Hey Part-Timer!

When I worked in The Firm From Hell, the guys would call one of the women that worked there "Part-Timer".  She did work part-time, after all.  She had two school aged children and she worked Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and she sometimes left early for certain events or if one of the kids was sick.  I laughed along with the rest when she would stand at the time clock at two minutes to five, card in hand, and be out the door precisely at five o’clock on the dot.

When I started working for my current boss (hereinafter, "B"), I didn’t have children.  I wasn’t even certain that I was ready to have children on the day that I accepted employment.  I worked full time and I stayed late when necessary, to work on a particularly complicated case or to prepare for an upcoming trial.  I was still contemplating going back to school and, though I was no longer passionate about the idea, I was a hard worker, ambitious and anxious for more.

But soon after, the switch flipped.  I’ve mentioned before that one day I was a child-germ-a-phobe.  I didn’t know how to speak kid, I hadn’t been introduced to muffin-top yet and I enjoyed life as one half of a childless couple.  And then, the next day my body teemed with child fever. Just like that.

In the beginning, it was an A and B conversation.  Only the two of us knew what the plan was and that’s how we liked it.  But, as the months went by, we were forced to introduce C and D and L and Q into the conversation and it became a veritable collaboration of people involved in our baby-making process.  And, as such, I was required to skip more and more days at work.  When it became obvious that we were jumping from one plan to The Plan, I knew that I couldn’t cover up my absences with excuses like veterinarian appointments and the ever growing litany of auto ailments.  I had to tell B why I would need so much time off over the next month.  I admit that I was apprehensive about it because this is a woman who had stellar universities and extensive tours of duty with the Army and other government agencies under her belt.  She was a no-nonsense kind of woman who worked eleventy million hours a week and saw her children only when they would visit her at the office.  But she couldn’t have been more kind and understanding.  She had been there, she knew what I was was going through and she empathized with me.

Months later, when I was six months heavy and went into pre-term labor, she urged me not to worry about the office or my duties.  And, when I called her, with a baby in each arm, I stumbled over words and made absolutely no sense at all when I attempted to ask her if she would agree to me working part-time when I returned to work.  I say attempted because the minute I sensed hesitation in her voice, I faltered and told her I might be able to work something out with regard to child care.  Days later, I cowardly left a voicemail that it looked like I would not be able to come back full time.  Oh, and by the way, I’m taking another month of maternity leave.  Thanks.  Bye.

It goes without saying that everything changed when I had the girls.  My life was always full and had purpose and meaning Before The Beans, but now, it was different.  It was more.  It was indescribable and I discovered that I was born to be a mother.  Or, more specifically, to be their mother. 

Last weekend my dad was, to quote my mother, "the sickest [I’ve] ever seen him in thirty-five years,".  We were at the Shelby Township Art Fair when my sister called me to tell me that my mom was trying to get a hold of me and they were headed for the emergency room.  I yanked the girls away from the face-painting table and called my mom.  She sounded confused, nervous.  She said that she would call me from the hospital and asked that I come as soon as she called.  It’s a call that, as the years go by and I begin to see the age in my eyes and theirs, I had been preparing for.  Or, at least, preparing to prepare for.  They are only fifty-seven years young and they look and act even younger, but neither are completely healthy.  My mother, tiny and frail, suffers from diabetes.  My father, just opposite, smokes and loves his food and drink as much as the next person.  So, when the call came, I went.  There wasn’t a doubt.  J stayed back with the girls and only had to call me once to lay down the law via speaker phone.

I was gone for four days.  He was in the hospital for four days.  Of those four days, I had previously scheduled two off work in order to take the girls to see The Wiggles and to go to a couple of doctor’s appointments.  It doesn’t matter really, those were my days.  They were scheduled.  The other two days were not.  I emailed B from the emergency room at around 8:00 p.m. Sunday night, to give her a head’s up and to let her know that I wouldn’t be in on Monday.  I left the hospital at around midnight.  I didn’t return to work until Friday.  Without anyone to watch the girls while my mom was by my dad’s bedside, I really had no choice, aside from dragging the girls to the office, plopping them in chairs and shutting my office door to contain them and their squeals.  Oh wait.  I could have had my mom park them in the hospital lounge. 

Or, as B told someone (who told me), I could have found a back up.  Spite and disappointment might have me misquoting her.  Or it might not.  Nevertheless, you get the picture.

When I flew into a rage after hearing what was said, that someone told me I needed to just let it go.  But I can’t.  Two days later, I’m still fuming.  As a mother, a working mother, I expected more from B.  I hoped that I’d be on the fringes of the SAHM/WOHM debate by (barely) juggling my part-time career with my full-time family.  I can’t imagine how I could survive as a SAHM, and at the same time, I know I could never keep it together at the pace of a full-time working woman.  I am lucky that I have two mothers that so willingly sacrifice their free time to care for their grandchildren.  And even luckier to have an employer that is amenable to my ala carte schedule.  But, I think I only have this luxury because I started out as that ambitious, career-minded full-timer.  Had I interviewed as the mother of twin toddlers, slightly frazzled, almost put-together, requesting early hours and warning that it would be me and not J that would stay home with the children and take them to appointments, B would have graciously passed.  I would have been punished for putting my family before my career.