LADY LIBERTY
My kids are going to camp — and I’m thrilled
LAST week, the miraculous happened. All three of my children went off to all-day camp. It’s the first time in a long time I don’t have a child with me all day.
It’s been eight years since I heard the sound of silence.
I’m a work-at-home mom, so my situation is somewhat unique. For eight years I have spent whole days with my children and worked as much as I could while they slept. Editors would often get my work in the middle of the night.
I don’t have paid help, though my family comes through. My mother saw me fall apart after I had my second child and started showing up at 6:30 a.m. every morning without any discussion. I have a sibling and in-laws who pitch in a lot. I’m lucky.
But whether a work-outside-the-home mom or a stay-athome-mom or “other,” like me, motherhood is extremely time consuming and all-encompassing.
A study in March found that motherhood was the equivalent of 2.5 jobs and that mothers get a little over an hour of free time to themselves every day. An hour seems high!
Should I feel guilty celebrating my newfound freedom?
It’s trite to say I love my kids. Those words do no justice to what I feel for them. I would kill for them, die for them, listen to their stories — even the long ones that have no point.
I am an involved parent. I know the names of all of their friends. I go on field trips. I know their hobbies, interests, personality quirks, which kid eats which vegetable — and it’s a different vegetable for each. After I get them to bed I stay up late looking at their pictures. It’s an irrational, deep, exhausting love.
A Pew poll in May found that 77 percent of American adults said women face “a lot of pressure to be an involved parent.” I’m ready for a break, and I don’t feel bad admitting it.
I may get chastised by the “enjoy every moment” crowd over how I’m going to regret letting these precious moments slip away. Parents know that “enjoy every moment” is the worst advice ever. It’s the equivalent of someone screaming “smile!” at you on the street.
Am I supposed to be walking around grinning? Do I exist in some alternate universe where enjoying every moment is something even halfway logical to suggest? Who enjoys every moment of anything?
The advice is always given by an older person, wistful at how fast their own kids have grown up, and urging you to do better. Don’t focus on the dirty diapers or the bickering or how no one will ever get their shoes on until you use your crazy mom voice. Enjoy every moment! They’ll never be this cute again! They’ll be off to college before you know it! He’ll leave you and move to St. Louis with some girl he met while backpacking through Europe and only call you once a week!
I’ve enjoyed as many moments as I could, and now I’m ready for the summer of me. Unlike in “the summer of George” on “Seinfeld,” I won’t be eating a block of cheese. (Though I’m not ruling anything out.)
I’ll be working as much as usual, but now I’ll be doing all the things I’ve been too busy to do because I had kids around me all the time. I’ll exercise, because I no longer have the built-in excuse of the children. Maybe I’ll write the book I always meant to write. I’ll see friends and even listen all the way through when I have conversations with them.
I’ll look into those “podcasts” I keep hearing about. I’ll become one of those people who asks for book recommendations on Facebook, because I have simply run out of things to read and need people to suggest more material. I always hated those people.
Babyhood and toddlerhood are magical, tiring times. I wouldn’t change any of it. School will start up again in September, and I’ll be occupied again with pick-ups, drop-offs, lunch-making and everything else. My kids will continue to require a lot from me, and I’ll happily provide it.
But this summer is the first time I feel like I’m through the tunnel, into the light.
“No,” my husband corrects me. “We’ll be through the tunnel when they go to sleepaway camp.”