working moms – Starshine Roshell

I have an ugly secret: For 18 years, I’ve felt like a fraud both at home and at work.
From the moment I became pregnant with my first child, who graduates high school next week, I’ve had the unshakable sensation that I’m faking big chunks of my life, playing the part of a competent and confident mother and professional — but in fact always shortchanging someone their due: arriving late to work after delivering a forgotten lunchbox to school, darting out of a too-long meeting to arrive at the school awards ceremony 30 seconds after they call my kid’s name, emailing with the college counselor when I’m supposed to be watching that IT training, or grinning robotically through my son’s trumpet-lesson story at the dinner table when my mind is on that proposal I need to finish by morning.

You over there. That’s right, you in the velour hoodie with the Venti Macchiato. I have to talk to you.

And you, too: The one dashing off to your car as fast as your pressed pencil skirt will let you run. Slow down for a second. You need to hear this.

It’s drop-off time at school and, like most mornings, little circles of stay-at-home moms are pooling by the gate, near the office, in the parking lot. In pony-tails and baseball caps, they make playdates, share stories about head lice and commiserate over soccer schedules.

A working mom skitters past in a tailored suit and gleaming pumps. She’s late for a meeting, but dials up a smile for the chatter-clatch moms, who wave at her. One of them — a petite brunette with no make-up and a dollop of crusted oatmeal on her yoga top — hollers over her shoulder in a tone that wasn’t intended to sound bitchy: “Wow. Don’t you look nice.”

But between those five seemingly innocuous words lies the ugly tension that exists between moms who punch a timecard and moms who don’t. And it’s really rather stupid.

Tag: working moms

Maxed Out: Is System Rigged Against Working Moms?

Mom Envy