Some days the only time I have to spend with my children is during their bedtime ritual. It is odd that the beginning of our day is the end of theirs. We have a dinner, where some overcooked pasta, diced veggies, or broken meatballs end up stuffed in toddler cheeks, a sippy cup is tossed off the tray and repetitively retrieved, and I manage to pretend enjoying whatever it was I ate between all the exercise this mealtime dance offers me. We then go upstairs for bathing, playing, slathering with Aquaphor, wrestling into pajamas, and reading a story. While my husband and I often share many of these duties, they are all precious to me. They are the way I say, “I may have been gone all day, but I’m here now and I love you.”
As we read together, I think about the message that each book conveys and how these stories will shape the people they become. I spent a long time looking online for children’s books about working moms and was dismayed to find a very small selection. A friend gave me one about a mom’s high heel shoes and while this one acknowledges that the mom leaves for work, looking stylishly uncomfortable, it doesn’t address any of the other issues around separation. It doesn’t explain who will fill mom’s shoes while she’s gone and what that does to the structure of your day or why a mom might choose to work and how that makes each family member feel. A friend said that my oldest wouldn’t need a book about that because it’s all he’ll know, which is true since I went back to work when he was 6 weeks old, but I don’t think I’ll get off that easy! Given that I have a lot of questions about this decision myself, I can only imagine that my little ones will too.
I’m still crafting my answers to all those questions, but the bedtime story I tell myself is that my working will teach them ambition, dedication, passion, sacrifice, pride, equality, happiness, and honor, because that’s what it has taught me.
What My 5 Year Old Is Reading Now:
Lego City book series
What My 2 Year Old Is Reading Now:
Books With Working Moms:
The Berenstain Bears and Mama's New Job
Oh yeah, I read books without pictures too:
Tiny, Beautiful Things: Advice on Life and Love from dear Sugar
[A version of this article was posted on 4/29/12 on Mommy Call here.]
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