The Challenge of Mom-ing and Working With Young Kids

Inside the toughest two work weeks I've had since my son entered the chat.

I’ve just come off of two of the most challenging work weeks I’ve had in recent memory. But, before I tell you about them, here’s a little background on what work’s been like for me since I had my son. I’m a freelance writer, but over the past two years I’ve largely been mom. Everyone can do whatever they want, every family is different, but I personally wanted to spend as much time with my son as possible while he’s little and I’ve been fortunate to have been able to do that. My husband and I had several stressful talks about how to make this happen, and eventually we worked out that I could largely be home with Louis for his first year. However, several months into motherhood and a few more stressful conversations later, I realized that I wanted (needed, as much for my own happiness as for the success of the family unit) to dip my toe back into the work pond again.

Michelle Pfeiffer in One Fine Day, which IMO is woefully underrated.

As it so happened, it was around this time that I got a second email from an editor I used to work with regularly asking if I was taking on assignments. The first email I got was when I was three weeks postpartum. She needed me to write a short, punchy bio about myself for their website. It took me weeks and several follow-up emails from her to write a few lines about how I live in L.A. with my son, husband and two cats. That was not for a lack of trying either. Believe me, I tried. At that time, my sleep-deprived brain was like a soft scramble. I admire all you bitches writing incredible essays mere weeks after giving birth, but that was not me! It took time for to get my head in the game again.

Anyway, my first two stories back in the saddle were not good. I was scatter-brained, breastfeeding several times a day, still dealing with postpartum anxiety and some depression and I was trying to write without consistent childcare. (Reading that line back was humbling.) But, I learned a lot! I learned that in order to not feel like a chicken with my head cut off I need dependable childcare and that I work so much better if I have several hours to dedicate to my writing rather than trying to cram it into two hour nap time chunks here and there (even though I very much do write during nap time, it’s nap time right now). Soon after that debacle, I did get regular part-time childcare and I started pitching stories again. Sometimes I had a lot going on and sometimes I didn’t, but regardless there was a system in place. I still felt like I was juggling, but it was a manageable juggle, which I think is what you’re always aiming for as a mom in general. But then, two weeks ago happened.