It’s not easy… this whole “being a working parent” thing.
I suppose it’s the norm now - to have your young child in daycare for a large part of the week, but it sucks. It really sucks.
It creates unreasonable animosity and jealousy – towards the daycare itself for taking half of your paycheck, towards those who are lucky enough to not have to deal with such pain, towards the past generations that found it unacceptable, towards anything and everything. Those feelings fester and feel as though not a single person could understand or relate...
Sometimes when I’m at work, I think to myself that all I want in life is more time spent with the most important person in the world.
I make it through the day by realizing that the work I do provides for her wants and needs.
I often hear myself telling my wife that we’re doing this for her, so that we can put food in her belly and diapers on bottom, but sometimes it’s hard enough just to convince myself.
I know that you could take every possession I have, that I could be completely broke tomorrow, and that I would still do whatever it took to keep my daughter safe and happy.
But the reality is that one day soon she’s going to ask me for a new dolly… a new outfit… a new puppy… a new experience… And just four months in, I already know I don’t want to ever look into those ocean blue eyes and respond with disappointment. And so I keep moving on.
Every moment I spend driving away from the daycare building biting my lip, sitting at my desk listening to someone else’s petty problem, holding the phone slightly away from my ear as my boss yells, I just keep thinking of those eyes. And that smile. And how it feels when I hold her ever so close.
It’s not easy… this whole “life” thing.
But so long as I can stay lost in those eyes… I’ll keep moving on.
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