Lament Of A Working Mom

While I enjoy reading other people's blogs that include rants about various things that annoy them, as of yet I haven't written any posts that would fall into that category. (The closest to a rant would probably be complaining about my dogs destroying Christmas trees or stealing muffins.)

As any working parents know, juggling work and family schedules can be challenging. My daughter is now 9, and for some reason things seem to be getting tougher.

When I came back to work after a 3 month maternity leave, I was determined to handle it all. I continued nursing exclusively, refusing to give up and rely on formula. I had milk pumping and storage down to a science. I never gave my kid a single drop of formula. She slept straight through the night. I was excelling at my job. This working mom thing isn't so tough, I thought.

I still think I'm doing OK with balancing things as far as "getting it all done" goes. Not great, but at least keeping my head above water. But lately I've been running into situations that really are just impossible for working parents.

It's just little things. Like the cast party for the play that someone was thoughtful enough to schedule at 3:30. The tennis lessons that would be really fun, but start at 4:00pm. The awesome horseback riding camp that is 9:00am--Noon Monday--Friday.

I don't need my child to be completely over scheduled, with an activity happening nearly every night of the week. I just want to be able to say yes more than I have to say no when she asks about getting involved in something. Instead, I always have to say "We'll see, let me look into it" and then hope that whatever it is happens after 5:30pm or on a weekend.

Lately I've just been feeling like the only Mom that acually has to be at work from 8 to 5 every day. Well, maybe not the only one, but certainly feeling like I'm in the minority.

So even though no one that could matter will ever read this, I'm going to pretend for a moment that they will. Planning summer activities for children? Well, in addition to the "Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:00am--11:00am" option, why not throw in a 6:00pm--7:00pm option? Does the swim team need to practice exclusively weekday mornings in the outdoor pool? What's wrong with an evening or Saturday morning in the indoor pool instead? And most importantly--if it's a one-time event for something my kid is already involved in, DO NOT schedule the ending celebration at 3:30pm on a Wednesday. Is that so much to ask?