The Mommy War Within

Whenever I come across statements such as “I feel so blessed to be able to stay home” or “I feel so lucky to be raising my own children” from stay-at-home-moms, I always feel a mixture of incomprehension, self-doubt, and wonder tinged with a bit of jealousy. These feelings have been made more intense recently by the fact that I’ve started working full-time again, six months after giving birth to Jojo, my second child.

I ask myself upon reading these statements, why do these moms feel blessed to stay home? Is there some kind of blinding euphoria in parenting that I just happen to miss? Sure, I love my children, but I’ve found that for the most part being a mom to small children meant dealing with rather tedious and mundane tasks such as changing diapers, wiping messes off floors/tables , and stopping the children yet once more in the middle of a potentially harmful act, day in and day out. I experienced my worst and darkest moments in life after I became a mom: post-partum emotional roller coaster was a bitch, but not compared to the frustration and the humiliation when dealing with a child’s temper tantrum in public, or

the crumpling guilt after spanking a child out of anger. I admit that once in a while I experience a transcendent moment of joy when my children do something really clever or give a glimpse of the kind, loving adults they might turn into someday, but for the most part parenting really drains me. To be a stay-at-home-mom, at least at my current stage in life (or to be more precise, perhaps, at my children’s current age), would lead to consequences I’m simply not willing to find out.

Yet it seems that in the United States, more moms than not stay at home and my impression has always been that people accept that practice as the best for children. My incomprehension lead to self-doubt, because I figured that I must have some kind of deficiency when it comes to parenting and therefore, I am probably not that great of a mom, especially when overwhelmed by impatience, fatigue and stress.

I knew, before having children, that I would probably be a working mom. I became more certain after the birth of my first child. Given my honest feelings about parenting, to be a stay-at-home mom would be ruinous for both my children and me. However, that wasn’t the only reason. Having been raised by Chinese parents who both worked, I am practical to a fault. Working would give our family more options; it would take some pressure off of my husband, whose company’s up-or-out culture is a constant source of stress. Having a second income made the rise in tuition rates more bearable and the uncertainties in the future less worrisome.

There is no need for me to list all my reasons—mine are common to the ones found on most working-moms’ list. One more reason that ought not to be is that if I didn’t work, my parents, especially Mom, would be aghast that her daughter has wasted a first-class education. More than the regret that she would lose bragging rights in front of her friends because I wouldn’t amount to anything professionally, she would worry that I’d regress to a haggard, nagging and plump housewife who’s only capable of conversing about produce prices and children’s mischief.

I have doubts whether I could have afforded to work back in Silicon Valley. With two very small children, exorbitant nanny salaries and/or preschool tuitions in the area, no family nearby to help, and a husband with a demanding job, I couldn’t really conceive of a job that would pay enough to cover the cost of working AND afford me enough free time to be a caregiver, primary or at all. Our solution, in the end, was to move all the way to China to be close to my parents.

Here in China, help is definitely affordable. I have two live-in nannies, both family relatives, as well as a full-time driver. More importantly, my parents are always willing and able to pop in to help whenever we need. I actually feel blessed that I will be able to return to work. However, sometimes I fear that by working I will be too far removed from my children’s daily lives and it’ll be my nannies who end up raising my children. Having help is great and even necessary when you live in a dusty city such as Beijing, but it definitely gives my children a warped sense of reality, something that tends to happen to children of privilege. Already Juju thinks that she is second-in-command at home after me, and that it’s perfectly normal for her two-year-old self to direct her nanny to mop the floor or wipe the windows. The few times I caught her I gave her a stern admonition, but I know, without a doubt, that when I am absent my nannies are simply too soft with her out of adoration for her as well as deference to me, despite my pleas for them to discipline her as needed. As for my son, I know that I will miss developmental milestones: the first time he mumbles a word, the first step he takes, the next round of vaccinations and more. Just this past week he started to crawl but I wasn’t there to witness it until he’s had a few days to practice. I felt a pang of regret and sadness not to have been there to cheer him on, but to be perfectly honest, that feeling wasn’t as catastrophic as some had described it, and certainly not enough to make me want to quit working altogether.

When I told my colleagues at my demanding new job with long hours that I have two small children, nobody reacted the way I would have expected from some people back in the United States. Here in urban China, stay-at-home moms, rather than working ones, are the exception, not the rule (maybe a blog topic sometime in the future if there is enough interest). This doesn’t mean people are not judgmental; it just means that they are judgmental with different standards. In a metropolitan city such as Beijing, parents encourage their daughters to pursue professional development; when women stay home after having children, usually it is not by choice. I have a cousin who has been a stay-at-home mom for the past five years (not by choice), and she has been the black sheep in the family for just as long. Because childcare is more available and affordable in China, people tend not to be as forgiving to women who stay home with the children.

I have a suspicion that I can’t validate, and perhaps it is due mostly to my own bias, but I suspect that more women would willingly choose to be working moms if childcare options in the U.S. were more available and affordable. In fact, not only do working moms need help with childcare, stay-at-home moms do, too. Parenting is a difficult job, and no help is ever too much help. Delegating some of the more mundane tasks to others and having someone else on the child rearing team have helped me cope physically as well as emotionally. I have more energy when I am with my children and I don’t feel as frustrated or desperate when they are difficult. I also suspect that the so-called “Mommy Wars” wouldn’t have been so heated or rampant if moms had more help. My suspicion is based on the fact that I most resented stay-at-home moms for saying they were happy, or blessed, or fortunate to be there for their children when I felt alone in my miserable struggle to handle a demanding professional life alongside a child who was ill, back when I only had daycare, which promptly handed a sick child back to the parents. That was when the wisdom of their choice seemed to so obviously stare me in the face, and I felt insecure and started doubting mine. Mommy wars are the result of tired, overworked moms.

In moments I feel that I might be crushed by what I think how I am judged as a mom, by others as well as myself, or when I worry that my nannies will never be as good as me for the children, I take relief in my own mother’s example. She has been a working mom ever since I was born, except for a few months’ hiatus here and there. When she had to accompany my dad on overseas assignments, I was left in the care of my (very irresponsible) grandparents. Still, I always thought that she was the best mom that I or any child could have had and there is no doubt in my mind that I was raised by her and no one else. There certainly were relapses in my upbringing when she was absent, but since the times spent with her were always the best they could be, I never veered too far from the right direction. Because I was safe and resolute in knowing that my mom loved and cared for me, I didn’t need her to be there for every significant moment in life or be the only one I turn to in moments of need. It seems perfectly simple reasoning that each mom (and dad) needs to find her own parenting approach and then make the lifestyle choice that makes sense, and yet I had always been looking for the absolute right choice, feeling suspicious and insecure when I see others so sure and content in their choices, especially if it’s a choice for which I have no desire. A short while ago I finally had the long overdue epiphany that the only worry I ought to have is how my own children might judge me as a mom someday, especially after they become parents themselves, and all I need to do now is be the best working-mom I can be.

Ivy, recently relocated to Beijing, is one of several contributors to Silicon Valley Moms Blog who have recently moved away from the valley and provide a fresh perspective to those still in the valley.