WAHM and SAHM Collision

~ Laura

I'm trying to combine a fairly tradition SAHM workload with a full time writing job. Mostly, this works out just fine. When I'm super organized, I can have a large block of time to write and come up with ideas for a new article. Coming up with ideas is the most time consuming process. It involves talking to you all on this blog and skimming twitter and facebook to see what people are talking about. It also involves getting out of my basement office and talking to real people to see what is bothering them. 

By 3:00, I can, on my good days, put everything down and take care of the kids, shop for food, take the kids to soccer practice, arrange for doctor's appointments, make dinner, and do all the other mom stuff. 

Yesterday, I had total failure. I got an e-mail at 3:00 from an NPR producer asking if I wanted to appear on their "Tell Me More" show. At 4:30, we chatted on the phone. I think he wanted to make sure that I wasn't insane or anything. When I passed the insanity test, we booked a time to appear in their NYC studios. 

After this conversation, I'm not sure that I was entirely sane. I had to call my husband and my mom. I paced around the house and made notes of points that I wanted to bring out. I was a little looopy.

So, I forgot about Ian's appointment with the neurologist. Dinner plans were abandoned. The basil sat in a pool of lukewarm water in the sink and I ordered a pizza. I didn't check Ian's homework. SAHM fail.

Today, I have to pull myself together. I have to call the neurologist and take crap from the secretary about missing the appointment. I have to take my mom to Westchester to continue cleaning Aunt Theresa's house. (I'm pulling her love letters out of the trash pile. Either they will get a decent burial or I'll use them in an article.) I have to wash soccer outfits for tonight's game. And turn that basil into pesto. 

I'm off duty on this blog for the day. I very much appreciate yesterday's conversation about student loan debt, particularly those who challenged me. It helped prepare me for Monday's talk. I might be back over the weekend for more debate prep. 

Open thread for you all. Talk about last night's debate or whatever amuses you. 

Published by Laura

12 thoughts on “WAHM and SAHM Collision”

  2. I’m really glad you’re in the market because I like your stuff.
    That said, I went part-time-basically-freelance when my first child was a toddler because I had that idea that writing and SAHM was this wicked combination. I’m sure it is for a lot of people, but first I got sleep deprived working on the ideas and writing bits at night, and then I found myself throwing teddy grahams at my son in a Sears change room while I interviewed the expert that had changed the interview time on my cell phone taking notes on the bench and realized things had gone horribly awry. I won’t even discuss how my marriage worked when weekends were “can you take the baby? please? I have two deadlines next week?!!!”
    For me freelance was feast or famine ’cause I felt I couldn’t say no but hadn’t yet gotten to where I could afford childcare based on the lean times so I was either swamped or pitching desperately.
    But more than that I started to feel like there was no division between work and home because there wasn’t; when I was with my 20 month old I was feeling like a bad worker and when I was working I felt like a bad mom, not to mention the going-to-naptime being the ultimate intersection of the two.
    _For me_ it worked better to throw in the towel, get a job (pre-recession by a few months! go me! It may vanish any moment!) and structure my days. Mind you, my kid (now kids) was younger and I didn’t have the school day, but my kids are also (thus far) neurotypical.
    So just to say…it is so not just you or your organizational structure or anything like that. Lots of freelancers I know and work with ride the flow really well, but my particular personality at that time and stage was not one of them!

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  4. I think he wanted to make sure that I wasn’t insane or anything.
    If that’s the case, they ask if you know where you are, what year it is, and who is the president.

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  5. My experience with working with a lot of flex was similar to JennG’s: my life became an impenetrable entanglement of work and home. Sometimes this was good, when a children’s book inspired my work, or when a work trip meant my children saw the world. But it was dreadful when the unpleasant side of work and home (annoying bureaucratic forms with deadlines conflicting with birthdays and puking children conflicting with work deadlines).
    I recognized that I was a very poor multi-tasker, that I needed to concentrate on one thing in order to get it done. That’s a personality type, I think (though people can also learn). And, it was not something I’ve always known about myself.
    I think that’s part of the issue with trying to give people the hard facts they need for making career decisions at 18. There are too many factors that interact in balancing the different wants and needs they’ll have when they’re older.

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  6. Thank you for not throwing out those love letters. I felt sad when I heard that you had put them in the garbage pile. Love letters should always be saved.

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  8. Congrats on the WNYC invite! I’ll look out for it…
    I’m doing the substitute teacher thing in the AM, the tutoring thing in the PM and the sharing of the duties thing in the course of a typical day.
    I find that knowing what my body is ready and willing to do at different hours has made my schedule work better. So I carve out that “leave me alone” time to get work done for tutoring as soon as I wake up in the morning when my brain is sparkly fresh. I leave physical duties like cleaning for my zombie evening hours…

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  10. I’m curious why if you are working full time you still consider yourself a SAHM? Sounds like typical working parent with second shift responsibilities stuff.

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  11. Some of these things are not like the others….
    Not everything on your to do list has to happen. Missing the dr appointment is an ouch. (We’ve done it too though.) Ordering pizza is no big deal. Even leaving the basil until it rots and needs to be thrown out is not a big deal.

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  12. Even leaving the basil until it rots and needs to be thrown out is not a big deal.
    In our home, that is called “producing compost” — since we will use the compost, it is a productive activity.

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