For those of you who don't know, I am a Business Manager at our Catholic high school. The same high school where my handsome hubby teaches theology. The same high school where we hope our children attend one day. It's the perfect job for me, and I am so grateful to have the position. Our family depends on my income and since I *have* to work, I am glad to have a job I like.
Yet, the more I try to manage the business side of things at work, the more I see how badly my home and family needs me to manage it. Every successful business has a manager of some sort, right? Then why do I think our family can get by with a home manager that's only working on a part-part-part-part time basis?
Back when I was a stay-at-home Mom, I could easily fit cleaning the house and preparing meals and paying the bills and shopping for groceries into my day. Of course, I did not homeschool (you homeschooling moms are amazing) and I had plenty of time to manage my home. Plus, as I was reminded by my good friend, Sarah, when you are at home doing all those things and caring for small children, you naturally are active all day and fitting in exercise wasn't as much of a necessity. So now in addition to sitting at a desk all day working, I need to fit in exercise time too.
The problem is that after working all week, it's very tempting to make quick but less-than-healthy dinners and ordering takeout is just too convenient. Once the kids are done with homework and bathed and in bed, the last thing I want to do is clean the bathroom (I haven't learned my lesson yet) or fold the laundry or unload the dishwasher. This means I have to use our precious weekend family time to grocery shop, clean the house, run errands, pay bills, and everything else that never gets done during the week. And all this adds up to one tired Mom. I'm so very, very tired all the time.
I can see why so many working moms have house cleaners and order delivery groceries and buy pre-packaged meals. Anything that makes the house run smoother all week long is almost priceless. Except that it's not. Adding in those costs would probably make us have to work more which would just be feeding into the vicious cycle. It's bad enough that a chunk of my salary is going to the nanny who is practically raising my baby because I can't. What's the point of having babies if you can't even be with them? It's so sad.
I really think God's plan of the men hunting/working for food and the women cooking/caring for their family was the best plan. When did women buy into the lie that we can have it all? Maybe we can have a career and be a wife and raise children, but there's no way we can do it all well. I haven't met one woman that thinks she has it all together. I wish we could go back to basics and men could make a living wage for their family so women could stay at home with their family. I know that probably makes me the ultimate anti-feminist, but hey, I'm too tired from "having it all" to care.
(Comments closed because I know I'm just having a small pity party and will feel better tomorrow)
