What You Don’t Have You Don’t Need It Now

Before I had kids, I thought stay-at-home moms had the life. Laboring in my brown-carpeted cubicle, I dreamt of warm, sunny days spent pushing a stroller around town. I imagined spending cold, rainy days all snug in my house, sipping cocoa, roasting a chicken, perhaps sorting photos or sewing curtains. Except for diaper changes and feedings, my kids would play solo with their toys, nap or otherwise cooperate with my wishes.

Welcome to my fantasy.

Visits to friends with children fueled my naiveté. Carol, a former coworker turned stay-at-home mom, invited me over for lunch one Wednesday. She served a tasty pasta dish while her baby, Grace, slept in her upstairs crib. Throughout Carol’s home, glass vases and lamps sparkled, hardwood floors gleamed, counters sat organized and ready for action. A bread machine hummed and ticked, then sent warm, nutty aromas wafting through the air.

“Grace sleeps for three hours every day,” Carol beamed, her eyes serene with domestic bliss. Envy enveloped me as I trudged across the parking lot and back into my office building for another four-hour stint.

Three-year-old Olivia, my coworker’s daughter, played in her room during my visits, coming down once or twice to get a drink or charm me by demonstrating her favorite DK lift-the-flap book. My brother Mark got his four kids into bed by 7:30 without breaking a sweat, so we could enjoy fireside cocktails and adult conversation. My former boss Cynthia, calling to announce the birth of her daughter Sarah, gushed, “I’m just sitting here reading the Boston Globe and loving life!”

I began to resent my boss, who worked at home two days a week so she could care for her two kids. As I slaved in the overheated, windowless office, I imagined her in her airy family room, feet up, reading a novel and sipping tea.

Giving birth became my goal in life, the key to a cubicle-free world in which I had time to cook and clean, where the punch of time clock did not validate my existence. I envisioned productive weekdays that would let Brian and I relax at night and have fun on the weekend. “Home-cooked meals!” I promised him. “A clean house! Freedom from weekend chores and rushed takeout!”

Eight months later I became pregnant, and as my belly grew, coworkers began commenting on the “full-time job” of raising kids. “Yep, moms work morning and night, weekends and holidays,” Barry, one of the writers, chuckled. “No days off for moms.”

“Yeah, right, no days off. That’s a good one,” I said, with an insecure laugh. Raising kids can’t be that hard, I thought. What does he know?

Soon after Ben arrived, evidence of my baby ignorance mounted almost as fast as the laundry. Sure, Ben played on his own, so long as I sat within arm’s reach, staring at him. “The General” protested any attempt I made to look at a magazine, clear a dish or otherwise remove my loving gaze from him. He'd take quick, panicked breaths, causing him to honk, then hyperventilate. Then he'd start bawling, until I rescued him from his miserable minute of neglect.

Rather than napping for hours, Ben slept while nursing, then jolted awake on contact with his infant seat or crib mattress. Rather than playing with toys, he played “Pick me up and carry me around until your neck seizes and your arms fall off, or I’ll scream until you lose your mind.”

Rather than cleaning, laundering and cooking, I spent my weekdays trying to shower, brush my teeth and eat enough to prevent fainting. Rather than relaxing and having family fun, Brian spent his evenings and weekends caring for Ben while I washed dishes, vacuumed and scaled mountains of laundry. My visions of simmering pot roasts and home-baked breads crumbled into the reality of spaghetti three nights in a row, with Power Bars and canned soups rounding out the week.

That first year, I learned that one’s arm muscles do not become stronger as the baby grows. Instead, one’s joints dislocate. I learned that weekly workouts, daily showers and sitting down for a hot meal were now part of my past and my future, but not my present. I learned that I had “the grass is always greener” syndrome, and that the great vacation known as “staying home with my kids” was just a fairy-tale figment of my child-free imagination.

When Ben turned 10 months old, I got pregnant again. By accident. Ben had started napping two months earlier, so I did enjoy some quiet afternoons, complete with sitting while eating, reading and the occasional workout. But once I got pregnant, those afternoon breaks found me on the couch taking involuntary naps. Meal preparation and laundry again became insurmountable tasks. For the entire pregnancy, I wondered, “How will I ever handle two?”

One morning at about 8 o’clock, I sat at the kitchen table and watched Ben pull plastic bowls out of the cabinet, then set off after the cat. Five months pregnant, I held my head in my hands, wondering how to pass the next 10 hours with Ben.

Then I pictured myself in my past life, dressed and bathed, walking into work. I smiled as I remembered turning on my PC, heading to the kitchen for coffee and chit chatting with coworkers. I reminisced about the calm, ordered way my workdays progressed, the impromptu lunches with colleagues, my 2 o’clock dash to Starbucks for a fudge brownie pick-me-up.

It hit me how ignorant I’d been about life with kids. Here I was, 15 months later, already fantasizing about going back to work. I felt like I sucked as a full-time mom. Maybe I should send Ben and the baby to daycare, I thought, and head back to work.

I called my mom and cried. She listened to my back-to-work notion, then reminded me of what deep-down I knew: I had it pretty good. “I worked in the factory while raising my four kids. It’s a hard life,” she said. “Be careful what you wish for.”

We hung up, and I started the breakfast dishes. I thought again of my brown cubicle and my battles to stay awake while sitting inside of it for 40 hours a week. I thought, too, about the previous week, when I had turned my head just in time to see Ben walk across the family room floor and into my arms. He looked into my eyes the whole time, grinning with pride. Tears streamed down my face as I hugged him and said, “You did it! You walked!”

I finished the dishes and cranked open the kitchen window. The outside thermometer edged over the 70-degree mark. Ben toddled over and slid his hands up my legs, chanting “Uh! Uh!”

“O.K., come on up,” I said, lifting him to my hip. He pulled at my hair as I considered the way my get-out-of work-free card became the hardest job of my life. Maybe now that I understood the challenge, I could meet it. Maybe I could even be grateful for it.

“Let’s go to the park,” I said. After changing his diaper, wrestling his socks and shoes on, packing snacks and filling his sippy cup, I loaded Ben into his car seat. As I drove down my street, U2 played on the radio.

It’s a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away
It’s a beautiful day

I turned up the volume, and sang along.