Three and a Half Months as a Working Mom

When my first child was born, I was still in college; which meant I had to put off being a SAHM until after I graduated. I didn't want to overload myself with either homework or learning how to be a mom, so I cut back on my school work by only taking 6 credits a semester. Even though this pushed back graduation, it allowed me to do well in my classes while still taking care of my son. Also, I only had class 2 or 3 times a week and my son was never at the babysitter's longer than 4 hours.

My last semester of college was student teaching. This meant that I would be gone from 7:30am-3:30pm Monday-Friday for three and a half months. I was going to briefly experience what it is like to be a working mom. Luckily I had found a babysitter that my son LOVED, so I wasn't worried about him. What I was not prepared for was how this would take its toll on me and the state of my home.

For the first couple of weeks things were fine. I was tired due to lack of sleep, but I was still cooking and cleaning and keeping up with everything - mainly because I was still team teaching with my mentor teacher and using his materials. Once I was given more responsibility and control of the classroom, I began to struggle at home. Also at this point I had hit the nausea state of my second pregnancy. I spent my evenings lesson planning and then going straight to bed because I was so tried and sick. This caused my domestic responsibilities to fall behind.

I slowly stopped cooking, cleaning, and taking care of my son. My husband did a great job of taking care of our son. He bathed him, fed him, cleaned up after him, and played with him. But my husband also had to work and didn't have endless time to step up were I had stepped down. On the weekends he helped pick stuff up, but during the week, our home was a disaster area. Halfway through the second month of student teaching I was doing the bare minimum at home: dishes and laundry.

At the beginning of the third month of student teaching, my mom came to the rescue. For two weeks, my mom brought dinner over for my family. I can never thank her enough for helping me out during such a stressful time. I was able to get my home back in order during spring break and ended student teaching with both my school life and home life doing well. I am so looking forward to graduation and spending the summer preparing for my second child!

This was quite an experience for me. There were many times where I felt like a terrible mom because I neglected my son and my home while finishing school. Both my husband and my mom constantly reminded me that I was doing fine, I was pregnant and in school, no one was judging me. Throughout this time, I kept thinking to myself, "I don't know how working moms do it." What working moms do is really quite amazing. They work all day, and then come home to take care of their family. And they do this year after year - I only did it for three and a half months and failed miserably.

Now this was only my experience. I don't think that working moms have messy homes or neglect their kids. I fully believe that they have a system down that works for their family. And I'm sure that if I wanted to work after graduation or if I needed to, I would figure it out as well. But for the short amount of time that I walked in a working mom's shoes, my eyes were opened. And I want to say something to working moms: I applaud you. I commend you. I respect you. I know that you work so hard and that you love your families so much. I know that there are stressful moments, but you are still amazing. You are good mothers. Don't let anyone tell you different.