I work full-time as an attorney; I am a wife and have two busy children and believe I have the Schizophrenic Personality of a Working Mother.
As a result, I am nuts – not clinically, but I believe I am starting to suffer from split personalities.
I have started to feel really jealous of stay at home moms (“SAHM”).
I’m not proud of it, but I am honest enough to admit it.
My Work at home Mom friends have mixed feelings about their position in life.
Some praise and talk about the things they love about being a Wahm and some enthusiastically hate things about being a Wahm.
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The Schizophrenic Personality of a Working Mother
I often feel resentment toward the innocent group, and while I know it’s wrong to feel that way, I can’t help it.
I know they don’t intend to make me jealous or want to cause harm.
But they remind me of my guilt and the seemingly constant state of anxiety I am in.
I know they are just doing their job, but I can’t stop thinking they only have one job and they don’t run the risk of getting fired if they mess up.
My jealousy usually rears its ugly head when I am overwhelmed, tired and want to feel sorry for myself.
It happens on the days I wish I could go to a yoga class instead of running to court to argue about a thingy I could care less about.
Envy will show up in the mornings as I drop the kids off at school instead of walking them in because I don’t have time to park and get out of the car.
I can join the pity party in the middle of the day when I get a phone call from the school telling me my child doesn’t feel well.
And I ask my child if they can just hang in there until school is out so I don’t have to leave the office or try to find a relative to pick them up.
The feelings of wishful thinking come up as I drive home at 7:00 p.m. and realize I have again missed dinner with my kids.
Now I secretly pray their homework is completed because I am too tired to help them.
Why me, I ask?
I ask myself why can’t I stay at home?
Didn’t meet and marry a millionaire?
Why can’t my kids come home after school to their mother?
How did I end up juggling a demanding career and a family?
Am I doing a good enough job?
Do my kids feel bad?
Sometimes I even cry in my car as I drive to work.
But then I feel euphoric about my life.
When I am not tired or overwhelmed, I am proud of my achievements and my ability to juggle it all.
I look at my children with great pride and marvel at how wonderfully independent and confident they are in themselves.
They make me smile when I watch them perform in school plays or speak in front of a large group; I feel the pure emotion of love when I watch them play fairly with their friends.
So I pat myself on the back when I think about the caring and generous children I have raised.
When I remind myself of all the great things in my life, I realize I wouldn’t change a thing.
No, I wouldn’t quit my job to stay at home . . . maybe – Schizophrenic Personality of a Working Mother
My kids are learning the importance of hard work and discipline.
They understand the importance of an education and completing a task assigned to them.
The kids see their parents (both of them) acting responsibly, and experience the positive results of generosity.
And they understand their school work is their job and mommy has hers.
It makes sense to them – we all have responsibilities and there are consequences when their obligations are not met.
The positive aspects of being a working mom are there, you just need to find them.
Sure, I may miss some of the little moments in my child’s experience, but I make the big ones.
I never miss a performance, an award, or an important event at school.
I may miss a basketball game or a practice, but that’s okay – my kids don’t want a hovering parent watching their every move anyway.
No matter how many times I fantasize about being a SAHM, I know deep down inside, I really don’t want that job.
I want two jobs: I want my career and my family.
I may be schizophrenic – Do you want to stay at home or work??
Make up your mind, I scold myself.
But the truth of the matter is that my answer depends upon the moment and my mood.
Right now, I want to work, but when you ask me on Monday morning, I will have changed my mind.
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tbh, I really resent people who talk about “being schizophrenic” when really, they have issues sorting out conflicting priorities. It isn’t nearly the same thing as actual schizophrenia, and no, most people don’t know the difference… as evidenced by how you talk in this article. You can both have the catchy title and not further stigmatize schizophrenic people while talking about work/home conflicts. Plenty of actual schizo-form people have those same conflicts, on top of schizophrenia-type disorders. They’re not mutually exclusive, and it has nothing to do with split personalities or shifting suddenly from crying to euphoria. Those are signs of two different disorders, disassociative identity disorder and bipolar disorder respectively, if experienced with other criteria over a period of time without other factors of influence to explain them.
Being a stay at home mom, or worse, a stay at home + working mom (where you work from home) often… sucks, too. The isolation that comes with it is crippling. All your conversations become baby-focused because you aren’t out doing anything else in life. There’s nothing to talk about but your kids or something you read on the news, which was probably an advertisement for something anyways. Boring. Soon, you start losing the few friends you have… and god forbid one of your kids is disabled. My friend found that out about her social group pretty quickly.
My mother was a working mom for most of our lives, and … we hated it. Once she stopped saying “That’s the way it is, deal with it!” and started saying, “Okay, look. Here’s the deal: if I don’t, this is how our lives will change. Here’s the real bad money problem. Here’s how things work. Do you have better ideas?” OH. OKAY. Yeah, daycare is terrible and mostly full of people who hate me for being poor, but yeah, could be worse at home. Got it. You get to work, and I stop complaining so much. I became Mom#2. I started to cook, clean, and organize so she didn’t have to. Yeah, of course, now I have deep anxieties about never being good enough, but that’s manageable. Her being a single mom with four kids wasn’t, and back then, there was no such thing as “food stamps” in a rural area. That was City Stuff.
Take a breather. Manage your expectations. Give yourself 15 minutes to have a breakdown. Communicate if the kids are old enough to understand why you’re doing what you do, and how it relates to them. Give them some credit. They’re not stupid! You’re already doing your best, so you can’t do better. You made a mistake? You still did your best that day. Now what did you learn? That helps you do your best NEXT time. And again, breathe. You got this.
Wow thank you for this thorough response to our article. Perhaps I should have been clear that I am using the term “schizophrenic” as a metaphor for the roll play distractions we experience as a working Mom or as a work at home Mom.