Hello world!

I wrote this letter to my future self to ensure that I never regret these years I have taken away from my career to stay home with my children. I’ve read the blog posts from women who are re-entering the work force after two, orthopedist five or ten years at home with their children. Many of them sound scared or regretful, or worse, have an awful sense of worth.

Don’t think too much of the costs of what you did. Well-written articles from major publications like to cite statistics about the cost of staying home both financially and career-wise. Those may have been good to read early in your decision-making process but they probably won’t help you now that it is behind you. You can’t calculate the return-on-investment for this.

I know that it will be easy to compare job titles and bullet points on resumes to your old classmates and colleagues. I know if I had gone back to work after my first child was born that I could have been in a fairly senior role by now.

Measuring yourself against them is only going to hurt you. Comparing yourself to colleagues and other parents is never a good idea. It is similar to hearing about a job you once had or place you once worked at going IPO. Thoughts of the raise YOU could have had or the stocks YOU could have had will drive you crazy. That’s not the path you took. Don’t weigh yourself down with envious “coulda, shoulda, woulda”.

If talked to me today, with one child in junior kindergarten and my youngest about to turn two, I would be relatively confident about my return to work. I know that I will have challenges. No one ever wants to have the dreaded gap in their resume.

Don’t shy away from the gap. Sure, minimize it on paper, but don’t be embarrassed by it. Own it. You did something rewarding, challenging, and life-changing. And you did it for free.

You did it because you wanted to do it and you were able to do it.

Don’t ever forget what your former boss said to you when you resigned. “It’s courageous.” while you didn’t get what she meant having been a parent for only ten months, you thought of her words many times over the years. Leaving a good job, with a pension and health benefits and a professional network to care for your children is courageous. It’s also completely normal. Millions or parents have done it and will continue to do it.

Always frame your time with Henry and Maeve as a positive choice. You chose your words carefully when you handed in your resignation and it made a huge difference. Instead of saying “I’m resigning.” you said, “I”ve decided to stay home to take care of Henry.” Always think of what you have and can do vs. what you haven’t done in these years.

Professionally, we make these decisions all the time. This doesn’t have to be different from choosing work that focuses on event planning vs. media relations. You will always be stronger in some areas and weaker in others.

After a long list of what not to do. Remember that you have an incredible bond with your childrene

 
Each age has its ups and downs. There are challenges unique to every age and every child and each parent will tell you that they liked certain ages more than others. I didn’t realize until a recent conversation with my four-year-old that I liked the age four so much — four-and-a-half, information pills
to be exact. I’ve surprised myself because I spent a lot of time pre-kindergarten thinking about how my baby wasn’t my baby anymore and feeling sad. He is fully a “big boy” as we like to say, click
especially because he looks more like a six-year-old.

Four seems to be about the time that your long game starts to show itself. There’s this big list of successes: potty training, teaching them to feed and dress themselves and even help with some chores. Kindergarten starts, the bus comes and takes the “big boy” off to school, mostly without incident, and they really start becoming very independent.

For me, these were all great milestones, but they paled compared to learning to read. When Henry started reading, it blew my mind. Perhaps my expectations were low, but each page he read from his books from school made me go, “Wow, yes!”

All those books we read over and over and over mean something! We loved reading to him and he clearly enjoyed it, too. And now he’s reading. My baby is reading and it feels like watching him take his first steps. No, it feels even more meaningful than those first steps because it is four years of sharing books culminating in an amazing new skill.

This age also has some very interesting conversations, like sometimes you’ll have to say, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m going to Google it and find out.” One, he knows what Google is and now googol (we looked that up). Two, you can’t really bullshit your way through how windshield washer is made, especially when he’s come up with this really imaginative answer about crushing potatoes. Three, the conversations just get better and better the more you engage.

Art projects and crafts are a lot more fun, too. Now the drawings actually look like the things he wants to draw and he’ll sit for a long time to colour or cut out things he’s come up with. For the longest time I thought I just didn’t have the kid who wanted to do those things but now he’s really into creating things and it makes my artzy-fartzy heart glow.

And one of the last (bigger things) that I love about four-and-a-half: Lego. He got “little lego” — opposed to Duplo — for Christmas and now he calls himself a “Lego-machine.” He goes to sleep with the figures and he would sit for hours, if we let him, following the instructions and putting it all together. Lego is a lot different than when I was a kid. We had a big tray with multi-coloured blocks and the special pieces were wheels and windows. We just built a police trailer with a jail and Ninjago aircraft with a spinning blade. The pieces are so tiny that now when I see a crumb or piece of fluff on the floor, I think it might be a rogue piece of lego.

I was always happy to hear parents say that they enjoy their children as older kids and even teenagers. It is very comforting to hear that parenting will be fun, just different, as your kids get older. So many older ladies and men like to sweetly tell you to enjoy these baby years. They are over before you know it. It’s hard to pick up groceries without hearing it. I don’t mind them saying it. They aren’t wrong. But it can add a little stress when you hear it and you’re not having the most harmonious day with your baby or toddler.

To hear that each age has its ups and downs is much more comforting. So, it’s okay to feel sad that your baby is growing up. I always tell my two that they will always be my babies, even when they are all grown up, though I promise I won’t climb into their bedroom windows to rock them back and forth like the I’ll Love You Forever book.

Just know that there is a lot to look forward to at every age, especially four-and-a-half.
Each age has its ups and downs. There are challenges unique to every age and every child and each parent will tell you that they liked certain ages more than others. I didn’t realize until a recent conversation with my four-year-old that I liked the age four so much — four-and-a-half, viagra sale
to be exact. I’ve surprised myself because I spent a lot of time pre-kindergarten thinking about how my baby wasn’t my baby anymore and feeling sad. He is fully a “big boy” as we like to say, especially because he looks more like a six-year-old.

Four seems to be about the time that your long game starts to show itself. There’s this big list of successes: potty training, teaching them to feed and dress themselves and even help with some chores. Kindergarten starts, the bus comes and takes the “big boy” off to school, mostly without incident, and they really start becoming very independent.

For me, these were all great milestones, but they paled compared to learning to read. When Henry started reading, it blew my mind. Perhaps my expectations were low, but each page he read from his books from school made me go, “Wow, yes!”

All those books we read over and over and over mean something! We loved reading to him and he clearly enjoyed it, too. And now he’s reading. My baby is reading and it feels like watching him take his first steps. No, it feels even more meaningful than those first steps because it is four years of sharing books culminating in an amazing new skill.

This age also has some very interesting conversations, like sometimes you’ll have to say, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m going to Google it and find out.” One, he knows what Google is and now googol (we looked that up). Two, you can’t really bullshit your way through how windshield washer is made, especially when he’s come up with this really imaginative answer about crushing potatoes. Three, the conversations just get better and better the more you engage.

Art projects and crafts are a lot more fun, too. Now the drawings actually look like the things he wants to draw and he’ll sit for a long time to colour or cut out things he’s come up with. For the longest time I thought I just didn’t have the kid who wanted to do those things but now he’s really into creating things and it makes my artzy-fartzy heart glow.

And one of the last (bigger things) that I love about four-and-a-half: Lego. He got “little lego” — opposed to Duplo — for Christmas and now he calls himself a “Lego-machine.” He goes to sleep with the figures and he would sit for hours, if we let him, following the instructions and putting it all together. Lego is a lot different than when I was a kid. We had a big tray with multi-coloured blocks and the special pieces were wheels and windows. We just built a police trailer with a jail and Ninjago aircraft with a spinning blade. The pieces are so tiny that now when I see a crumb or piece of fluff on the floor, I think it might be a rogue piece of lego.

I was always happy to hear parents say that they enjoy their children as older kids and even teenagers. It is very comforting to hear that parenting will be fun, just different, as your kids get older. So many older ladies and men like to sweetly tell you to enjoy these baby years. They are over before you know it. It’s hard to pick up groceries without hearing it. I don’t mind them saying it. They aren’t wrong. But it can add a little stress when you hear it and you’re not having the most harmonious day with your baby or toddler.

To hear that each age has its ups and downs is much more comforting. So, it’s okay to feel sad that your baby is growing up. I always tell my two that they will always be my babies, even when they are all grown up, though I promise I won’t climb into their bedroom windows to rock them back and forth like the I’ll Love You Forever book.

Just know that there is a lot to look forward to at every age, especially four-and-a-half.
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