So let me start this off by saying this isn't a working mom vs. stay at home mom debate but geesh being a working mom and having sick kids is a struggle! Every time one of my kids gets sick I hope and pray it will fall on a weekend. If it falls on a weekend it is a Jackpot but if it falls during the week when my husband and I work it is a crap shoot. If your house is anything like mine the conversation always goes like this, " ________ is sick can you take the day?" 99 times out of 100 my husband can't take the day because he works two jobs and something important is always going on at one thing or the other. Now here's the kicker....I get plenty of sick days but if I actually use them well, then, that is an issue. If my children actually decide to get sick a few times a year then I have the chance of being called in by the "powers that be" for using the days that are allotted to me. Believe me, I would love to use my sick days to jet off to some private island but instead I am doing the Tylenol/Motrin dance every four hours with a feverish child who is spitting said medicine back at me because they are sick of taking it. Wow, what a vacation that is! I wish that when my child was sick I wasn't praying for them to get better so that I didn't have to take more sick time off. I wish that I didn't have anxiety the second they say they are sick because I know I will have more work to go back to if I take a day off. I wish the US was more respectful of working mothers and actually valued the fact that we show up every day to do our jobs and then go home to another job. Being a working mom is a struggle because you always feel as if you are not giving 100 percent at home or 100 percent at work; neither is an ideal option. I know that one day when I don't have young children, who are in daycare because I work, they won't be as sick but for right now it is an issue that consumes me and that I have no perfect answer for. I wonder if all working moms have this struggle and it consumes them as well? I pray that one day businesses will take stock in the fact that working moms are amazing creatures who want nothing but the best in all aspects of their life and they realize that when mama's happy, everyone's happy! One day it will happen, one day!
