Working with a Child

Mothering Magazine recently published an article and a slideshow showing women at the workplace with their child(ren) in tow. There's an interesting post and discussion about this on Half Changed World about this idea, and the feasibility of it.

Personally, I think that the second comment on this post sums it all up quite well - this all is getting rather ridiculous. First, we were supposed to be superwomen by having children and working, now we are supposed to bring our children to work with us?? Next we'll have to work, take our children with us, and homeschool all at the same time! This just all seems so unrealistic.

This whole idea of how to blend working and childrearing is something I've been thinking a lot about the past couple of days. I think I may have a job offer for a part time position, and I'm trying to decide what to do. There's a certain attraction to going back to work, even though the position isn't exactly my heart's desire. But it would be interesting enough, and the money would be nice to have. My mom's offered to take my daughter while I would be working, and it would give us the money to enroll her in the Montessori program that we've been interested in, but unable to afford (well, we could stop saving for college/retirement, but that seems rather dumb). It would be quite a change though, for all of us. But maybe it would be a change for the better? I really don't know.

Part of my problem is that I have two competing and mutually exclusive visions for what I want - one where we're living on a couple acres in the mountains near a small town, homeschooling our four children, and with a nice cozy home, a big veggie garden, etc. etc. etc. The other one has us living in a somewhat urban environment, preferably in cohousing, with just one or two children who go to a private or charter school and with me working at least part time. So, yeah, at some point we need to pick which vision we're going to go for. At this point, we're heading towards option number two, and me taking this job would push us even further in that direction. However, we're not far enough along on this path that we couldn't still change our minds, and I think that's what makes this more difficult. Each big decision (moving, working, preschool) pushes us a little more in one direction, without us having actually made the full commitment to one choice over the other.

Sometimes I think I would just like to stop time for at least a couple days so I could just stop and ponder for awhile!