Birds of a Feather

Wikipedia says migration “refers to directed regular or systematic movement of a group of objects, organisms or people…” This sounds kind of familiar to me, since I spend my days among a large number of women who were once professionals but who now focus most of their time and energy on raising children. We all migrated out of the working world, and some (but not all) of us want to migrate back. Of course, the landscape we find when we return will be different, and we will have changed too. After eight years in Mommyland, I am not the same person. I am older, truly wiser, and have been dealing with a completely different set of responsibilities than when I was a childless young adult. My husband and I have taken on a variety of more complicated investments and debts, for example, including mostly house and cars. But we also have two growing children and have tackled many issues surrounding the aging of our own parents, such as illness, broken bones, and unfortunately, death. I have gained and lost friends, family members, and weight, and grown in ways I never could have predicted. I found half of my biological family (I was adopted at birth), and have considered contacting the other half. When a person opts out of the working world, their growth is not stunted, but it changes its trajectory. If an individual stays home to care for a family member, young or old, family then inevitably becomes more of a focus in their life. One challenge in returning to work will be to uphold the expectations of those family members, or perhaps to manage those expectations, while migrating to a new focal point in my life.

My husband gave me a pep talk over lunch today, trying to allay my fears that everything I have built at home will fall apart when I am no longer around 24 hours a day. He is mostly concerned about how I will handle the challenges I face at work, while I have much less anxiety about actually doing a job than I do about how our kids (and we) will react to our new situation. Perhaps that is one of the most significant reasons why I have stayed away from work this long. Plenty of people, working and not, leave their kids with sitters all day, or for parts of days, and it works out. My girls will be better off if I can get over my fear of leaving them and feel confidence about the positive big picture, long-term effects of having a more intellectually fulfilled working Mom.