Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Terrace on the Twentieth Floor 8:42:43 PM    comment [] Changing My Mind about Full-Time Mothering I was lucky. Before I had my first daughter, I had assumed I would want to go back to work when she was about six months old. Instead I fell madly in love with her and mothering and didn't return to work even part-time until my fourth daughter was six. This was 16 years later. I could afford to change my mind.  My husband had a good job as a radiation physicist; we lived frugally. For the first eight years we raised the daughters in a city apartment. We didn't buy a house or own a car until me moved from Manhattan to Bangor, Maine.  But we had enough extra for toys and books and records and Christmas trips to see the Nutcracker.. We took vacations with my parents, who financed them. We did our own cleaning; we rarely ate out. The girls went to public schools even when we were unhappy with their classes. I have never regretted that decision to embrace full-time motherhood even after a divorce after 28 years of marriage left me economically vulnerable. I don't think my quirky, highly individual daughters would have done well in day care or with a succession of nannies. Motherhood has been an enthralling, maddening, challenging, stimulating adventure during which I have grown along with my daughters. 6:57:05 PM    comment []

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