood together. Our girls ended up being born five days apart.

When my daughter was three months old, I took her to our first Yoga Bonding class ~ and there was my new friend, too! I loved these Wednesday yoga classes. We joked about how that one-hour yoga class managed to fill up the whole day — figuring out how to get Mom and baby dressed, fed, and inevitably re-dressed to make it to class by 11:15, scheduling naps around class, then bundling the babies back up in their carseats to get them home in a frigid January, followed by napping and recovering from yoga. That’s an exhausting day for a new mama!

And I craved that kind of structure and time with a friend during my days as a new mom. I had a rough time in those first months of motherhood. My daughter woke almost hourly during the night, napped for only 30 minutes at a time, and spent many of her waking hours crying — and so did I. I didn’t realize it at the time, but what I took for “baby blues” had progressed into postpartum depression. Despite going to yoga bonding, I didn’t feel I was bonding with my daughter. Motherhood felt like a job I approached intellectually, rather than a passion I pursued out of love. My friends spent their days at work. I felt isolated and thought I was a terrible mother.

And then at one of our Yoga Bonding classes, my friend asked me if my husband and I would babysit her daughter for a few hours one evening. I felt so honored and flattered and relieved by the request. I was touched that she trusted me to watch her little girl, and it reassured an insecure new mom that at least someone thought I was doing things right. She’s trusting me with her child!

The night my husband and I babysat, I came to two important realizations: first, It is way harder to have two infants at once, and second, I really had bonded with my daughter. While I loved cradling my friend’s sweet child in my arms, my heart ached. I wanted to be holding my baby! Even though I’d spent the entire day carrying her as she fussed, I longed to hug and kiss her again and sing her to sleep.

Caring for another baby made me realize how in tune I was with my own daughter ~ my friend’s little one took her bottle differently, cried differently, needed to be soothed differently, and, holy cow, could that child spit up!

Our families began to spend a lot time together: dinner gatherings (which usually began around 4:45 pm to accommodate baby bedtimes), long daytime walks around the neighborhood and the lakes, and lots of playdates (if they can be called that when the kids can’t even walk.) But at that age (and maybe all ages), the playdates are more for the moms, right? I treasured the laughter, the conversation, the advice, and the confessions that my friend and I shared.

Our girls grew up together, played together, and spent every Sunday morning together while their dads walked them in their strollers to go to the local coffee shop for donuts. Then the six of us would spend a leisurely morning on our patio, enjoying coffee, sweets, and company while the girls played.
We moved on to Yoga for Crawlers. First birthday parties. Trick-or-Treating. Second children.

And just when I got pregnant with my second child, they moved away! It was hard to see my mama-friend, and my daughter’s best bud, leave. Even the baristas at the coffee shop expressed their sadness that our little girls wouldn’t continue to grow up together.

We keep in touch now through Facebook and social media. When our children get together for visits, even though the girls are now almost seven, and they were separated when they were two, it’s like they’ve been girlfriends for a long time.

I know the feeling. Here’s to yoga bonding.

Sarah Rudell Beach, is a teacher, wife, and a mother to two energetic little ones. At Left Brain Buddha she explores ideas and practices for mindfulness, and shares the challenges and riches in her journey to live and parent mindfully in a left-brain, analytical life. She encourages you to discover the amazing transformations that can occur when we not only indulge, but learn to tame, our monkey minds.

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Being Alone and Being Lonely Are Two Different Things

Here’s one thing I’ve learned in my two years as a mother: experiencing solitude and experiencing loneliness are not the same thing.

Before I became a mom, I frequently sought out solitude, but seldom felt lonely.

Pre-baby hammock relaxation

Now I sometimes feel a bit lonely but — until recently — hardly ever experience true solitude in the same way that I did before having a child.

I’ve been reading One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child, and the Joy of Being One by Lauren Sandler, and Sandler makes some provocative and insightful points about what we think we “know” about only children. (I’m reading it for my Parenting Book Book Club For Parents Who Hate Most Parenting Books over at School of Smock. Join the ongoing conversation about this book and Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us by Christine Gross-Loh!)

According to Sander, being alone is an objective state. You may like it; you might not. You may find being alone recharges your energy (as introverts like me do), or you may prefer to be around others. But loneliness is different. You’re not happy when you’re lonely. You’re missing a connection with others. It’s unpleasant.

In our culture, Sandler states, “We often mistake loneliness with solitude, confusing a state of grievous misery with a placid state of contentment.”

One of the main themes of the book is that only kids are not necessarily lonely at all, despite the stereotype. They learn to be their own companions and are generally content in their own company. They are more likely to be self-sufficient, to have a strong sense of self. That only kid sitting by himself in the sandbox or drawing pictures without siblings may not be lonely at all, although it’s tempting to feel sorry for him. But he might not be longing for company in the slightest.

On the other hand, motherhood can be truly lonely. A new mom can literally never be all alone during the whole day: surrounded by toddlers at the park, accompanied to the bathroom by her child, woken to the sounds of a screaming child over the baby monitor during the quiet first rays of morning sunlight. But she may not feel a constant daily connection to friends or to a support system.

Solitude is about finding the time and space to have a deep relationship with yourself. Solitude can be “down time,” moments to reconnect and recharge.

I experience solitude and peace during:
- reading
- walking or running
- cooking a long meal
For me, cultivating happiness as a mom is about finding that balance: connecting with myself and with others. Connecting enough not to feel lonely, allowing myself to be alone enough to be calm.

In One and Only, Sandler contends that only children are particularly good at this balance. They’re skillful at forming and keeping social connections — on their own terms — but also seek and cherish time alone.

How do you find this balance? Do you think that only kids are better at this balancing act?

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My First Year as a Mom

Today’s HerStories contributor is Amy from Swag On, Momma! On her blog, Amy shares her own stories of new motherhood and invites other new moms to share their own stories. We think you’ll hear parts of your own story as a new mom in Amy’s; we certainly did!

My son Hayden, was born March 25, 2012, and I was scared.  Though I liked kids, newborns terrified me. (They’re so helpless and have such floppy little necks!)  After years of avoiding infants, I had little confidence in my baby-whispering abilities.

Despite this, I wanted kids and knew that my husband, Patrick, and I would find our greatest joy in becoming parents—we had lots of love to give.

So we took a leap of faith and decided to start a family. About a year later, Hayden was born. Oh, how I loved my little son, but we definitely had a rocky first couple months.

Before I continue, I don’t want you to think that I’m ungrateful for my son…I love him so much my heart aches!  And, I also don’t want you to think, “Thanks for the warning sistah, I’m NEVER having a baby.”  Though being a mom is hard, it’s also SO full of love.  I want to be real since many mommas can identify with my story, and some are going through this right now.

Like I said, we struggled.  My baby screamed his whole first week home from the hospital…and I cried almost as much as he did. Looking back, that time is just a blur of worry and exhaustion. Nursing was a nightmare; he had a weak suck and couldn’t latch. My husband (who was in the middle of brutal finals right before graduation, and working full-time), my mom, and I took shifts through the night holding Hayden, bouncing on the exercise ball (his one solace.) He was jaundiced, had reflux, and couldn’t nurse.

I was distraught: “What the crap have we done?!  Who was I to think I could hack it as a mother?!”  I pictured moms nestling their babies to their breasts, feeding and bonding…but that was nothing like my reality.  Soon, I switched to pumping and bottle-feeding full time. Finally he was full, though he continued to scream from the reflux.

I was panicky, on-edge, and tired to my bones. Every waking (and sleeping) minute was commanded by this tiny, hollering tyrant.  I wanted to reason with him, “Give me a break, child! I’m new at this, and I’m trying my best!” I didn’t know how to help my baby and that was killing me.

In short, life was ROUGH.

It wasn’t just the worry that made this time so emotionally crappy. After giving birth, your out-of-whack hormones make you a crazy person. Plus, lack of sleep makes you stupid-tired and extremely emotional. My baby’s cries sounded in my ears, “You’re no good at this” and “You can’t even make your own baby happy.”

It didn’t help that I was always in the house. I was no longer walking at the gym and it was too windy and cold (darn Idaho) to go walking outside; I sorely missed those “working out” endorphins. Also, I was no longer teaching junior high and high school art. I missed interacting with students and teachers, along with the accomplishment and recognition my job brought me. I went from feeling successful, to feeling like a big-time failure of a momma. And I was lonely. My husband supported me and adored Hayden but he was gone many days and evenings, busy managing a restaurant.

Worst of all, heavy guilt hung over me, for not “loving every minute”. I’d catch myself thinking, “This sucks.” (Like when my baby woke for the 14th time in one night.) I hated feeling resentful, especially since I knew couples who longed for a child. Then I’d hear moms say, “My baby is growing up too fast!”  And I’d think, “In 5 more months he’ll be half a year old. I’ll survive till then.”  Then that familiar guilt would wash over me for wishing this time away. I was too ashamed to admit my feelings to anyone, causing myself more isolation.

The beautiful moments revived me: holding my sleeping baby on my chest and seeing his first smile. Also, prayer was my lifeline; it brought me strength and peace.  I figured God gave us this child , so I expected His help in raising him!

Through everything my husband, family, and friends loved and supported me.

My saintly mom and amazing mother-in-law each stayed a week with me after Hayden’s birth.

My awesome momma friends commiserated with me, offered encouragement, and told me their own heart-wrenching, hilarious new-momma tales. These stories were like gold; they meant that I wasn’t the only one who sucked at this! Haha!  They shared practical advice and gave me hope: “See?” I thought,  “They’re normal!  I won’t be a zombie forever.”

I also loved visits from my friends who weren’t moms…they gushed about the cuteness of my son, (how could I help but love that?) we reminisced about old times, and laughed our bums off!  It was so good to know that the old me was still there, somewhere under the spit-up covered sweats and baggy belly.  I could still be funny!  People liked me!

Everything steadily improved, including Hayden’s reflux and night wakings.  Life didn’t end after having a baby– though for the first couple months, it SURE felt that way. After I found my momma groove—and Hayden stopped screaming—life became fun again!  We laugh constantly at our silly son.  He waves to everyone, loves reading books, and dancing.  Oh, and he sleeps 12 hours straight every night…(insert happy dance)  Now, besides caring for my baby, I teach art lessons, I facebook friends, I blog  as my social/creative outlet, I have new mom friends, and go walking every day.   We are happy!

And yes, every baby/child stage has its crappy parts—we still have rough moments (sometimes entire days)—but when my son beams his adorable two-teeffer smile at me, my heart is so full I wonder why it doesn’t burst.

New momma, you and your baby will make it!  Do your best, and don’t guilt yourself—your best is enough!

Amy is the creator of Swag On, Momma! — a blog to support new moms and to share their experiences. She lives in Idaho with her husband and son.

Don’t forget to attend the first HerStories Project Twitter party tonight, June 17 at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Follow us on Twitter @herstoriestales, and use the hashtag #herstoriesproject. Check out our invite for more details!

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A Guide to New Motherhood — as an Introvert

“Quiet” and rare new mom moment

I’ve heard people say before that books have changed their lives — and reading has always been crucial to my daily life — but I was surprised when as a new parent, it was a non-parenting book that changed my personal experience the most.

Recently Stephanie told us about the book MotherStyles: Using Personality Type to Discover Your Parenting Strengths by Janet Penley. This book draws on the Myers-Briggs system of personality type classification to describe 16 distinct mothering approaches. It’s a great read and full of practical advice to help you understand yourself and improve your parenting.

The book that changed my life was Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. If you know you’re an introvert, there’s a good chance that you’ve already read it. Using research and stories of real people’s lives, she explores the unique qualities of introverts and what we lose as a culture when we don’t value their contributions. Susan Cain, through a couple years of popular media saturation, has made being an introvert hip and cool. (If you haven’t seen her TED talk, it’s terrific.)

Do you the following statements describe you? (Here’s also a great quiz from Susan Cain’s website.) Then there’s a good chance that you’re an introvert too!
- Do you crave less noise, less stimulation during most of your day?
- Do you much prefer having a glass of wine with a friend than mingling in a large party of strangers?
- Do you prefer to express yourself in writing?
- Do you often feel drained after a lot of social interaction, even if you’ve had a good time?
- Do you dislike small talk and prefer to have in-depth, one-on-one conversations about topics that are important to you?
- Do you do your best work on your own, rather than in a group?
Once I read the book, for the first time in my life I was proud to be an introvert. I wasn’t shy, there wasn’t something wrong with me. For the first time, I realized that I had personality traits that others may lack that were truly strengths. Being inward-directed, being best at focused, solitary work, these were not shameful, second-rate personality traits that should ideally be “fixed.” I could be proud to be “quiet” in a loud world.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts – By Susan Cain (Photo credit: mhdbadi)

Despite all this powerful self-realization, there was one problem: this did not help me at all in my daily life right this second. I was a stay at home mom to a loud, active, demanding, and intense toddler. He was — and continues to be — a force of nature. He’s a smart, curious, fun, and adorable little guy. But — like most toddlers — rest and quiet are not part of his vocabulary. Why walk or sit when you can climb, run, or charge? Why talk when you can scream, cry, or wail?

At the end of the day I can be emotionally and physically depleted. I’m simply done. I am often exhausted by the pace of my son’s constant chatter and need for constant verbal and physical engagement. I need to be alone — sometimes for hours — to recharge my emotional batteries. And then I’m back to normal self.

Millions of us are introverts. Millions of us are parents. So what do you do when the most important parts of parenting drain you more than most people?

1. First of all, ditch the guilt and stop viewing your introversion as a parenting liability. It doesn’t make you a bad parent to prefer quiet and calm, if a full schedule of daily activities leaves you drained. You need to schedule time for solitude and quiet the same way that you plan time for sleep, meals, and bathing. It’s not a luxury and it’s not a waste of time. Trust me: if you are an introvert, you will be a better parent if you have that time for yourself. And if that means sacrificing your standards for housekeeping, so be it. And it may mean your spouse may need to pick up more of the load.

2. Find ways for your child to release their physical energy and get outside stimulation that are outside the home. I enrolled my son in preschool, and he runs, chases, gets the stimulation of dozens of other kids, attends dance and music classes there. Look for classes and playgroups in which other adults are in charge.

3. Make sure that your spouse or partner understands that you are an introvert and what that means, particularly if he or she is clearly an extrovert. Explain that you’re not being selfish when you need time alone.

4. When you do have parts of your day — errands or your commute — that involve alone time, find activities that allow you to recharge. For instance, instead of exercising in a loud, crowded health club, consider going for a solitary walk or run. Find soothing music to listen to when you’re in the car.

5. Teach your child as much independence as appropriate for his age. Kids are not better off if they have an adult entertaining them every second of the day. If you are cooking dinner for 15 minutes, try to encourage your child to occupy himself for a while. Explain to your child, as soon as they can understand, that adults need a few minutes to themselves every once in a while. Self-reliance is a muscle that can be developed and strengthened as a child gets older.

Most of all, what has made the biggest difference for me is to realize that I am not selfish. Again, if you are an introvert, repeat after me: You are not selfish if you need alone time as a parent. Taking care of yourself makes you a better parent. Honor your own personality style and your family will be more likely to be happy and thrive.

If you are an introvert, or your spouse is one, what are some coping strategies that you use in your family?

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Jessica Smock

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