This may be long-winded, but it's my wind, so listen up. Summer is tricky. This is my first summer since I've graduated and thus a working mom. After all the inner turmoil surrounding which path to take in my career and where the children will spend their summer.....This is where we ended up? Starting in January I worked 20hours a week. I helped see them off to school in the morning and I was available all afternoon minus the occasional meeting. This was great except I really didn't like that job and then summer approached. So I had decisions to make. First I had to decide whether or not to send the kids to summer day care or keep them home with me. Then I had to decide if I was going to change jobs to stay home in the summer or increase my hours in order to afford the price of summer day care. I decided to change jobs to accomodate summers off with my children, which means no summer daycare. I'm happy with my choice, but why are my kids begging to go to daycare??
Now it is July and both kids are still asking me pretty regularly when they are going to go to school. Ben asks me all the time if he can go to camp or daycare at the Y. Neither one realizes that this is a precious gift: summer vacation! You don't HAVE to go to school. You GET TO stay home with me, your loving and dedicated mother, at your beck and call (okay that's an exaggeration). Today after my patience was pushed for the millionth time by them begging to go to ymca day camp, I had to ask myself, "Would they be better off in day care, while I work?" I made the decision to arrange employment that would keep me happy in my slow but steady career in early intervention to accomodate being a part of their young and impressionable years, but is that what THEY want?
This is a stressor to me because I'm straddling the line between being a full-time working mom and a stay-at-home mom. I'm neither. I'm both. I'm whatever. When I pick my kids up from afterschool, they cry to stay.
I just have to keep telling myself that it is only because they are so secure in their love and attachment to me that they feel comfortable seeking the escape of a daycare .And it must be a testament of the quality of child care arrangments that I have chosen for the children, that they have such positive associations, that they are so eager to get back to them. If I did choose to pursue a job that required them to be in childcare from morning to evening, they'd be crying everyday to stay home, and so would I, and no one would be happy.
When I think of spending the summer home with my kids, I think of relaxing mornings where noone gets out of pj's until at least 9:00am, while watching cartoons and slowly sipping coffee (for me) and gogurt and fruity cheerios (for them). Escaping the micromanaged day with our schedules filled to the brim. I imagine planning a small outing each day such as the grociery store, library, movies, YMCA, park--whatever--and a lot of time in the backyard, plus a babysitter once a week and a weekly visit to "Bellew-boy disneyland" aka Bob and she she's house. This is what we are doing and I thought we were having fun. But my children are witnessing the others who "get to" go to school, swim at the Y pool, play with their friends all day, all without them. Ben and Thomas don't know it yet, but when school starts again in hmmm...about 3 weeks, we'll have that life again, karate, soccer, maybe swim lessons again, school of course, afterschool care a couple of days a week at least while I work, playdates with friends in the afternoon, and homework. No more naps, no more movies on fast play that repeat themselves all afternoon while they sword fight with coat hangers. No more swimming in the kiddie pool in the backyard. They don't realize it now, but they're getting so much more than what a child care could give them--8 weeks of summer with rest and relaxation! They're only bummed because they're not constantly surrounded by chidlren their own age all day. They'll get it back and maybe they'll remember for next summer to not WHINE about goign back to school!
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