Today is such a special day.  April 1, 2004 was my last day of professional work and every year since, I have remembered that day.  As April progresses, I remember how I was feeling – excited and scared to have a baby – and I get a little melancholy.  What a special time that was and what an adventure it’s been since then!

In January 2006, I wrote the following piece and it still holds true today.  As I read the part about “living below our means,” I look over to our tile floor which has electrical tape on it to “temporarily” fix some broken tiles and I just laugh.  I’m sure if I was working, that second income would have resulted in that tile being replaced in a respectable about of time.  But, in exchange for hideous broken tile, and excessively stained carpet, I got four years of craziness and fun with my now two kids.  Sure, a little more prettiness around the house would be great, but it’s simply not a priority right now.  Who knows if it will ever be!  What a luxury that will be to worry about that one day!

I hope moms who are struggling with this decision find their own peace.  It’s a huge, scary decision, but I’m so glad I made the choice I did.

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Before I quit my job, there were so many things bouncing around in my hormonal head: balance, having-it-all, feminism, power, money, prestige, image, status, stuff, wearing suits to work, equal work for equal pay, letting down the sisterhood, being the little woman, wasted education, what would I do all day?, giving it all up, living on less, brain atrophy, shopping at Wal-Mart, reading Ladies Home Journal, do smart women quit?, isolation, boredom, jealousy and I looked around and saw women I knew who had kids and worked full-time and they seemed perfectly happy.  My chiropractor said she didn’t know anyone who didn’t work at least part-time.  People told me I was to smart to be “just a mom.”  Why should I have to give anything up?  Why couldn’t I too have it all?

I thought about quitting and working from every angle, but the more I thought, the more I was confused.  There were to many things to consider.  To many unknowns.  Then I had a revelation: time.  How did I want to live my life?  There are only 24 hours in a day.  How did I want to spend that time?  I had to decide what was important to me and being a lover of lists, I had to write it down:

• My husband
• Our child(ren)
• Our home
• Our health
• Our friends & family

And then I had to think about what my life would be like if I worked full-time…

• Little to no quality time with husband
• Little to no quality time with child
• Little to no time to maintain our home
• Little to no time to exercise and cook
• Little to no time with friends and family

And then I asked myself, would I be honoring my priorities by working full-time?  Is it possible for me to say that my family was the most important thing, yet spend most of my waking hours apart from them?  If having a big house, new cars, living in a prestigious neighborhood, and stroking my ego were on my list, working would support those priorities.  But the fact was, the things on my list had nothing to do with money, they had to do with family.  It was then my choice became so clear.

Now I sit here with a 21 month old daughter and I have absolutely no regrets.  I walked away from a job that I loved.  That I literally built from the ground up.  That really was my first baby.  I was a mapping goddess, a super dork, a demographic diva.  And even after a six month maternity leave, when I flipped back and forth in my mind a hundred times whether I should work or not, I cried in front of my boss as I finally quit.

As I drove away from the office for the last time, the most incredible feeling swept over me as this tremendous weight lifted off me: I have the rest of my life.  I was so happy.

I had this incredible opportunity to work, learn, make money, spend money, meet an incredible group of people and have a lot of great experiences as well as late nights.  Now I begin the next chapter of my life.  Now I could totally focus on being the best mom I could be.  There would be no juggling, no balance, only the choices I made every day.

I have been there to nurse K down for every nap.  I have been with her every day to watch the subtle changes in her development.  The beginning of each new phase, new word, new gesture, new shoe size.  I have been there to watch her transition from crawling at the park, to walking, to running to the highest slide on the playground as my heart jumps.  Making oatmeal for breakfast.  Waking up to K’s voice, not an alarm clock.  Afternoons at the park.  That is the reason why I chose to become a mom and I get to experience it all, guilt free.

The “you can have it all” mentality has not be liberating for women, in fact it has been harmful.  It has mislead many women who found that they couldn’t have it all and felt like they were failures.  It gave us an unrealistic expectation of ourselves.  Women of my generation were raised to believe that it was a given that we would work full time, be married, have kids, and be totally happy doing it.  I hear the words “balance” or “juggle” a lot, but never anything to imply that women were not doing 100% in terms of their responsibilities at home or at work.  But the fact is, you can’t build a house and practice opera at the same time.  I can’t write this and read a story to my daughter.  Every moment of the day, we have to make a decision on how we are going to spend that time and any time you decide to do one thing, you are simultaneously deciding NOT to do everything else.  I didn’t want to go to work and have someone else be a mom to my child as I was being an employee.  Ultimately, my greater allegiance is to my daughter.

For me, the whole idea of “having it all” means living a more relaxed, peaceful lifestyle.  Living below our means, saving, and retiring early.  I don’t want to be running from work to daycare to the kitchen to here to there to this thing and that thing.  I want a simple life.  I want a life that when I’m dying, I will be pleased with the choices I made.  When faced with a difficult decision, I often think, “What would I be proud to know I did when I’m dying?”  Whenever I wonder if I should have quit to not – and it has been something that I thought a lot about – I always reflect back to that and it helps make things clear.

While I might regret quitting my job and not pursuing my career, I would definitely mourn missing out on my child’s life.