The Great Debate

Yesterday afternoon I was speaking with a coworker about the whole triplet thing. She asked when I'd be leaving and I said probably mid-June and I'd be gone probably until close to the end of the year. She looked horrified and said, "I would expect that you'd be out a good deal longer than that!" I'd certainly like to be, particularly considering that by the time my disability pay runs out, the babies may not even be out of the NICU, but as it stands, I'll likely be back to work in November or December. Still horrified, she said, "but they'll be so young and little! How can you leave them alone!" Well, said I, I won't really have much of a choice about it. It's just the way it is. I will have 8 weeks off and that's all I get.

I didn't realize exactly where she was going with this horror at first. I thought she was empathizing with ME for not being able to take more time to get acclimated to three preemie babies in my house. But then she said, "but what about the babies? What about parenting? What ever happened to that?"

Frankly, she's lucky I didn't punch her. Let's get one thing clear: every family has different needs. Some parents are good parents. Some parents are less good parents. Some stay-at-home parents are terrific parents and some stay-at-home parents are lousy parents. Some working parents are lousy parents and some working parents are terrific parents. Judging me by my so-called "choice" to work after my children come into my life is not fair. No one knows what has gone into this "choice" of ours. Yes, we could move to a less expensive house. And we'd be giving up an amazingly supportive community and the ability to practice our religion in the way that we are expected to (e.g. we would have to move to someplace NOT within walking distance of an Orthodox synagogue). We could give up, you know, food, so that we could pay the mortgage without my salary, but I wasn't thinking that was a great idea either.

We can't afford for me not to work with only one child in our house (a child whose preschool tuition is paid for and whose most expensive needs are covered not by us). How on earth would we afford to pay for FOUR children in our house? Yes, we have some luxuries we could give up, but we don't live an extravagant lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination and giving up those few luxuries would not be nearly enough to make up the difference in what we'd be losing in my salary. And even if we DID lead an extravagant lifestyle... so what? Why should I have to stay home? Why should it be assumed that I will stay home and not my husband? What if I wanted to work? Okay, admittedly, I don't want to continue working full-time. But I would like to continue working at least part-time. I like what I do (sort of). I like having a field I'm very good at. I would also like having far more time on my hands to spend with my children.

I'm tired of hearing people make assumptions about people's parenting priorities based solely on decisions of day care vs. nannies vs. stay-at-home-parents vs. whatever. It's really none of anyone's business whether I work or want to work or don't want to work or whatever. I am just as dedicated to my childrens' futures as any other parent.

So there.