Chronicles of a Working Mom -- Part 1, Why the Blog Series?

Disclaimers:  
The purpose of this series is not to persuade people into being working moms, or moms at all!  I have the utmost respect for stay-at-home moms or women who choose not to have children.

I am also not trying to say this is what every working mother experiences.  Just like I do not claim to be able to speak for all females, all Caucasians, or all Americans, I also do not claim to speak for all working moms.  You know, like the fine print of diet plans, "results not typical."   This is simply my experience.

Want more?  Hope Community Church is doing a 5-part series on moms in the workplace.  Read about it here: http://www.gethope.net/marketplace/events.


Things I've encountered/read recently that led to me deciding to start this series:

1) Gwyneth Paltrow recently did an interview on E! about how easy it must be to be a "regular" working mom in comparison to being an actress mother.  Read this response to her interview by a writer at the NY Post.  Clearly there are some misconceptions out there of what life is like for dual-income families.

image from NY Post

2) While I was on Spring Break, several people asked me was I going to keep Tyler all week.  Enter massive Mommy Guilt for shipping my kid off to daycare while I went galavanting around town (ok, I cleaned my house and went grocery shopping and to Target).

3) Several friends on Facebook posted a link to this blog about what it's like to be a stay-at-home mom.  I thought it was really good and really informative.  I wanted to do a similar service to working moms.  I'm just more long-winded than this lady, so I'm spreading my thoughts out over several blog posts.

4) I'm doing a Bible series called She Reads Truth and one day's Scripture was Proverbs 31:10-31.  One verse stood out to me:

"She makes linen garments and sells them;

She delivers sashes to the merchant." -- vs 24

More on that later...

5) I have a friend trying to decide how parenthood will look in her household, so it's been a constant topic of discussion the past few months.



In addition, once Jason and I decided that I would keep working, we realized we didn't have a lot of working mom friends to talk to.  My sister Kara is a working mom, but her experience (working 70+ hours a week during tax season and having the two grandmothers provide free daycare) was so different than mine would be.  Several of my teacher friends also have children, but many of them took off for several years (or weren't teachers yet) when they had their children.

I now realize everyone "does parenthood" differently.  Even if our way is not "typical" (and what way is?), it's still another experience for people to read and know about.




Next up:  The Decision

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.  Please share yours in the comments section.