My babysitter Demi is a senior in high school, taking a business development course that will help her learn about a career path she is thinking about for her future. She loves kids and wants to be a nanny or a teacher, so she babysits for me and one other family for a total of 15 hours each week. She has also spent time shadowing teachers of different grade levels to see what that job is like. In between, she works with her teacher and peers to develop goals and strategies, self-assess, and think critically about ways to be an exemplary employee and find work-life balance.
I sure wish I had a class like that in high school instead of using the school-of-hard-knocks approach during my college and career development years!
This week, her homework was to interview me about my job as a mother. I had a fun time answering these questions, and found the answers to be revealing, even to myself!
1: What did you do after high school? Did you work, further your education, travel, etc?
After high school I attended St. Joseph's College in Windham, Maine. Initially I majored in Biology, thinking I would go to medical school or get a master's degree in Marine Biology, but after dissecting my first pig, I decided it wasn't the path for me! I switched gears and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1994 with a B.S. in Business, with a double major of Marketing and International Business. My college internship was 3 months spent working for the Executive Office of the President during the first Clinton administration. Living in Washington, D.C. on my own as a 20 year old, and working across the street from the White House, was an amazing experience!
After college, I worked as the Marketing Coordinator of a home health care company, eventually rising to the level of Manager of Contracts and Sales. I worked for the same company for 8 years and my job was to seek, manage and close contracts with health insurers that enabled my company to provide home medical services to patients of all ages and needs, but primarily children with complex medical issues who would otherwise be unable to live at home with their families.
The independence and financial stability of those years was fantastic! I was able to spend a month backpacking through Europe, take a few trips to Mexico, spend summers weekending on the beach in Newport with friends and winters skiing in New Hampshire. I took golf lessons, ballet lessons, painting lessons, and developed lots of new passions! I also loved daily workouts and yoga classes, and spent two nights a week volunteering at New England Medical center, playing with kids in the Pediatric ICU and rocking babies in the Neonatal ICU.
2: When did you get married and where else have you lived?
I grew up in Plymouth, MA, birthplace of Thanksgiving! My husband Marc grew up in Revere, MA, named after Paul Revere. We met in college and got married when we were 25, after dating for 8 years. We lived in the Beacon Hill section of Boston, MA and then moved to the suburbs when we started our family. In 2010 we moved to Naperville for Marc's job, and love it here!
3: How long did you wait to have your first baby?
We had Jack 3 1/2 years after we got married, when we were 29. Molly followed 3 years after that, Ben 2 years later, and Maeve 5 years later!
4: Would you ever send your kids to daycare?
Why or why not?
Because I left the workforce to stay at home, I didn't need to send my kids to daycare. That wasn't luck, it was a conscious choice that we'd prepared for, emotionally and financially, for the three years we were married prior to having kids. But it wasn't because we felt one option was inferior to the other, it was because it was a lifelong goal of mine to spend these growing years with my kids, both for my sake and theirs.
If I ever needed to use daycare, I would take my cue from my many girlfriends who did not leave the workforce when they became parents and used a variety of child care options to make sure their children were well cared for, from full time live-in nannies to live-out nannies, to family, babysitters, in-home daycare, center daycare and so on.
5: If you were a working mom, who would watch your kids?
If family wasn't an option, I'd probably use a combination of a live-out nanny (especially for the baby days when bonding is so important and their immune system is developing) coupled with center-based Daycare There is a daycare center in Naperville named Compass that teaches children based on a Reggio-Emilia inspired curriculum, which is exactly how I play-teach-inspire my kids, so it would be a great fit!
6: What is the difference between having 3 kids to having 4?
There isn't much difference between having 3 and 4, but the jump from 2-3 is monumental! That's when you have to switch from a "man-to-man" to a "zone" defense. After 3, 4 is pretty easy! That said, a lot of the ease of parenting depends on the ages and personalities of the children in the family. Stronger personalities make things more challenging, and very young, or very spread out ages, make things more challenging too!
7: What is the hardest thing about being a mom of four children?
The logistics of caring for four children is a big challenge - some days it feels like I never leave the kitchen, never find the bottom of the laundry pile, never have the house properly picked up, or never get out of the car. The physical work is far greater, and far more boring than I ever imagined. Staying motivated is HARD.
But the biggest challenge is probably caring for the emotional needs of four incredibly different personalities. Before I had children I was convinced that nurturing them was the biggest factor in ensuring their development into fabulous human beings. I thought I could shape their personalities, desires and actions in the image I wanted.
After having children, however, I realize that while nurturing is a factor, NATURE is a far more potent factor. They come with their personalities and desires already formed, and that isn't likely to change no matter what kind of nurturing I do as their parent. Nurturing, instead of changing who they already are, softens their edges, fortifies their strengths, and strengthens their weaknesses.
The most challenging part of this type of nurturing is the discipline factor. How can you be strict and yet understanding at the same time? How do you keep a fair system while differentiating it for four different personalities who all require different approaches? How do you maintain order while still enabling children to make their own choices?
Ten years in, I still don't have it figured out!
8. Do you have any future work goals?
I'm at the end of my baby years now, and in another 4 years will have all four kids in school full time. It's both exciting and sad at the same time, to say goodbye to one phase of life and move on to the next. My years spent mothering have taught me much, and given me new talents and skills that I hope to build into a new career.
My plan is to start my own photography business, taking beautiful, natural-light portraits of families and children throughout Chicagoland. I'll never stop loving babies and kids, so just like my volunteer jobs before I had my own kids, photography will allow me to be involved with kids of all ages. My favorite part will be working with new babies!
