Endless Guilt of the Working Mom

It's OK to work, mama. 

Everybody says it's harder for me than it is for baby, but I can't help but think how scary it is for him to go to sleep in the car with mommy and then wake up to no mommy. It's not at all that I don't love and trust who he wakes up with once I'm gone, it's the fact that I feel like I'm tricking him everyday. I know that he will adjust eventually, and I will too, but it hasn't happened yet. 

Would you be ok leaving this every day?

I will never make peace with the fact that I have to cut our morning "talks" and play time short to get ready for work. I'll never make peace with the fact that I'm missing 50 hours a week of my baby's laughs, smiles, cuddles, and even his cries. I'm not there to soothe him, or feed him, or teach him. I missed the first time he rolled from his belly to his back, and I didn't know he could do it until I witnessed it for what I thought was the first time over a week later. I have to trust that someone else is doing a great job. 

It's hard. It's hard every day. And, despite all of those moms who swear it gets easier, I say it doesn't. I know I've only been doing this for a couple of months, but I don't see an end to this guilt and sadness anywhere in the near future. 

I tell myself every morning (in a desperate attempt to keep my tears at bay as I drive away from my sweet sleeping baby) that it is okay to be a working mom. Lots of moms do it, and the children survive (and even thrive). I am doing the best for my family and I am providing what we need. I'm a teacher, so I remind myself that summer will soon be here. I try to be thankful for having a job that comes with so much time off. 

I can't say that I haven't tried to rework our family budget weekly to see if I've missed something that would miraculously change it enough to allow me to quit working. But, of course, I've missed nothing. I knew I would be a working mom before Price was born, and I honestly thought that I would need that "escape" from mothering each day to hold on to that work driven, go getter, do-it-all woman I used to be. I was wrong. The second my baby was born, I lost that woman and became "just" a mom. I'm not sad at all to have "lost" my former self. It's the best change I've ever experienced. I am more focused, selfless, and I have more love than ever before. And this is exactly what I have to remember as I leave my baby each day to go to work. It's the most selfless and loving thing I can do for him at this time in our lives. He does have to eat after all, right?