ROBOT SMALL

I have been both a stay at home mom and a working mom in the last two and a half years. I can see the pros and cons of both. And this is why I am going to tell you something. Being a stay at home mom makes you weird. It is as if you have a job, but your co-workers are insane, and you get no breaks.

For ladies who used to have jobs and took pride in them, all of a sudden staying at home makes you idealize how your child should be raised, and try and give them this "perfect" childhood, which really can't exist in real life. Even if you are perfect, you most likely will fuck your kids up somehow. So just get over it. Even if you were perfect, probably the perfection would mess them up permanently.

To put the perfectionist mentality of the working world on your kids, and try to be the "perfect" mom will drive you nuts. The example that I see the most is the mom who refuses to leave her kids because she thinks they need her too much or that no one else can care for them, or that frankly, they will hate her for taking a break. I heard this from a lady that I met at the park in Venice. She offered to take Ivo for an hour or so, because I had to go do something, job interview or something. I offered to take her kids for about the same amount of time, and she just laughed... "No, no no.. ha ha... I couldn't do that." She explained that she had never been away from them. EVER. The oldest was 3 years old. She had never even left them with the father of the kids.

This is the most self-induced-torturous, unfair thing that I have seen women to do themselves. It's really ridiculous. TAKE A BREAK, LADIES. Swap babysitting with a friend. Let daddy take over for a while. Yeah, he will probably screw it up by your (too) high standards, but the kids will live! Maybe they will have fun eating bad food and watching all that TV. Think of it as a vacation from perfection.

I really shouldn't bitch because my mom stayed home with me and my sister and as she would tell the story, had a great time doing it! BUT the difference is, that I don't think my mom treated it like she was competing for "mother of the year". She just had fun hanging out with us, and going to the beach all the time. AGAIN, just my impression of the situation. She may correct me after she reads this...

The good thing about being a stay at home mom is that you can relive childhood fully, and really get into all the milestones and developmental stuff... and go (develop)mental yourself... AND it's only for 5 or so years max, usually, so what is that as a fraction of what your total life is? Nothing. And of course it's fun, lower stress than the working world, and just cool to bond with your kid every single day, and really get to KNOW them. Deeply.

My experience as a working mom was directly linked to the quality of the daycare I found for Ivo. I had two different nannies, and two daycares. That sounds pretty psychotic as I type it.. for a kid to have had two nannies and two daycares by the age of 2.5, but hey. Our lives aren't really that normal. (edited to add: Now he has been in THREE daycares, and two nannies by the age of 2.9... Sigh.)

If I felt like the daycare or nanny was really giving him what he needed, I was calm and able to concentrate at work, and when I saw Ivo at the end of the day, was so happy and felt so blessed to be able to spend time with him.

If the daycare was crappy, and I showed up to a dirty tired child, with head injuries on more than one occasion (this actually happened, I pulled him out of this daycare immediately of course), then I couldn't concentrate at all, and even during the day would imagine all kinds of horrible things happening to him. Being ignored and hit by other children, and all that permanent scarring that this would incur.

All I can say is that I am doing the best I can. My opinions change daily as to what the right thing would be, and my circumstances change daily as well... so I hope that all the new people, stimulation and weird about-faces are serving Ivo's overall mental health.

I think he is doing OK. Knock on wood, y'all!