"You're Just Working Part Time Now, Right?"

This is a quote from my lovely sister-in-law during our past family weekend.

I'm not kidding.

For those of you who know me, you know why that is funny and how freaking clueless she is. For those of you who don't know me, I'll explain how bat-shit crazy that statement is and then you will laugh . . . and perhaps want to slap her silly. (Seriously . . . would somebody please slap her silly? It violates family code for me to slap her, but if a perfect stranger did it, that would be just fine.)

Anyway, to know why this is funny, you have to know a little bit about me. First . . . yes, I am a lawyer and a mother, as are many other people. However, sometimes I have a really hard time truthfully saying I put my children before my job. I think I usually put my children before my job, but my priorities may be a bit skewed at times. I love my job. I am good at my job. When someone asks me, "Who are you?" I will say "lawyer" before "mother" in most circumstances.

Don't get me wrong, I love being a mother and I love my kids. But motherhood does not subsume my individual persona and delete all that I was before being a mother. I did not give up being an individual just because I had a family.

Second, I'm a very progressive person. I was raised by two working parents, both of whom loved their jobs very much . . . as much as they loved their children. We were not the traditional family where dad worked and mom stayed at home cleaning and caring for children. Truthfully, if my mom had stayed home with us, one or both of us would not have made it past the age of 11. In short, I was raised to value myself as an individual, as a woman, as part of a couple, and as a mother equally.

My sister-in-law is very similar in those respects. I know she loves her job as much if not more as her children. (She's not a lawyer, but some sort of wicked-smart statistician.) She never wanted to take maternity leave (until she actually realized it might be hard to recover from giving birth and take care of a newborn and work at the same time.) She gets pissed when my brother works too much and leaves her at home with the kids. I know nothing about her family (because she doesn't speak to them), so I can't compare on that front. But my point is that she should understand the working mother thing, but . . . as usual, she sees nothing of the world outside her own steel box of a brain.

The other thing about me that makes this statement funny is I'm a single mother. That means . . . . (shocker) . . . I parent alone. That means, there is only one income in my house. So, how exactly would I be able to survive with two kids on half my income and still be able to afford things like . . . my car, my house, my student loans, and family trips to Galena?

Clueless.

CLUELESS, I tell you.

C-L-U-E-L-E-S-S.

When she asked this question, I must of looked stunned or confused or dumb-founded because she added, "Well, I mean . . . you know, because having the two kids and all. I thought you wouldn't be able to still work full time."

I responded, "Oh, of course I am!"

What I wanted to say, "And the alternative is . . . welfare?"

She responded, "I still don't know how you do it."

I responded, "Oh, thanks."

What I wanted to say, "Because I'm a better person then you are. That's how I do it."