Last month, I went to therapy for the first time.
I’ve been struggling with my mental health for a while, but it took turning 30, facing one of my biggest issues (I’m a skin picker when stressed), and wanting to be the best version of myself as I step into this new phase of life, to actually take the leap to go see a professional.
If you’ve never been to therapy, it starts kind of awkwardly. How exactly do you sum up an entire lifetime, a lifetime that has brought you to this couch, in this position, to be in a place where you feel compelled to pay a stranger to talk to you?
Well, you kind of just go for it.
Feeling like the world’s biggest cliché, I sat on the therapist’s couch, tissue in hand, and spilled out my life to her —I have four kids under 8, I work full-time from home, no, I don’t have regular childcare, yes, I realize that’s insane, no, I don’t have a house cleaner, yes, I do most of the at-home work, yes, I feel like my life is spiraling out of control.
I’m sure therapists are masters of the poker face, but as I rattled off my life, mine just sat there and stared at me silently, one eyebrow cocked a little. But without her having to come out and say it, in hearing my own words, I realized how ridiculous I sounded.
It was like she was basically saying, “Are you hearing yourself right now?! Do you really need to pay me to tell you why you are stressed?”
In ever-so-polite words, the therapist cut right to the chase: I’m too stressed, and I’m choosing negative coping mechanisms to deal with the stress. To make it better, reduce the stress.
Her suggestion? Cut back on work a little bit and be more intentional with my kids. Instead of working all the time and checking my phone while I’m “playing” with them, just be with them. Instead of getting up early to work before they wake up, catch up on sleep, cut back on my hours, and see if any of it makes a difference.
So I tried it. Despite spending six years building up a career that I love and can do from home, I tried it. I was desperate for a change in my life, and apparently, this was the way to do it. I cut back on work and took time to do some crazy stuff like do my hair in the morning, cook dinner, and just chill on the floor with my kids.
And I discovered that Houston, we have a problem.
Because what I discovered is that cutting back on my own work hours did have a pretty big impact. My family runs much more smoothly when I’m not working. I’m not rushing around as much, the laundry gets done, dinner is usually ready for my husband, the floors are picked up, everything is neat and tidy at the end of the day, and the kids seem to behave a little better as well. In fact, I would dare say that everyone is happier when I’m not working as much.
Everyone, that is, except me.
To my surprise, I found out that I like working a lot. I honestly enjoy my job, even more so than I enjoy the full-time tasks of being an at-home parent.
Although it may be physically easier to get some of the tasks of everyday life done if I cut back on my work more, it didn’t necessarily help with my stress levels because I didn’t feel as fulfilled. Instead of sitting and enjoying my kids, I was thinking of how I would rather be doing research for an article or emailing that one source or sitting at my computer with a hot cup of coffee.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids. But I discovered that I am a working mom at heart, trapped in a stay-at-home mom’s life.
I would never, ever tell a working mother that she should stay home. That’s crazy talk. Everyone’s life is different; everyone’s situation is different. But for some reason, I can’t seem to grant myself the same courtesy. Our family works the way it does because I stay home with our children. Full-time childcare is not an option for us, and thus, it seems I am placed in a rather impossible situation.
I am sharing this, not to indulge in some kind of woe-is-me-in-my-first-world-privileged sob fest, but because I am certain that I am not the only mother or parent who feels this way.
So many times we frame working or staying home like they are a “choice” for parents, but sometimes, it’s not about a choice. Some of us work or stay home because there is no other choice, even when we feel like we would rather be doing something else.
Maybe we’re hurting ourselves by placing so much of an emphasis on the “choice” of staying home or working or placing the burden of this elusive work-life balance solely on a mother’s shoulders.
Who said work was a bad thing in the first place, anyways? Why do we assume that working less will be the answer to less stress in a mother’s life? Maybe some moms don’t want to spend 24/7 with their kids?
I don’t know what the answer is, and that’s where I’m at right now. So if you’re a mom who feels stuck in an impossible situation, if you’re a mom who honest-to-goodness feels it’s best to be home, even when you’d rather be working, if you’re a mom who has no choice, or if you’re a mom who is just trying to make it through, let me say, I’m right there with you. At home, surrounded by LEGO I don’t know what to do with, clutching my coffee like the lifeline it is, and no longer apologizing for sneaking a few peeks at my email here and there.
Because a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.