Tag Archives: parenting

The Roads You Didn’t Take

There’s a part of me that still believes I have a big career in me. I could return to school for an executive MBA and find my voice and confidence to move up quickly on a high-potential path from junior executive to C-suite.

With my astute decision making leading to unprecedented revenue growth I’d no longer have to apply to jobs — jobs would apply to me. And 10 years later I’d look back at the last decade not as a smorgasbord of fake-it-till-you-make-it and no substantial work meriting pride but a full narrative around doing a whole bunch of great things. Maybe I’d be in one of those lists… despite no longer being young enough to make it into a 40 under 40. Perhaps a 50 under 50 but over 40. A 6 shy of 60. The one to watch. The one whose career is worth at least a couple of articles in respected trade publications.

Or – I quit the workforce entirely to write full time. A novel. A memoir. A TV series. A film or play or interactive art piece titled “pretentious” because it obviously is.  I create a storyline and cast and direct and edit something that goes on the internet and goes viral. Because everyone goes viral these days so why not me? I do something unique enough to capture some audience that wants more.

Or… I hand in my resignation and live off savings, moving to some town no one has heard of to live a life that won’t ever be heard of either. As a mom. Driving my kids to practices and classes and field trips. Volunteering at the school because there’s so much free time and I ought to use it doing something useful. 10 years of that.

Or none of these, more likely, just a schmuck doing some job half-ass not because I want to but because that’s all I’m genuinely capable of. Working for sociopathic leaders who at best are fake kind when you serve their visions well and at worst make you feel like shit until you land in a mental institution or die, whichever comes first.

There are so many roads and yet most of them seem so far away. Their starting point is a huge death defying leap across a chasm of diamond-tipped spikes just waiting to gut me alive. So I stay safely on the other side despite this wall behind me speeding up from a distance, clearly ready to nudge me off the ledge with no more space for a respectable momentum-building leap. So I wait until I fall violently to the end or I run and jump and try to make it across with my legs swirling at full speed in the air, like some long jumper who actually knows what the hell she’s doing — or perhaps not as gracefully but somehow I make it across, ready to take on the other side.

I don’t know and I’ll never know which is why I seem to just be waiting to be pushed off. Most people are here with me. Who says the other side is any better?

Can’t Sleep When Things Are Going Well and Caving In

$2.5M. I guess that is our current net worth, give or take, if you don’t count taxes or fees on sale of our house. I usually do but tonight I felt like giving myself a little fiscal pep talk so I threw together another spreadsheet (when I should be sleeping) which has us over the $2.5M mark. Even though that’s not real because if we sold our home and sold all our stock holdings taxes would make that a lot less. 

Still, the fact that in some not completely bullshit calculation we are at $2.5M is a significant milestone.

My husband and I picked one of those impossible net worth numbers we have/had to hit in order to consider a third child. $2.5M! That’s not going to happen, right?

Well… depends who is counting. But tonight, I’m counting it.

I’m not going to have a baby tomorrow. But given the savings goals been hit for each child ($500k, $1M, and $2.5M… if baby 3 is a possibility we’re at least at goal.) So that’s nice. None of the money feels real. And I know because I’m still rather heavy in tech stocks I’m going to regret that and it will come crashing down. I’m probably 30% in higher-risk stuff but I’m bored and antsy and FOMOing my life away so here I am holding way too. much FAANG and laughing about it until I’m crying about it. Oh well. When the game is squarely rigged against us — go big or go home? Or, stop taking risks because I’m almost old now? Probably that.

Money is a funny thing. $2.5M is a lot of money. No argument there. Yet I’m perusing the tuition rates for these fancy private schools for gifted kids and my jaw is dropping to the floor smack bang and flipping right back up into a cartoon spiral in reading that school for one kid for ONE year costs $35k or even $50k+. I mean. I don’t care how gifted your kid is. If your kids is that gifted give your kid $35k and have them build a business. Or a spaceship. Or a TikTok empire. I mean, if you are making $1M a year consistently forever then maybe $35k is a drop in the bucket but my bucket, rich as it may be, is snapping its lid on any thought of sending my son(s) to any sort of fancy private school.

I do wonder with my son… I have no idea if he’s gifted or just advanced or even how being also autistic and behind in some areas will make him who he is over the long run. I’m worried for him. Mostly in what happens when he starts to realize he doesn’t fit into the world around him. Right now he doesn’t care. At all. But I think as he matures he’ll realize that he’s different. I certainly know that feeling. My husband blossomed as the alien he is with a small group of smart-as-fuck weirdo friends. Well, maybe blossomed is the wrong word… but he survived and seemed to have fun along the way. I didn’t fare quite as well in my childhood and especially adolescent and early adult years.

And I wonder how much of what we’re capable of is based on the environment we’re put in and what we’re told we’re capable of and how we’re treated when we fail. It’s fucking strange to me to think some kids are shipped off to “gifted” programs where they walk around thinking they’re better than everyone else just because they can recognize patterns and a holographic memory (not a thing I made it up but I’ve decided it’s a thing.) I had some equally fucked up concept of my own intellect as a child based on my father’s commentary of both my smarts and my failure to live up to potential because I was clearly lazy and not trying hard enough when no no no I just couldn’t think straight and the anxiety took over very young when from an early age I felt like I was a misfit and was sad about bothering everyone while also longing so desperately to fit in and connect… but who was there to connect with? It’s not exactly all that different now.

So my son is clearly different and I want to support him while also letting him figure things out on his own. I always thought I’d be the mom who cheers my son on when he takes risks and fails but already I feel like I’m failing him on the failure support despite trying. He is already so anxious, so aware, so thoughtful in a mind that doesn’t yet understand the world or what is really going on. But he’s starting to. And I can tell as the world starts to make sense it becomes more and more scary. After a solid block of sleeping alone in his room in his bed he has been venturing out to sleep in our bed. And it’s sweet to cuddle and all but I can tell that his mind is spinning and processing all of it.

I haven’t told him my father is dead and he doesn’t know what death is yet but he certainly understands that my dad is missing out there somewhere. I don’t know what he thinks of him in his head. I worry for when my husband and my living parent’s pass away. I didn’t have to deal with grandparent death as a child except my mom’s father died when I was 8 and I guess he was always old and distant and it didn’t phase me much though I was a little sad at the thought of not knowing him well. And my great grandmother who was so old in her wheelchair through my young years – I don’t remember her dying but I remember her at some point being gone…

But because we are older parents and the ages are getting further and further apart between birth and the next birth there’s more death early on and it’s just something that is but it’s so terrible to have to experience it and to have to experience it with young kids. How on earth will I ever explain to my son when his best friend, who happens to be 78, no longer will be available to play with him ever again? My husband will be distraught and likely forever disabled emotionally by the loss of either of his parents. There are plenty of books on the subject but that doesn’t make it any easier.

And then there’s my own mortality. How did I get here? Well, covid. And my fear of getting a booster shot after the first 2 Pfizer shots seriously messed me up. I don’t know what was worse — how bad the shots messed with my body or how little doctors believed me (or how the doctors who did believe me said there was nothing they could do!) You start wondering if you’re crazy and just stuck in a placebo effect anti-panacea. Maybe your eye didn’t go blind and come back with dark floaters. Maybe you didn’t have the most intense headache like a monster clenching on your scalp and squeezing you to a pulp then stabbing you with ice picks for weeks. Maybe your hear didn’t shake like a motor and turn on and off when you were lying still at night. Maybe you haven’t had a series of experiences where your left arm and lip goes numb and you feel as if you’re possibly dying or stroking out or something.

But then you know all of that is real and you’re terrified of getting a booster shot when your body seems to be finally almost back to normal. The floaters have almost faded. You can go outside in sunlight and not cry because of your vision.

At the same time you know if you don’t get a shot you very well might die. You’re not being a hypochondriac or overdramatic. It’s just fact. You’re overweight now and that’s super high risk plus your depression is also a risk factor and you’re the blood type that seems to get hid hardest and now you’re over six months out from your last shot. Covid is an assassin out there looking for you and you can run by you can’t hide. So. I should get the shot. But then…  I don’t know. Months of feeling horrible again. Will I recover faster this time, or slower? What if I lose my vision entirely? Unlikely, but after my experience I don’t know what to think is possible anymore. And I’m so not an anti-vaxxer. I got my flu shot and I get it every year. I’ve had every shot in the book. But this really took me out. I’m scared. Of getting the shot and not getting the shot.

Meanwhile… life is being life. There’s been sickness in my house recently, a whole lot of it, but not covid. While my 3 year old seems invincible and has never had a fever (he was coughing a bit this week) my almost 1 year old was taken out by a fever up to 103.7. Poor kiddo. He’s still getting better. Slowly. And I’m trying to do my job that I’m so behind on. I managed to fight a billion fires today (a number of my own ADHD making) and I think there’s a chance I’ve caught up if I really put my head down and push through the next 3 months with tight project management kung fu fighting pow pow pow exhibitions.

But then…

My house is a mess.

My 3 year old son who is reading and memorizing the periodic table and yelling bloody murder at me if I count out of order ever and grabbing his ears should any unpleasant sound roll in or by needs support and therapies and doctors appointments and playdates and experiences and for me to be there and I’m not, I’m not there enough because even when I’m not working I’m so fucking tired or I am working because I can’t focus during the day and well it’s 2:30 now and hey I’m awake writing writing all the thoughts in my head then maybe I can sleep I guess possibly I don’ know. I want to be there for him. I want to sign him up for a thing or two but everything is expensive and yea I “have the money” but do I? I don’t know. If only I could be one of those people who just knew I’d always have a job — outside of mass layoffs — who had skills that were just employable like being a programmer or something but no I’m not that my skillset is pretty much straight up bullshit and while it’s not my first rodeo I’m still being thrown into a pit of mud and spiked in front of a crowd feigning concern. So.

And my younger son. What a personality. What a personality who needs attention and care and love and support. He is so focused and driven and will NOT GIVE UP if he puts his mind to something. I admire that in him though it makes it hard to hide anything from him because he remembers where you put it and he keeps trying to get it. We’re going to be in big trouble when he learns how to climb… he’s already starting to figure it out. I can’t believe he’s already almost 18 months (well , in 7 months) which is the beginning of when covid started with my first son and when I had the time to retreat from the world and go for walks with him that were first him sleeping while I pushed and later on more social walks for us as he counted all the numbers on the houses and shouted out letters as we walked by at 2.5.

Life goes really fucking fast. I mean they tell you it does. But you don’t know what that means until you’re in the thick of it. Here I am. Wading in quicksand and staring dewy-eyed at the sun, blinking to bat off the razor-blades of time.

And my mother needs to sell her house, hoarder house, but that’s another story. Or is it. Well it’s all my story. But who cares. I went out there and tried to help and apparently made more of a mess so she can’t handle it and she’s spending a fortune getting it cleaned up even though I got rid of so much she’s probably still saving money in the end. I can’t believe my mother is 68. Even though we have a bit of a jagged relationship I still don’t know how I can be in this world without her. Many of my friends wonder why I still talk to her. But I see her somewhat as my child as well. Not that I’m the best mother to her either. Mother to my mother. But I love her like a child, not like a mother, if that makes any sense. And if/when she dies it will likely feel like losing a child, and I’m worried about that pain, I’m worried I can’t handle more loss despite knowing loss is a gift of life because it means I’ve managed to keep on living. I’m scared of it all. I wish I could go back to the days when I knew nothing about the inevitable. I look at my sons and envy them and pity them. They can’t be kept in the dark forever. Especially with how fucked up the world is. Speaking of dark, things can get dark even faster. So much horrible things out there. I want to hide them from all of it. But they also need to know. I feel guilty for having kids sometimes. Even though grateful. Like what did I bring these innocent creatures into? Maybe they can do great things but — that’s if they survive it all. And then they still die in the end so that makes me feel pretty sick to be honest. Even if in the best case I’ll be long gone when that happens and they’ll have lived long lives and maybe had children of their own I still feel nauseous thinking about it. So I ought to stop because going down that rabbit hole is never a pretty one.

Anyway. It’s 2:39 and I need to sleep. I was probably going to write more things like about my new virtual therapist who is 83 who told me he can tell I’m highly intelligent and that I ought to be a professor and a columnist he named some columnist I reminded him of and I was supposed to know the reference but I didn’t because I don’t know much of anything but I’ll take the compliment with me to my grave or at least my mattress for now.

My Son Was Diagnosed with Autism – What’s Next?

My husband and I, both with our inability to make eye contact or socialize in a “normal” way, always thought that our children could be autistic. Our families may not be diagnosed (beyond my ADD), but between us and our parents it’s clear there’s something genetic going on in our family on both sides.

When my first son was born, he was always a bit different. I didn’t really know how different until I had my second son who at 10 months seems “neurotypical.” While it’s too early to tell with son 2, he does all the things naturally that they say a baby should do at certain ages, whereas I always had to look at my first son for a while and ask “does he do that?”

For example, my first kid was never interested in others in the room. He would always be a bit in his own world. If there was a loud noise he might turn to look in that direction for a moment, but usually he just kept staring at whatever he was staring at. He never gave much eye contact and certainly didn’t cry when his caregivers left the room. My youngest will turn to look you in the eye when you call his name and is always looking for mom. It’s just night and day between their behaviors.

Of course all kids are different so I didn’t think much of it. But between my oldest son’s heightened sensitivity to sound, his unique obsession with numbers and letters, his ridiculously good memory for a 3 year old (he has memorized all 50 capitals and is on to the country capitals, and is reading many words by sounding them out), his lack of eye contact, his outbursts, seemingly “behind” communication skills with pronoun reversal and other challenges to communicate, I thought it was worth asking my doctor if she thought we should get him screened for autism.

If COVID wasn’t a thing maybe this would have happened sooner, but his 2 year checkup was a quick in and out where the doctor didn’t really want to spend much time with any one patient. We got a new doctor and at the three year checkup she agreed he should be screened. She was kind enough to let us skip the form we were supposed to mail in and wait months to get a call to schedule the assessment and give us the immediate referral.

A month later we. had the assessment. It was all done remote but I think I trust it as the behavioral analyst who conducted the assessment (under a psychologist who joined for the observation part of the evaluation) seemed to know what she was talking about. She asked us a zillion questions and we answered them as honestly as possible. Then she observed my son play for 30 minutes by giving me instructions over headphones so he didn’t know he was being tested. She had me do things like call his name (to see if he looked at me when I did and made eye contact – he did not), point at things on the wall to see if he would turn to look at where I was pointing (he did not, he sometimes looked at my hand by never the direction I was pointing), and a bunch of other tasks like that to confirm that he was not doing the “normal” things a kid would do a this age.

After the observation, 40 minutes later, she got back on the call and told us that he has “Autism I.” There are now 3 levels of Autism and I is the most mild. Nonetheless, it opens up a world of special services and IEPs and decisions and more decisions on what to do to help him.

While I was clearly not surprised by the diagnosis, I do feel a bit overwhelmed by what’s next. I didn’t realize that autistic children can get 20+ hours a week of therapy in their homes! The type of therapy is called ABA and from what I’ve read about it, the therapy sounds pretty awful. A lot of autistic adults say it has traumatized them and I don’t think we want to pursue that route, especially given his case is mild, though I’m learning as much about it as to make the most informed decision. There is an option for 3 hours a week of parent-led ABA in home which would be done via telehealth so we’re considering that. But I think at the end of the day the question is do we think being autistic is something bad that needs to be changed or do we want to help him embrace this personality and not try to change him (but still give him support for specific areas where he can use therapy like speech and OT/PT.)

I’m leaning towards the later. Speech therapy and OT/PT could be helpful for him. I don’t know yet if I’ll be shamed by the doctor for not doing ABA or if they’re open to parent choice. The referral hasn’t even made it back to the doctor yet, so at this point we’re waiting. I’ve read too much in 48 hours online about what to do now, and it sounds like I should contact the school district for a separate evaluation to see if he qualifies for services in the district. He’s quite happy at his co-op, play-based preschool right now, so I really don’t want to to take him out of it.

Everyone says to me “oh but he’s so smart” and I have to remind them that there are a lot of kids who are smart but also have disabilities and without the right support those disabilities can prevent them from achieving what they’re capable of. At this point in my life I’m not even sure that matters so much as just making sure my son can live a happy life and support himself one day. I know what it’s like to struggle with being neurodiverse without the tools to properly handle this as an adult and it’s not fun. So I want to support him but also not make him feel like anything about him is wrong or broken or needs to be changed. I think it’s very important for him to learn and know he is fine the way he is. And everyone can work to improve themselves no matter how their mind works.

It all sounds good in theory, but how the hell do I I manage this working full time and also raising another kid? My mom was a stay at home mother and managed my sister’s challenging journey with the school system (eventually putting her in private school because in third grade she still couldn’t read) and she spent hours upon countless hours figuring out what to do, getting a lawyer to write letters to the school, doing all sorts of things that didn’t work all that well anyway. Who has time for that these days? My friend is currently navigating her school system with an advocate and she has a much more flexible job as a small business owner so she is able to invest time into that. I’m already overwhelmed thinking about how I will schedule and coordinate a small amount of therapy for my son even if we just do weekly speech and OT and PT — plus ensuring my father-in-law, his primary caregiver during the week, does all the things therapy tells us to do.

Can’t my husband do all that? Maybe. He seems somewhat onboard. He knows our son’s behavior is getting challenging. It was good for him to hear the diagnosis I think so we can be on the same page. We can work together to help him and agree that our ASD kid does have some challenges but we can get through them as we are now part of this massive community of parents with ASD kids.

I do wonder, like all parents wonder, if I did anything to cause this. They say kids born with fertility drugs are 2x more likely to have autism. No one knows why. Well, my first son was conceived with drugs to help me ovulate and my second son was conceived without any drugs. My first son also had a longer birth and had breathing issues at birth while my second son had minor breathing issues at birth but never had a lower oxygen level. Did any of these things cause my first born to have autism? How about the fact that I was so tired trying to keep my job and be pregnant that I had a bit too much Coke Zero during the pregnancy? Will they figure out that Coke Zero is causing autism? With my second son I stuck to iced tea. Did my behavior cause his autism?

And even if it did — I know so many successful and smart autistic people, I’m not sure if this is a “bad thing” at all. It just means he is different. And what child of mine would grow up not being different? Different is ok. Different is good. Being normal is boring.

But I do want him to be happy. I worry that he will be picked on in school. So far in pre-school the kids are nice (or just ignore him.) I know there are challenges ahead. Do I have the time to be the mom I want to be to support my children?

 

 

Two Roads To Nowhere and Everywhere: Stay at Home Mom vs Working Mom

I’m sure people reading my blog think I’m crazy with now over $2M in net worth not feeling comfortable leaving work for a while… a few months… a year or two… to spend with my young children. Maybe I am crazy. I’ll tell you what I feel. I feel no different than I did five years ago when my net worth was $500k or 10 years ago when it was $150k.

I am struggling with the concept of time and the time of time. 10 years passes in a blink and yet was it all that fast? I don’t know. 10 years ago with $150k net worth I was just starting my first job in this series of jobs after another series of jobs. I was making $100k. At the time that was such a huge salary I thought I would never earn more. Who would pay me more than $100k for anything?

10 years ago I was 27 going on 28. Approaching my 30s. A far different mindset than approaching one’s 40s. Pre children. Pre marriage. Living with roommates and dating my now husband and struggling with enough depression and self-hatred to push myself to keep going to prove that I could survive. Don’t believe me? It’s all here in this blog. All the years that have sprinted by. The failures. The successes. Three firings later. Day after day of waking up feeling not good enough. Not knowing what I’m doing. Trying to make it work. Trying to fit in. Having good moments. And many bad ones. Ten years later.

What will my life be 10 years from now? I’ll be 47 going on 48. What then? Will this decade feel over in a blink as well? How can I slow it down and make sure it lasts as long as possible – savor every second of it? I don’t know if one can at this age. Time just speeds up. And so there’s time and there’s money. It’s the race of both. You can spend less money. You can’t actually stop time. But to afford to leave the workforce you need a lot of money– and even then the system is rigged against you. That money in the stock market. Sure it will likely keep going up over time. That’s what they tell you. It has in the past. But the past is no indication of what will happen in the future. Though the only way to actually afford the future is to take what you’ve earned and bet on something that likely will go up but really who knows.

I’m too heavy in equities. Too heavy in individual stocks, although mostly in index funds. If the whole market crashes, how much does it matter? Does this mystical, mythical $2M disappear overnight? It doesn’t feel real if it’s not spent and if it’s spent then it isn’t real anymore at all. So it sits there, notated in an overly complex google spreadsheet that I look at each morning to see what it all looks like on that day. I open my computer and start trying to do work for my job that is fulfilling only in when I can help other people do their jobs that I’m uncertain if they find fulfilling or just acceptable in order to earn their own mystical, mythical money. I don’t know. I sit in meetings with senior executives who go off on some rant about something that at best doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of the betterment of the world and at worst are stained with sociopathy and that sly smile in passive aggressive attack that only someone with way more money in the bank can slide across their face so damn effortlessly. Everyone is trying to prove to everyone else that they are needed for those ahead of them to win and so even with the best of intentions it becomes this sick game that I’m not cut out to play.

10 years. My father was still alive. Still diagnosed with cancer. Still dying. But alive. Still yelling at my mother. An artist of arrogance. We were all so much younger then. I try to tell myself. 10 years is a long time. 10 years from now my oldest will be 13. Thirteen. My youngest, either 11 or 9 depending if I have another. I’ll hopefully be alive, but 10 years is also a long time for one’s body to attack itself, for health to slowly… or rapidly fail. For my husband to be here or to be ill or not here at all. For my mother to make it to 78 or pass away in her 70s, at an age that no longer inspires those who hear of passing to gasp noting “she was so young” in their condolences. It seems at 70 or maybe 75 it becomes acceptable to die. In ones 80s no one would feel pity over an early death. And 90 is when one feels pity that the person is still living. How fast the years go. Especially if you don’t make the greatest effort to slow them down.

And how can you slow them down? How can I? Well, I feel like there is a choice here. A fork in the road. Like in Squid Game — everyone chooses to play, even after they see what is at stake. Here I am and I see ahead of me 10 years of my children aging from babies to teens and I wonder how much of those 10 years is worth trading for days of panic attacks and feeling horrible at my job and to tired to be much of a mother.

Quit now and move somewhere affordable seems both like an impossible movie plot and an actual life story that could be mine. If only I wanted it enough. And then my husband agreed to it as well. Which would be quite difficult, but if I really knew in my heart it was the right decision — I don’t know — maybe I could convince him we need to leave this place. In a year sell our house. Get away from the rat race. The rat jungle. The rat infestation and bro culture and imposter syndrome and open office spaces and egos and people do don’t have time to connect or build community or they want you to pay a lot to buy in to a community you’ll never be a part of anyway.

If I quit here and stayed here I’d surely eat into my savings quickly. I’d want to do things during the day and going for walks to local parks would get boring after a while, wouldn’t it? There is much to sign up for if you’re a stay at home mom but then you need the money to fund it. Writing is free, at least. But what about my kid’s activities? How do I make sure I have enough to support their lives? I feel that I owe them the upper middle class life I was raised into. I didn’t know how to provide that but somehow through luck and determination here I am. Upper middle class. I guess. It doesn’t feel it. Not like my parent’s generation. One working parent and a nice house with decently nice everything. I’m certainly well off now in most of the world. I certainly don’t feel it.

But I do feel I owe my kids a life at least as good as the one I had growing up. My sister, who makes $14 an hour, refuses to have children because she says she can’t afford them. Yet many people have kids with low incomes — it’s just we were raised into a certain style of childhood and life and we feel our kids deserve at least that. I don’t want my kids to be spoiled. I don’t think I was either. Not horribly so. A little. But not enough to sit on my ass and do nothing. My sister has an incredible work ethic but no belief in herself or her ability to do better. I have random spurts of energy and a character flaw that is my need above all else to prove that I can survive and fit in and thrive in a world that may not be worth surviving.

What if — one year from now — I’m sitting somewhere, some nondescript down maybe — watching waves of a lake-ocean-river-sea crash to shore. Maybe it’s thundering. Or drizzling. Or pouring.  And I’m soaked and running in puddles with my children who are still children. And they don’t remember mom everyday at her laptop working or avoiding working and looking at social media only to be working later when she shouldn’t be because she can’t focus or get anything done. They wouldn’t remember the mess of a house or limited meals but instead clean floors and nutritious fresh food. We’d go on playdates and maybe get to know some people. Really get to know them as friends and build a community, though that’s wishful thinking as being a stay-at-home mom doesn’t suddenly turn me into Miss Popular. But still. What kind of life would that be? One where I am watching my account balances shrink each month instead of grow. I’d be terrified.

That fear is what drives me. But I don’t want to get to 2031 and look back on the last 10 years and say I traded moments for money. I let myself fall into the trap of worrying every single fucking day and waking up each morning feeling sick to my stomach because I know I’ll never do a consistently good enough job at work. Because I’m always on the verge of losing my job and having to admit failure yet again. To pick myself up again. And spend months trying to prove myself. A few victories here and there but nothing enough to stick. And so on. 10 years of that. I don’t know if I can take 10 more years of that.

See, 10 years ago seems like a long time ago. But 4 years ago seems like practically no time at all. Sure, in that time I’ve had two kids and both have grown quite a bit, but that time is all a blur and it doesn’t feel like 4 years it feels like 3 months. Though there is so much of it that I don’t remember. That skips time. And I’m afraid the next 10 years will be that but even faster. So I desperately want to slow the time down. To be present with my family. To take time to be a mom, not a mom who is thinking about the 10 meetings she has the next week while assisting her sons onto an amusement park ride.

I should be grateful that I have the money I do have. It does provide some options. It’s enough to tease me with those options but not enough for the options to be all that real. It’s enough, earned fast enough, to throw in my face that if I leave the workforce I’m not only going to be digging into my savings, but I’m also giving up the opportunity to really get to a place of financial independence for a lifestyle I want to have for my family. Why not a few more months? A few more years? Why not just keep holding my breath until my bank account ticks up to the next hundred thousand? I’m thinking $2.5M before leaving this job, but why not stick around until $3? Why not find another job to take me to $4 or $5M? $5M is the ultimate goal, $200k a year of income from the growth. Maybe then. Maybe then I’ll feel like I can slow down. But when will then be? Will my mind be complete mush by then? It’s hard to say. I just know I’m tired. I’m so tired. I’m tired mentally and physically and I need to sleep. So I’ll sleep now and wonder more about how people make decisions and how I can make decisions and if I’m even allowed to since now I’m a mom and a breadwinner and a home owner and I don’t get to just pick up and change things if they get too hard. This is real adulting. And it better be because I’m fucking old now.

Here’s The Real Problem…

As I sit here at 4pm on post-Labor Day Tuesday trying  to get any work done while sitting in the office listening to my infant screaming down the hall while my 3 year old and grandpa are in the room next door loudly sounding out letters I feel defeated and then some. The house literally shakes with my son jumping up and down so even noise-cancelling headphones don’t block his enthusiasm for the alphabet song enough.

It’s clear I’m not good at the job I have, but it’s also clear that however not good I am at this job, I’m a thousand times more not good at it because I can’t think straight here. But can I think straight anywhere?

Am I just lazy? I don’t know. Something seems off with my mind. I can’t focus or do things consistently. Is it ADHD? Is it anxiety? Is it something else? I can’t calm my mind long enough to focus unless I have some big project due “tomorrow.”

The anxiety is at an all-time high. What was I thinking buying a house with a $7k a month mortgage? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Have grandpa live with us, I thought, and pay $2k so really we’re still spending about $3k on housing if you consider that we have $2k rent coming in and half of the mortgage goes to principal. It sounded good at the time.

Well, I hate living with grandpa. It could be a lot worse, and I’m so grateful/lucky/etc that grandpa watches my 3 year old all day while we work, but I can’t handle having him in my home always. Ok, so he goes to sleep at 4:30 each day. If I actually went to an office and came home at 6 it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I didn’t expect him to be so present on the weekends but I’m working to make the case that he stays in his apartment/room on the weekends so I can have a life with my family without my father in law. I haven’t successfully achieved that yet.

Meanwhile, grandpa is too present with my son. I want him to give my son some space but he’s constantly engaging with him. Even though I’ve asked him not to feed my son plain toast and instead to put something else on it like peanut butter he still is giving my son toast. My son is hard to feed so I understand but I feel like I’m failing my kids because they don’t have a qualified care person watching for them and I’m not doing enough to ensure they are being fed well or having time to explore on their own. I’m sure it’s not totally detrimental to his development (at least I’m buying whole wheat bread) but it’s still hard because as I sit trying to get my work done I feel like not only a failure of an employee but also a failure of a mother. And because I’m working from home I’m reminded of both every single second. I don’t get to be a mother – not the mother I want to be. I’m too busy trying to ensure I make enough to pay the mortgage for the next 29 years.

I don’t think I’d be happy if I stayed at home full time either. I don’t know what I want. But this is all not working and I feel like I’m going to explode. There’s no where to go for help either so I need to just accept it, hold my breath, and hope it all passes somehow. Like, hope 29 years passes and then I can be happy? That seems like a pretty shitty way to live life.

In the diagram of what’s “good” in one’s life, that circle one where you mark how solid your life is in different areas, from work to relationships to growth, I’m a about a 0 in all areas. Financially maybe a 1 or 2 of 5. The only really good thing in my life right now is my kids, as in, I love my kids, they’re great little crazy beings and it’s pretty dang cool that I made them and I love them so much I even want one more child. Because being a mom seems still like the right fit. Of all the titles I might call myself. However badly I feel I’m doing at it. I love being a mom.

But what else do I have? A marriage where my husband doesn’t even find me attractive anymore. A house that I can only afford if I manage to maintain employment in soul-sucking jobs for the remainder of my adult life? A body that feels like it’s falling apart, that I’m not spending enough/any time on nurturing outside of my semi-decent change in diet? A mind that is in pieces, that spends the day looking forward to 10pm when it can just turn off? Few friends and the friends I do have probably don’t like me very much for a variety of reasons. A bank account with some money in it but not enough to really have any sort of a stable life because living here is absolutely impossible? I mean, no wonder I’m a bit depressed, right?

I’d like to fix any of these areas but they all feel so overwhelming I don’t know where to start. It’s like — hey — maybe if I had a really solid marriage or if I had some great friendships or work was going well or I considered myself a good mom or I had religion (not that I want religion but still) or something — anything — in my life was going well I could point to that one thing and say ok, well, at least I have that thing going great. But what do I actually have? Is this the wrong question to be asking? Is the whole point of being an adult living for your kids, and no longer for yourself? I guess so?

I feel fucking lonely. And like there isn’t much to live for outside of being a mom, which is plenty enough, so I’m not going anywhere, but I’d like more than that. I’d like to feel passion for life again. It’s my own fault I’m stuck in this mess. Maybe if I just get the house in order and shut my mouth and wait for the good stuff to happen it will come. There’s too much that I’m buried under for anything good to happen. There’s only faking my way through and trying to survive another year until there are no more years left.

To the next 23 years.

It’s nice to think I’ll live to 100, but it’s doubtful. I still plan financially for a long life “just in case” but the reality is my health is already headed downward. I can improve my health by exercising and eating healthy (which I am trying to do now slowly as I get back into thing after having a baby) but right now with my newly-diagnosed blood clotting disorder and potentially unrelated headache symptoms that have now gone on for days since getting the second covid shot, I just feel like my body at 37 is already starting to fail. So I’m giving myself 23 years. That’s how long I have until I’m 60. Anything after that, unfortunately, is gravy. I mean, my morbidly-obese cancer-stricken father made it to 67, but 60 seems like a good goal for now.

Twenty three years isn’t long at all. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what matters to me in this life. I try to avoid thinking about death as I’m terrified of it, even though it’s inevitable, but instead I try to focus on, ok, I’ve got 23 years, or six “four year vesting periods” before I am at high risk for a variety of illnesses, should I even make it that long.

One thing I know for sure — I love being a mom. I do want a third child, but I’m not sure my body can handle it. My plan was/is to do IVF and try to have a girl (*I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this as I think gender is a social construct but it’s also a “real” social construct and a mother and her daughter tend to have a different kind of relationship compared to a mother and her sons), but as of yesterday I’m wondering if I should just let nature do her thing and if I get pregnant again I get pregnant again and if it’s a boy I should be happy with that outcome as three brothers can be nice as well. Going the natural route, as long as I can lose weight quickly, would enable me to get pregnant sooner (if I can) versus waiting to wean and start IVF. With my clotting disorder it seems like IVF may be too risky overall. I need to talk to a doctor about it. If I can’t get pregnant naturally (at 38) then we could always do IVF then, but I don’t have to make that my first option. It’s always possibly baby 3 could end up being a girl by chance, although it just as likely could end up being another boy.

And who knows if my health will allow me to safely get pregnant again anyway.  I need to lose weight, but I’m struggling a lot this time. I don’t feel like I’ve been eating a ton lately yet the scale is stuck at 188-192 and it keeps bouncing back up. I’m avoiding most sugars and have really improved my diet yet here I am. I need under 180 fast to relieve what my weight is doing to my body and then continue to work to get it down much further. If I do get pregnant again, I want to start the pregnancy at or as close to a healthy BMI as possible (which means losing 50lbs!) which given I’m struggling to lose .5lb a week will take, uh, forever. I do remember last baby I didn’t lose a lot of weight until a year in when baby started eating food and breastfeeding less. Then the weight started to come off. And I dropped 10lbs in March last year but that’s because I either had COVID or pandemic-induced anxiety and didn’t eat much in a month and was walking miles a day. I need to start walking that much again and I’d like to be able to lose weight while still eating (healthfully.)

This headache situation is no fun right now though. It’s honestly scaring me. I’m hoping it’s just long-term side effects from the vaccine and will go away soon. It’s been this on and off stabbing pain throughout the left side of my head. I took Excedrin this morning and it transformed into a huge amount of pressure, then my left arm and face felt heavy. I’ve been lying down and feel a little better, but afraid to get up. I’m slightly nauseous. I just want to feel myself again.

The stress of going back to work isn’t helping. I’m trying to refrain from getting stressed as it seems to be a trigger for my recent uptick in medical issues but I just have more and more anxiety by the day. It’s not like my old-time anxiety that I hand somewhat a handle on. I just feel like the weight of the world and so many things is crippling. I’m behind on EVERYTHING. So, gosh, why do I want another kid? Well, the only thing in my life that feels right at the moment is being a mom. And I think I’m a pretty good mom thus far. I can be a pretty good mom to two children but to me family is really everything and there isn’t much of one out here on the west coast so I need to rebuild that. Hopefully I’ll live longer than those 23 years and I can enjoy many years with my children and maybe even their children too. It’s crazy to think how old I’ll be (if I’m still around) when they might have kids. Makes me wish I had my children younger, I just wasn’t thinking about “the other side of it” when putting off having my kids until my mid 30s. I’m glad I had my 20s but it wouldn’t have hurt much to start having kids in my earlier 30s. My dad would have even gotten to meet my firstborn and to this day it kills me that he wasn’t able to meet his grandchild, when I know that would have really made him so happy. And he’ll never know about his second grandson or whoever else might come next. I remain heartbroken.

I want a family. A big-ish one. I want to turn this house into a home somehow. It doesn’t feel like one yet. Or maybe sell this house and buy another place that feels more like a home one day. This place is just a bunch of boxes. Rooms that are all the wrong size and put in an odd layout. I can fix it up but probably never will. The bathroom remodel took a toll with all the decisions. Probably better to sell and move. To the city where I wanted to buy. Though houses go for $1000+ a square foot there, more in the areas we’d want to be. It’s insane. And I don’t see myself moving into a well-paid role… ever again. I can’t handle the pressure. I need something that is more stable and lower stress. For my health. It was fine when it just impacted my mental health but now that it’s putting me at risk for an early death or other issues that could disable me I just want to part in that game. I’m hanging on for dear life for the next eight months to get the last of my stock but after that I’m reevaluating everything. I just want time. The most precious resource of all.

I’m scared, too, that a manic episode will return. I’m so far removed now from the one I had in 2019. My therapist won’t believe me about it, she thinks I’m just depressed. It’s terrifying when you lose control over what you say and do. For the most part the whole time period was quite benign, but I definitely regret some things I said. I don’t know who I was then. I was someone else. It’s sad that I felt GOOD then, like I was entertaining and charismatic and all the things I want to be in my vat of awkwardness. Clearly I wasn’t any of that at the time, but I felt that way. Now I’m on the other end of it, I guess. I don’t even know if I’m depressed. I’m just tired. Tired of chasing after — proving that I can “do this” whatever this is. “Not failing.” Making money. Growing that money. Buying a house. Keeping the house. Being an adult. Supporting a family. I’m grateful for it all and know I don’t deserve any of it. Yet it’s still hard to hold on. I power through the days. I count down the weeks. I watch the clock pass by until it’s night again and I can close my eyes to sleep for 6 hours straight if lucky. And yet I know one day I’ll look back at these moments and miss them too. Isn’t that funny. These are the best days. I want to start feeling like they are.

Deep Down I’m Happy, I Just Want More Than This Provincial Life

Belle’s plight to seek out something more than an average life always spoke to me since the first day I saw Beauty and the Beast at the movies in second or third grade. It’s easy to get caught up in my mood swings, especially the ones that swing be down into depression, but everything in my life is pretty darn good. Even if I lose my job (again), things are ok. I’ve managed, in the last 10 years (and getting fired 3 times) to go from $50,000 in net worth to $1.5M in net worth. I’ve had two healthy kids. I bought a house in a very HCOL area and convinced a bank I’m worthy of a $1.2M mortgage. I convinced a man to spend the rest of his life with me in wedded bliss.  I haven’t jumped off a bridge or overdosed on any number of pill combinations despite that occasionally seeming like a practical solution to the impractical problem that is me and all the things I do or don’t do on a daily basis.

Things are pretty damn good, aren’t they?

It’s ok that things are hard. What isn’t ok is that I’m the type of person who will only be satisfied if I’m doing something meaningful in life–beyond raising two happy, healthy kids and buying a house and having a husband. I don’t know exactly what that is yet, but I’m on my way to figuring it out. It’s tough because I don’t deserve to be successful or unique or to do anything great–but then again, who the hell does? Maybe someone born clearly brilliant, with a ridiculously high IQ. But there are plenty of other people doing great things who weren’t born any different than I was. They may have had parents who taught them it’s ok to take risks and fail, who instilled in them a growth mindset, or somehow learned to go against everything they’ve been taught to take risks and believe in themselves–but other than that–how different are we really?

I spent a good chunk of last night, in between breastfeeding and half sleeping, watching YouTube videos about Adult ADHD. If you know me (or heck, if you read my blog likely) it’s pretty clear that if Adult ADHD exists, I have it. Out of leftover FSA money one year I did a neuropsychological screening and was told I do not have ADHD, but do have severe deficiency in short-term memory, anxiety, and depression. However, had I gone to an ADHD expert for said screening (I did not) I would have undoubtedly been told I do have it. The test used by the neuropsychologist to determine if I have ADHD, the click test, is far from considered an acceptable method of diagnosis by the scientific community, and yet for the last few years I’ve been walking around convinced I don’t have ADHD due to this test and my neuropsychological profile. Yet even the finding that my short-term memory is severely impaired is a symptom of ADHD. Alas.

I also feel like I ought to do something creative in life as people with ADHD tend to do better when working in creative settings and that’s what I went to school to study and that’s what I always though I’d do, but then didn’t, because I was too scared to take such a risk when I knew nothing beyond wanting to not be deemed a failure by my parents, especially my dad. Failure was asking for help–any help–once I graduated college. I was lucky to have my very expensive (too expensive in hindsight) college paid for by my parents, and they never fought me on my degree in the arts despite having no clarity into what a career in the specific field I majored in would look like, or how little of a propensity I had for its technical requirements. But once my final graduation photo was snapped, I was on my own. I had no college loans, but I still had to pay the rent. And then I figured out that having money was better than not having money, and having a lot of money was better than having a little bit of money, so that even with my non-frugal habits I could still manage to survive without asking anyone for help.

Since my creative dreams weren’t fleshed out anyway, they were tossed to the sidelines and my only mission at hand was to not run out of money. My “career dreams” were non existent. Which is ok. Lots of people work to work. There’s nothing wrong with that. And I’ve done that. In smaller companies, at the least, I felt like there was this energy of doing the impossible that I was familiar with from my creative pursuits. Sure, everyone wanted to get rich–but we knew it was a long shot. We enjoyed building something new together. At least that felt a bit more home to me, despite not being right. Had I founded the company–maybe then it would feel right, but inevitably with a thick-headed CEO who thought they knew everything (and clearly didn’t) I ended up, along with my colleagues, becoming frustrated watching our collective dreams turn into a company worth less than investors poured into it.

But in a big company, where money flows into bigger salaries and stock packages, especially for those considered rockstars, there is a clear focus on work for work’s sake. I sit back–fall back–and watch those around me operate flawlessly, with the energy of a doctor saving the life of a newborn child, to promote a product designed to help automate processes and save costs by removing human labor (amongst other useful but equally dystopian value props.) As I’ve managed to double my net worth in the last hand change of years, many others who, pre-covid, sit alongside me, are off on a rocketship straight to the .01%. And those fresh out of college, lucky with a relatively small grant that has turned a small amount into a large amount, are not set for life, but on the path to far greater wealth than I’ll likely ever see. These people work hard as hell (or fake it well enough that even intuitive I can’t tell the difference.) They send perfectly-scripted email notifications that thank everyone who contributed to a project while, barely reading between the lines, self-promoting their own work. These people talk the talk so well, from using all the business jargon without a hint of irony, to making everything sound so damn important. There’s humor as well, but a certain type of humor that is not dark or witty or particularly funny. It’s careful and redundant, and yet everyone laughs anyway because that’s what you do. Those who can’t do humor tend to avoid it until their boss tells them to throw a joke in their next speech, and we continue to laugh.

I’d rather get to the point, I guess.

What is the point? My point. My point is that I don’t fit in this world. I like making money. Clearly. It’s pretty incredible. Necessary, of course. How else does one pay off a $7k a month mortgage? Even if it’s $5k a month now with my FIL paying $2k a month in rent–in a few years it will be all us. Can we really afford this? I guess so. Eventually $7k a month will seem reasonable… maybe. Going rent for a house here was around $5k, so in some odd years it will catch up. But then there’s the cost of keeping the house functional. So many things have popped up. I’m now budgeting about $2k a month for house stuff. Some of it is must have, some nice-to-have, and maybe eventually we’ll be able to bring that down to a lower amount. This doesn’t include utilities and such, but everything else that goes into owning a house. It’s not cheap.

The house does kind of lock me into this high-earning lifestyle, even if I’m unable to get a job ever again that’s quite as high earning (likely.) That’s why this year is so damn important. It’s crazy that every 3 month I can make about $200k ($100k after tax) on top of my salary and such. I’m basically making 4 years of normal income in one year, which doesn’t make it possible to quit corporate America and spend my waking non-parenting hours on passion projects, but it’s a start. It has me questioning–from the moment I wake up the instant I drift off to dreamland–what the fuck is next? Do I seek another rocketship? Do I learn how to play the game better next time (and maybe not admit to my boss, in a momentary lapse of judgment due to the sleepless nights of being a new mom, that I’ve been fired numerous times in the past and that I think I’m overpaid — oops) and see whatever’s next as another step towards freedom to do something meaningful, whatever that is? I won’t see a stock package like this again unless I manage to obtain a very senior role which is a bad idea for numerous reasons even if I could do that–but staying in my current company won’t ever see this kind of income again either (I’m not getting stock refreshes since they don’t actually want me to stay–it’s clear I’m going to be leaving by choice or by force at some point and this time I prefer to do this by choice, I think, though a few months of unemployment and COBRA may be just what I need next year–but I don’t think I can handle the mental toll of losing yet another job. I should leave on my own, with my head held as high as I can hold it, weak neck and all.)

But–where was I? I guess, I feel like maybe if I lean into this ADHD thing and try strategies that work for other HSP with ADHD then… maybe I can find something that works for a bit longer than 3 months > crashing and burning in whatever new job I take on. Maybe it’s finding a different yet still decently-paid career. In order to afford this house, this $84k a year of mortgage/taxes/insurance, we need to make $300k a year (if you go with the 28% rule.) My husband makes $100k at the moment (though that’s 1099, so we can reduce that to $85k, which means that need to make $215k a year in order for our house to make sense. Anything above this is great. But I don’t have to make more than $215k. The question is, how do I make $215k consistently? If I can get on a career path where $225k-$250k is the norm and I can get one one that I’m decent enough at to not lose my job every few years then — we’re ok. If my husband can keep his job (which he will unless the org he works for goes out of business) then I just have to get that $215k each year and we’re doing ok. Not living a fancy life, by any means, but we’ll be able to pay the mortgage for the next 30 years.

That’s clearly not what I want, though — 30 years of my entire life being centered on making $215k or more. From 37 to 67, needing every single year to have a career making such income is pretty darn depressing. My dad died at 67. So there’s that. I don’t want this to be the rest of my life. At some point I want to be able to take a risk. Make something. Do something meaningful before I die.

Does that make me a selfish person? An unrealistic one? Maybe. But I have dreams. I might be getting old(er) and grey(er) but I’m not dead yet. My kids remind me of the dreams I once had when anything was possible. I didn’t notice the moment when life switched from everything is possible to practically nothing is, but somehow that switch triggered and I missed it while I was counting up my net worth and figuring out how to convince my boss to give me another 30 days before pulling another trigger to have HR walk me out of the building. The years just go. And soon they will be gone. How do I make any of this make sense while not putting my family on the street? I guess it’s not that dire. We’ve got plenty of savings now. Enough to ride of a few bad years. But I don’t want a few bad years. I want many good ones. And I’m desperate to find a path to them.

I’m Not Actually Jealous of SAHMs. Right?

Making money doesn’t make me happy, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never find a job that brings me joy. So I have to find happiness outside of work. And I have to figure out how work fits into my life now and short term and long term. If I ever do save enough to retire early, then what? Would I even like being a stay at home mom?

I have friends who are stay at home moms, or who run their own business and work flexible hours and aren’t actually working to support the household but instead are running a business as more of a passion project. I’ll never be those friends–I don’t have a husband who is a senior-level engineer who makes enough to afford a Bay Area mortgage. And I’m ok with that. But I’m growing tired of paying a Bay Area mortgage altogether, 4 months into doing just that. Only 356 more months to go of paying $7k a month to live in a house that needs a good amount of work that will cost who knows how much more.

I went for a walk with my 2.5 year old last week and realized I’ve barely seen him lately. It’s hard now with a baby, but it was nice to have some 1×1 time with him. He’s at that age where he notices when you’re not paying attention, and when you are, even if you’re just sitting behind him while he doodles on a water mat or with chalk on the sidewalk. All my son knows of me is a mom who is constantly on her computer or on her phone. I want to change that.

But in 2 more months I’ll go back to work. I’ll likely work from home for a while. Maybe the rest of the year. I’ll be busy, if I’m so lucky. I’ll stay employed through the end of the year. And then I’ll see what’s next. I won’t be anywhere near Fat FIRE then. Especially not with this $7k a month mortgage weighing over my shoulders until I’m an old lady. My husband isn’t interested in earning more income. He isn’t interested in moving somewhere cheaper so I can have a little less pressure to maintain employment. So I can maybe spend a little more time with my kids before they become adults.

I guess seeing how old my 2.5 is — how fast childhood goes when you’re watching it form the lens of being a kid’s mom — of seeing my grandmother’s heart breaking over and over again when we talk about my dad, her first born, who died 2.5 years ago at age 67 — and you can hear the memories in her voice, memories I’m not making with my kids because I’m so busy not only working but also just worrying constantly about work and how I can’t manage the social/political pressures in the corporate environment… I’m losing precious moments of being a mom.

So I keep parsing my life to date to try to figure out what might bring me happiness and what won’t. I want to work, but not to make money, which is a privileged thing to even consider, and it isn’t actually logistically feasible right now, or maybe ever, but maybe I don’t have to make quite so much eventually. What if we get to $2.5M-$3M by the end of the year–which is somehow possible–then… could I shift the way my life works? Not here. Not in the Bay Area. But what if we moved? What if we went somewhere else where I could work remote for a company and make less or do something creative and who knows…

What I do know is I’m counting on work to fulfill me and it’s failing at that, and my life isn’t fulfilling me as I feel isolated and no one gives a shit about hearing anything about my day or telling me about theirs and I have a few friends but we rarely talk and when we do I never know what to say or I find my only friendships are just back-and-forth complaining which isn’t very positive and there hasn’t been much positive in my life except my children, and I’m not present for them at all. If I’m not present while on maternity leave, how will I be when I go back to work? My father-in-law is raising my toddler and while I love that they have a close relationship… I miss being a mom. Whatever that means. I’m not the mom I want to be.  And by the time I’ve saved “enough” it will be too late.

My husband gets upset when I talk about moving or doing anything drastic now as we’ve committed to the house his dad lives with us and we really can’t move now. I need to stop complaining about what I thought I wanted even though now that I have it I realize it isn’t what I want at all. I need to shut up and keep my head down and make it work, like so many people do. I’m not going to last forever in this job, but maybe I can get to the end of the year. I think it’s possible. I may get that salary decrease I’m expecting, but I’ll still get my stock as long as they don’t fire me. So, I just have to focus on this year. But I’m worried my mental health will be so shitty I’ll fail to appreciate any of the moments with my kids even if I’m actually here for them. And pretty soon my toddler will be a kid in school and I won’t be able to randomly take him to wherever during the day (not that we can do that now) and spend time together. I want to do those things now before he’s in school 5 days a week except holidays and a short summer until he’s 18 and then he’s off to college. We’ll never get this time back.

Can I manage to fight through this year and keep my job while also being a present mother? I want to figure out how to feed my toddler healthier food, keep the house clean, teach him new things. I see the way he looks at me now. I’m his mom. I want to have time to figure out what that means. Maybe next year.

Being a Working Mom in a Pandemic + Being a Working Pregnant Mom in a Pandemic

Talking to other working mothers, it’s clear that even the most optimistic of the bunch have realized that life has changed for good… at least for a long while. I’m not sure how anyone thought the pandemic would be a 1-3 month blip in our working lives given how fast the virus spreads and without coordinated federal political leadership, but everyone is now aware this shit has gotten real. All too real.

Professional women I know are discussing quitting the workforce to take care of their kids. Women who contribute 50% of the income to their families. Women who need their jobs. Women who rely on their husbands as breadwinners but who love their careers. Who never saw themselves as stay at home mothers. All now facing the reality – my company has given me no choice but to quit (or get fired, eventually.)

I find it bizarre that my company has not addressed the issue of being a working parent in a pandemic at all. I mean, there was a brief mention, there was the generic comment about how family comes first — but no follow up. No tactical advice how we can do our jobs and be parents and all that entails. Even though schools have announced that the school year — at least the first half of it — will be remote — workplaces have the upper hand and have no reason to offer any more flexibility. We are in a recession. You are lucky to have a job. Take it or leave it. Plenty of other people out there willing to take your place.

I’m fortunate in that as the breadwinner of my household, my husband’s part time job enables him the flexibility to watch our son. I’m also pregnant and yes that was planned but we both know it will be a huge challenge in the winter when our new baby is born. At least I’ll on maternity leave for a few months. Hopefully by then there will be a vaccine or treatments. Either way, I am in a position where I can likely work from home for the long term, and we will shelter in place with my in laws who can help watch our older son while we survive the first year of parenting in a pandemic.

I’ll go back to work–because I have to. I didn’t think I’d get pregnant this quickly but I knew it was possible. I determined that I could survive through the end of this year and go into next year on maternity leave for a few months, and then return in the late spring and hope my boss offers some flexibility to get back up to speed. Unlike my first child, which I had when I was just 9 months into employment at this company, now I’ll have been here three years. I feel like I’m in a bit better place. They can certainly get rid of me, but I don’t think that is their top priority at the moment.

Long term if COVID doesn’t go away I’m not sure how this works. We’ll have two kids under 3 and bills to pay in a HCOL area. We’ll figure it out. I always tell myself I’m lucky that my kid isn’t in school – that we aren’t expected to homeschool while we work. Yet at least that would provide some structure. I worry my son is falling behind socially because he can’t see other kids. That is what hurts the most. But if we allow him to see other kids we put ourselves at risk for getting COVID (which is extra bad if you’re pregnant) and then we can’t see my in laws which means no socialization with them and no childcare. We just had to make that tough decision.

We have a year before my son turns three and I’m really hoping by then the world makes sense again. I’ve given myself mentally until then to just survive whatever is to come. So now that’s 12 months of having a child, not losing my job, and reassessing next August. I’ve committed (to myself) to stay in my current role at least until the end of next year (if I can) in order to vest my entire initial grant,  then start looking for a new role the following year. If all goes well, I’ll be in a solid financial place to start really thinking about work life balance in my career choices — and certainly to focus on finding a company that actually did something meaningful during this COVID craziness for their working parent employees. Not just lip service. Actual policy changes and support. Even if the pay isn’t the best, I’ll be at the point of my life where I want something stable with a company that actually cares about its employees.

Until then, it is just about survival.

And the Depression Fog Rolls In… How to Cope?

I want to be an organized, has-her-shit-together mom for my son. But let’s face it, just because I managed to squeeze a 7lb human out with relatively minimal complications doesn’t mean I suddenly am I sane, stable individual. Spoiler alert: I’m not.

I’m sitting in my one bedroom apartment living room watching my son finally in a good mood, on his back, in the little empty carpeting in the room, cooing and laughing, looking at… something? It’s nearly 7pm and I don’t know where the day went. We did a lot of me not sleeping as he snacked on my breasts and slept on me. When I tried to put him down for a nap in his pack & play he, as always, freaked out. I put a pacifier in his mouth and he spit it out, then started fussing, then started screaming. And repeat.

Exhaustion has new meaning with a newborn. I’m so grateful that I bailed on my plan to go back to work after 6 weeks and with my depression was able to get a disability extension (something I didn’t want to have to do, but I give up) and I have an extra eight weeks, plus another six that will be semi paid that is usable next year, and six weeks unpaid if I want them. The amount of stress I’ve dealt with just managing the guilt and logistics of orchestrating my maternity leave has been immense. I still don’t know how I’m going to go back to work, and then take my 6-12 weeks off throughout the next couple of months. While those weeks are “job protected,” the time in between them is not… which means my company could decide to let me go before I get to use this time off. I hope they don’t, but every single day I will be extra paranoid that I have to prove my worth and then some to maintain my employment…

That’s not good because I already feel like I don’t know what the heck I’m doing, as always. I mean, I am in a better spot in this job than others I’ve had before… but I’m by no means in the clear. I’m scared, and much more scared now that I have a kid. We have a cushion and all, but I need to work. I need to work full time for a long time to afford being a mom. And while I WANT to work, I also want to see my child grow up. I don’t have a choice either way. It’s challenging to hang out with other moms who are changing their minds about going back to work and deciding to quit their jobs and stay home. I don’t want to do that, but then again, part of me does. I can’t, and so that makes it an easy decision for me. But being that I can’t, I also can’t lose my job. And my husband get so annoyed at me when I constantly say I’m going to get fired–and I know that’s not the most productive thing to tell myself, but I just feel so lost and hopeless. I’m almost 35 and I haven’t the faintest idea how to do my job well. Fortunately my boss seems to like me, but that can change at the drop of a hat. If I make her look bad, even by accident, even if I try my best, why would she like me anymore?

Being this exhausted is not ideal for returning to a job that I don’t know how to do. I’ll just hang in as long as I can… which may be months and may be years… and try to save as much as possible. But I’m on a whole different wavelength of reality than my husband right now, which isn’t good. He earns $85k a year without benefits, and I’m making somewhere between $170k and $300k, and I carry the family benefits as well. If he lost his job, it wouldn’t be great, but we could survive. If I lose my job, that’s another story.

The stress was added to this week when I found out it’s unlikely I can qualify for term life insurance because of my history of depression. That’s plenty to be depressed about. I’m not sure how much life insurance I should get, but I was thinking a $3M policy… $150k for my son’s college, plus 30 years at $300k of salary. I could probably do less than that, but it doesn’t matter since I can’t qualify. I’m screwed because I tell my doctor that I occasionally think about killing myself. How am I supposed to get help if I can’t tell my doctor things like this when they ask me? Thank goodness we have a ban against refusing healthcare for pre-existing conditions these days (though who knows if that will last) but life insurance has no such rules. I feel like such a failure for my son and my family.

Meanwhile, I don’t know how to get into a routine of being a mom. I want to give my son a good childhood, I want to engage him and help him develop, and right now I’m not working and my husband is, so that’s really on me. But we barely sleep at night… I’m lucky if I get 4-6 hours of non-consistent sleep which isn’t even good sleep because of my son’s grunting and whimpering. It’s getting. little better but it’s still not good, and it won’t be for a long time. How on earth will I be able to be a great employee on this little sleep? I’m already daydreaming about the catnaps I’ll take in my office parking lot at lunch after pumping.

I’m not complaining here because this is a choice I made, and I’m so lucky to have more time off and protected than many other women in this country. And for now I only have ONE kid to take care of… I can’t imagine what it’s like with more than one (though I’d like to have at least one more when I’m ready–and by then maybe I can do the stay at home mom thing for a year or two? Wishful thinking.)

My kid does get to stay home with my husband’s parents while I’m at work and not go off to a daycare at this young age, which would be much harder. Still, I’m missing the opportunity to be my son’s mother, or that’s how it feels. But, then again, as I glance at him now fussing on the floor, clearly over this once nice position for solitary play time, coos, and giggles, I also think how grateful I am that I will be going back to work and that this isn’t going to be my full time life. So clearly, I’m torn. I just don’t know how to do both, or even this alone, but I’m going to have to figure it out.