The Grandmothers on Not enough of Mom

“Dear Grandmothers, Up until recently I have been a stay-at-home mom with several small project-based jobs I could do online for extra money during early morning hours.  In October, I took on a real online part-time job, because our family needs the money, with paycuts (but no cuts in hours) that have been made by my husband’s employer. I now work on my laptop at the kitchen table while I cook, while the kids do homework, etc. and my kid time (I have two, 6 and 8) has been severely cut. My kids are unhappy, “hating mommy’s job,” acting out, making it hard to concentrate when I HAVE to. I feel bad for them, and want things to be better but I have to keep this job. Any advice?” – Samantha R., Lakeshore Blvd. 

Dear Samantha,

We grandmothers claim to know almost all there is to know about raising kids, but your question leads us first to a confession: when we were young mothers, we didn’t have to deal with your problem. Remember the '50s? Well, probably you don’t, but you’ve seen it on TV: very few moms worked, they were at home baking cookies and playing with the kids. Except the truth of the matter is, we didn’t play with the kids all that much; the kids entertained themselves for the most part. And some of us got tired of baking cookies and wished we had jobs so we’d have our own bank accounts. The good old days.

But your children won’t be comforted much by watching re-runs of “Leave it to Beaver.” They expect to have as much of your attention as they ever did, and they quite legitimately resent having to share you with your job. Being a modern mom you probably did frequently bake cookies and play with your kids, and now you can’t do that as often. What many parents feel in this situation is guilt, so what they say are things like, “I have to work so we can buy [brand name] video games and [brand name] tennis shoes and eat out regularly at the [brand name] hamburger emporium. And won’t we have fun at Disneyland this summer?” Parents don’t like to disappoint their children and they don’t want to hear about their children’s unhappiness. So they try to jolly the kids out of it. 

In a word, don’t. Instead, acknowledge in full their anger. Try to find out all the specifics of their resentment, and don’t try to convince them that they’re exaggerating, that it isn’t so bad as all that. You don’t have to agree, just listen and nod understanding. Tell them that you miss having things the way they were, too. Swallow your guilt and listen to their sadness. Just feeling “heard” by you will make them feel better, the same way you feel better after having confided your problems to a friend who is a good listener.

Then start talking about ways you all might adjust to this new reality. They don’t need to hear the details of the electric bill being overdue and the car needing a new transmission, but you can talk about being a family and working together differently now. Recognize your children for managing to solve a problem or do a task that in the past they might have asked you to do, without your help. Emphasize how capable they have become; tell them that, in fact, their help would be appreciated with some of the household tasks that you used to do all by yourself. Explain how you could be spending more time with them if you were doing some of these tasks together; while you’re working at the kitchen laptop, for example, they could be helping you get dinner on the table. They could certainly learn to help with the laundry, and assist in clean-up after dinner. They might whine from time to time about their newly assigned chores, but you could end up feeling less pressured, they more competent and needed, and all of you important members of the family team. 

Explain how their helping frees you up for family play times, and even if it doesn’t quite work out that way, be sure to schedule some, for all of your sakes. Don’t make these costly outings that you can’t really afford, but research some inexpensive or even free activities: ice skating at Wade Oval costs nothing more than $3 skate rental; the zoo charges no admission on Mondays; hikes in the woods on a sunny, snowy day are free; a favorite family board or card game is likewise.

During one of those hikes you might tell your kids about that job of yours and how sometimes you don’t like it but often you do, just like sometimes they hate school but often they actually have fun there. Tell them in words they can understand what exactly your work entails, and what you had to learn to be able to do it - and branch off to a discussion of the kind of work they might want to do some day. We want them, after all, to appreciate the world of work, and look forward to it. 

You don’t have to tell your kids this part, but you could help yourself feel less guilty by realizing that you’re actually teaching your children some valuable lifelong lessons here. Although life can be hard, we can usually find ways to cope, and children need to learn this as they grow up; they will be better prepared for the challenges they meet later on. And you and your husband are setting a wonderful example for your children by working hard together to do what needs to be done, without blaming anyone, without resentment.  (Try to voice your blame and resentment only to each other, after the kids are in bed.)

Some day these will be the good old days. 

If you have a parenting question, please email it to us at

thegrandmothers@collinwoodobserver.com

The Grandmothers meet at Hanna Perkins Center, 19910 Malvern Road, which houses the Hanna Perkins School and the Reinberger Parent/Child Resource Center. For information call Barbara Streeter at (216) 991-4472.