I Can’t Care Anymore, I’m a Mom

For months now I’ve been harassing myself to write something for this space. It’s the latest in a string of “shoulds” with which I’ve lacquered myself since having my son. Well, becoming pregnant, really. Actually, no. Since I decided to quit my job in order to be a Stay at Home Mother.

Sorry, my 21 month-old (when do you just start using numbers?) son just interrupted me to let me know he felt like listening to music. Where were we? Oh, yes, the pressures I put on myself to write more since becoming a Stay at Home Mom. You see, part of the deal was that I’d continue my writing, some of which I’m paid for and some of which I’m not. All of which I care about greatly. Caring about something greatly — that’s a definition that’s changed a lot since having a child.

All paid writers struggle with prioritizing their writing goals. That’s a polite way of saying that they’re constantly walking the tightrope of compromise between craft and money. Stay at Home Mothers have another tight rope to walk: money and time. It takes time to produce quality content that lives up to paying standards. It’s one thing to sacrifice time with friends or balance two jobs to create this content. It’s quite another to look your baby in the eyes and tell them they need to go away so you can get work done.

Which is what I just tried. It didn’t work, but I tried.

My SAHM philosophy is simple: I am here to be with my son. My writing takes a backseat to his life and can be done while he is otherwise occupied. In theory this played out like so: The baby would nap, I would write, we’d both win. In practice I had an extremely attached child who despised napping. For ten straight months any napping he did was, quite literally, on me. When I finally got his dozy little body to slide off of me and onto our bed I just sat there next to him in shock. The day he whittled down to one solid nap I threw a party for myself- finally, the daytime sleeping fights would end.

In the midst of all this non-napping, constant attention-getting behavior my husband began working extremely long hours to finish a major work project. The nap times I thought I’d spend writing were, when they came, being spent on household duties. Evenings that could have granted some writing time were spent passing out on the couch while trying to catch up with the husband. Weekends became family time. There was, and still is, no time to write. As I told my husband, everyone in this house is rigid except for me; I’m the only flexible one around here and I’m bending so hard right now that I might just break.

Then came the sinus infection. We’re on week two now. Yesterday before snowmageddon hit I called my doctor to see if he’d be kind enough to phone in a prescription for antibiotics for me. “I’m a stay at home mother with a sick child and a husband who can’t come home. I have no coverage and even if I did, my son would scream bloody murder if I left his side and I cannot bring an already sick child to a waiting room full of sick people.” Nope. No antibiotics without an exam. Because God knows I’m not a patient with a history of sinus infections; I’m really a drug dealer looking to score some Augmentin.

In my spare moments I surf social media feeds hitting upon story after story that I’d love to comment on. In my previous childless life I would have, paid or not. Now, with no time to spare 95% of those stories get shelved and forgotten.

In my pre-baby life I once tried to explain to fellow bloggers why average citizens remained fairly clueless regarding political news. “They have kids,” I said, “they don’t have time to surf the Internet or follow breaking news on a Twitter feed.” The truth is that while most consumers get their news from the Internet, it’s probably via Facebook in those few moments they steal to watch cat videos or catch up with friends. Everyday life, the things you do have a hand in, is stressful enough. Why fill your brain with tsuris you can do nothing about?

I find myself becoming one of these people despite my best laid plans. I got rid of my personal Facebook account before my child was born. I removed Twitter from my phone and only surf via desktop computer, mainly using lists I created to focus on topics I get paid to write about. When naps do happen I’ll take 15 minutes to surf Instagram before moving on to chores.

So, while I’d love to spend more time here, more time there, more time everywhere studying and researching, analyzing and commenting I can’t. I’m a mom. 99% of my brainpower is devoted to the study and analysis of my child and that 1% simply isn’t enough to go around to every little issue I used to hold so dear. This isn’t a reason to demand political change or a plea for self care, it is the simple truth of motherhood done right: Demands have to be prioritized with the youngest and most vulnerable coming first.

The problem isn’t that I don’t have access to free daycare or universal pre-K. Nor is it that my husband isn’t “sharing home duties” or whatever argument we’re supposed to be making against men these days. The problem isn’t even that I can’t leave my son with a sitter or don’t have a friend to call to help pick up the slack. The root of the problem is that our culture has ceased to prioritize the way all good mothers do. In America we put our youngest and most vulnerable citizens dead last on the list of priorities, often to the point that we fight over the right to abort them before their lives on this earth have even fully begun. We see no value in children before they can start pulling their load or intellectually entertain us.

The real reason women send their children to Baby Mozart classes is to prove their lives matter. “Look, he’s not even 2 and he already knows the number one!” as if being smart justifies a child’s existence in a way simply being alive does not. We shuffle children from institution to institution until the age of 18 when we start paying big bucks to bigger institutions to tell them how to manage adulthood, then bitch about them when they can’t seem to make it on their own.

Our cultural investment in parenting is no better. We demand parents enslave themselves to their jobs, whether as male breadwinners or female careerists forced to take on the glass ceiling for the sisterhood, then throw an “I’m sorry” their way when their kids grow apart from them or they themselves are diagnosed with terminal cancer the minute they can finally retire. Mommy and Me programs are loaded with grandparents who could finally afford to retire and give the kind of time to grandchildren that they never had to give to their own kids who, themselves, are now busy at work repeating the cycle. We’re told to obsess over family leave policies during the first year of a child’s life; what about the next 17?

This screwed up list of priorities generates even more screwed up priorities in the form of celebrity gossip, reality television and the aforementioned cat videos. Imagine how much time we’d have to spend on issues that truly require our attention if we had the energy and focus drained out of us by a culture that pulled the plug on normal family living?

So, Twitter, Facebook, news of the day, and yes, even you Medium, I’ll be here when I can, but right now you’re not ranking very high on my priority list. Not because I don’t love you, but because I simply can’t. You’re a big kid, you can fend for yourself. Someone littler than you needs my attention right now.

Author’s Note: This essay was written over the course of 6 hours and countless interruptions.