Working Mother magazine

D had all these sky miles from some airline or another that he was never gonna use (these were from back in the day when he traveled a bit for work). We had the option of getting some magazine subscriptions as a way to use the miles up. Since I considered the miles "unused money" of a sort, I was determined to spend as much of it as possible, so I ordered a variety of magazines, like Parenting, Cookie and Working Mother.

I like to keep magazines in the living room so that I can read short articles while sitting with the kids. Some folks can read novels but that requires more concentration than I can muster with the tv going, G crawling over me and N asking me question after question.

Unfortunately, I have found that reading Working Mother gives me anxiety and makes me flat-out tired.

Yesterday I read two articles: one a profile of the cover gal and the other a narrative about a mom getting adjusted to leaving her baby at daycare. The cover gal bio left me pooped. She is some kind of VP of Communications, has 2 kids and had to nurse her mom through 2 bouts of cancer. I zoned out halfway through simply because I didn't have the energy to keep reading about her life. Since I poop out on Wednesdays when N has school in the a.m. and dance class in the late afternoon, it makes sense that a woman who wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to prepare for her day would make me nearly catatonic.

The second article about adjusting to daycare made me fretful because I kept putting myself in the mother's shoes. I know if I had to work I would have no choice but to adjust to leaving my kids, but the idea of choosing to leave my kids at daycare gave me the heebies. I know N will start kindergarten in a year and will be away from me all day, but she will be 5. G is just a year old, and I have a hard time leaving him with my mother for a couple hours while I go to a preschool party. The thought of leaving a 3-month-old baby makes me want to cry.

I try not to make a judgment while reading these articles. These ladies are making choices best suited for them. But I personally couldn't make the same choice. After an aquaintance of mine who works told me that she pays $250 a week for her 2 kids to go to daycare, it occurred to me that it wouldn't pay me to work. As a teacher, I remember barely pulling in $1,400 a month, and that was with a Master's Degree. Sure, I was taking out a big chunk out for my 401(K) at the time, but still. With gas, clothes, cost of convenience foods since I wouldn't want to cook as much as I now do, and having to spend more for doctor visits for sickly kids, I just don't think it would be worth it financially. And I would have school work to do on top of the housework that now takes me all week to do. For me, all the paperwork, phone calls, emails from parents, and meetings outside of the 7-hour-day factored in HEAVILY in my decision not to work.

So, I will be passing along all of my Working Mother mags to my sister-in-law who works outside the home and is happy to be doing so. I'll go back to checking out People from the library and reading my other parenting rags.

But for the pet peeve record: I hate, hate, hate it when parents call daycare, "school." It ain't school, it is daycare. I don't know why it bugs me so, it just does. It makes me think they call it school to assuage any guilt they have about leaving their kids at daycare.