Re:  Georgie girl’s post

http://www.georgiegirlnyc.com/post/1271316762/first-week-of-work#disqus_thread

First Week of Work

Well…..I survived my first week of work!

A number of friends had told me that the anticipation was far worse than the actual going back.  They were right.  I was in floods of tears last week because I absolutely did not want to go back to work.  I was completely distraught.  When I also found out that I had to go on a business trip to Kansas City during my second week, the floodgates opened.  I sat in a pool of tears wailing ‘I CAN’T LEAVE MY BABY!’

Then I put my big girl pants on (and lovely high heels) and just got on with it.

I tried to think of the positives of working.

• wearing high heels

• earning money (to pay for the high heels)

• having a cup of tea at my desk in complete peace, without fear of a baby waking from her nap and requiring immediate attention 

• chatting and laughing with my colleagues 

• going on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Banana Republic on Fifth Avenue with Berry

• carrying a handbag that is not full of baby crap (I honestly don’t know what I put in my handbag before baby)

The biggest positive of all is that I am working part-time.  I have every Friday off to spend with my baby girl.  It’s challenging from a work perspective to be part-time.  It takes both flexibility and firm-ness on my part.  But it’s totally worth it.  My four day workweek flew by and I was ecstatic to come home last night knowing that I had three whole days to spend with my family.

_______________________________

http://www.dad-isms.tumblr.com/post/701070891/pretend-you-went-shopping-for-a-new-car-one-day

M’am, 

I wouldn’t dignify my response with a response back, however, I have to agree with your critics.  I am 38 and three kids of my own, so take this with a grain of salt.  

People my age were really the first ‘day care’ generation of the 20th century.  In times past, men were looked down on as not being good providers if they had children AND their wives worked.  After the women’s lib movement of the 1970’s, all of that changed, in my (implied) Neanderthal opinion/judgement, for the worse.  

 What is troubling to me is the ‘fruit’ that bares out of this “we have to have two incomes (Mr. Cleaver)” mentality when you look back at the cost of things and the tax structure of say…the 1950’s (which was hugely penal), which in turn is usually cited as the reason for knowingly having a child and pre-planning months in advance to go back to work anyway.

I have attended several major conferences over the past few years and have listened to owner after owner of companies complaining in roundtable discussions about the work ethic, attitudes, disconnectedness, the lacking of very basic manners, and the overall “screw it” etho that was (in my opinion) born out of this phenomenon.  

My wife and I decided years before my first child was born that if we were going to have a child, we were going to raise the child ourselves, financial ruin/stuff/status be damned!  

What is (still) not strange thinking back now was the missed income and lifestyle we ditched?  My wife graduated high school with straight A’s in three years, she graduated college in three years with a single B in Tennis (of all things), and then by 20 1/2 years old, she attained a Masters Degree.  She could have wrote her own ticket in the job market and we could have afforded pretty much whatever we wanted but she decided to forgo the 150k job at twenty-four years old to raise and home school (I know - what freaks!!!) our daughter.  

I would have sold our house and moved to a smaller one, picked up another job, and lived paycheck to paycheck to keep my daughter with her mother daily.  I would not change that decision for a million dollars right now, and if my wife were alive (she passed away a little over three years ago), she would say the same.  

I am not going to cite articles for you, because you know in your guts how critical the first few years are to a child vs. hearing the gossip of your colleagues at work.  Like it or not, children bond to nannies/day care workers and often take on mannerisms and little quirks (good and bad) of the person or people taking care of them.  I wanted my children to be as much like their mother as possible.  I wish the same for you.

I can’t wrap my mind around how great it is to wear high heels vs. taking a walk with my daughter in flip flops?  

I can’t sympathize with how cool it must be to have a $12 lunch at Panera bread vs. eating a ham and cheese with my daughter while watching Lifetime at home?

I love that my children have “baby crap” all over my work vehicle and their washable crayon pictures are prominently displayed on my windows daily.

Once little moments pass, they can never happen again for the first time.

Children could care less about an extra TV or whether a polo man is on their shirt vs. a shirt bought from Target.  If they could speak they would choose you over anyone.  

I don’t want you to “get over’” crying and missing your daughter.  I don’t want you to become callous at some point to the fact that many “first’s” will be phoned, texted messaged, or sent to you via a picture by your nanny.

How saying these things can be construed as being mean is what is wrong today with our society.  I am begging you to be with your daughter and I don’t even know you?  Yes, stuff/house/nice car be damned!

Raising a child is 24/7 is tough!  My wife told me on many occasions how “lucky I was to be at work and do what I wanted”…and I told her how special and proud I was of her for choosing to be “weird or abnormal”.  Her job was one thousand times more valuable than mine and I am forever grateful that we chose this path despite what has become socially expedient and acceptable.  

You know how people say, “nobody on their death bed ever wishes they would have spent more time at the office”?  

I have yet to meet a mother out of all of the one’s I have known that has chosen to stay at home with their child say, “God, I wish I would have went back to work instead of stayed at home with my child”. 

Joe

the Dad-isms guy

http://www.dad-isms.com