At a time when newspapers across the country are going out of business
or laying off writers, I took a long hard look at Mama Bee's rant
against the writing moms who dare consider themselves experts on
working motherhood . . . and screamed.
At its heart, I think I understand what she was trying to say -
that there is no cookie cutter solution for the trials and travails of
the working parent. If you think a "10 Easy Tips to Wrangle Your Kids"
list is going to solve your struggles, more power to you.
But in accusing mothers who write for a living of being "profoundly
disconnected from its real trials and tribulations," she betrays her own lack of understanding of the life of a journalist.
We
work, generally far above the forty-hour work week - and not all of us
from home. In fact, a fair number of journalists work out of an office, rather than as freelancers. I consider myself lucky that I spend a few days working from
home, but it's somewhat of a misnomer - working from home often means
packing my daughter in her carseat and heading off with her to do an
interview in the middle of a barn with a farmer concerned about milk
prices, keeping one eye fixed on her at all times to make sure she
doesn't end up UNDER a cow. It means leaving my daughter with my
husband at 6 p.m. to head to a five-hour-long town board meeting where
I'll listen to politicians sniping at each other about a whole lot of
nothing instead of enjoying books before bedtime.
I know what it's like to juggle the sitter's schedule with my own,
to go rushing around to find someone to watch my daughter on a random
Monday when my daycare provider has a doctor's appointment. I know what
it's like to call my boss and say, I'm sorry, I can't go report on that
fire right now because I don't have daycare, and to hear him sigh and
know that I just lost favor that the non-parent reporters automatically
curry.
I also know what it's like to try to work from home, to sit at a
computer and try to write a story about parenting while my daughter
screams from the bathroom or shoves a cup of juice in my face and asks
for more. I know what it's like to be thisclose to missing a deadline
and have to go clean up a water spill across the kitchen floor. I chose
this, I know, but that doesn't make it any easier. And for those who
would say, well, hire a sitter on those days, I counter - where will I
get the money?
Because as a writer mom, I also know what it's like to struggle to
make ends meet. Newspapers are closing. The paper where I work has cut
staff, and that's meant more pressure on the rest of us to produce,
produce, produce. But where do I find the time? Where do I find the
supplemental income when one of the magazines I write for shuts down,
when the new editor decides she doesn't like my style as much as the
old editor?
No, I don't know what it's like to be a factory laborer, Mama Bee. I
don't know what it's like to have regular hours, when I can punch in,
punch out. News doesn't happen nine to five - and daycares don't take
kindly to you showing up at 7 because a late breaking story kept you in
the newsroom. I don't know what it's like to be a corporate drone
either, Mama Bee, to know exactly how much my paycheck will be week in
and week out, to know I can make the mortgage and the phone bill.
But I do know how to write their stories. And that's how they end up in
the newspaper, on the Web, in magazines. Because the lady working at
H&R Block might be a whizz-bang at my taxes (while I can't make
heads or tails of a W-2), but she can't write a news story.
So I write, Mama Bee, because that's my job. Which makes me a working mother.
Image: Medway
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