Grace for the Work-from-Home Mom, Too

Lisa-Jo over at The Gypsy Mama wrote the other day about how working moms need grace – grace to handle the daily good-byes, grace for handing over their children to others, grace for the guilt they carry. In my journal where I count gifts from God, I write “the ability to work from home, not to leave my baby every day.” Yes, it’s a gift. It’s a blessing. And yet I need my own supply of grace to get through it most days, when I look over my shoulder and see this:

Those, eyes, they beckon. Daily, they reflect confusion, sometimes sadness, sometimes frustration, sometimes desperation. Why can’t mommy hold me right now? Why can’t mommy play with me right now? She doesn’t speak in words, but her eyes say it all.

Working moms who leave home every day aren’t the only ones who feel guilt. And at least, I think sometimes, they don’t have to face the longing that confronts me all day long.

My husband, a full-time graduate student who goes to school at night, parents while I telecommute to my job five states away from a small desk crammed into a corner of our living room. I leave my desk as often as I can for a quick snuggle, once every half hour or so. When I have a break, grab a coffee or fix my lunch, I grab Baby Girl, carry her with me. But it’s never enough. She wants more, always. I do, too.

It’s a gift, being there to greet her after naps, watch her play, sneak a kiss here and there and make her giggle. But there are moments when I wonder if it might be easier on her if I were just somewhere else, out of sight and maybe therefore out of mind? Not visibly out of reach across the room, unavailable for cuddling the afternoon away. I worry about breaking something in her, worry about her feeling perceived rejection. The only remedy for my worry – the only insurance of her well-being – is grace.

I don’t think my guilt is any smaller than a mother’s who leaves. It tears at the heart.

My sister-in-law writes an email asking me if I’m ready for a “local job,” meaning do I miss my corporate office life. She says from her view, I have “the perfect opportunity…work from home, make good money.” We all dream of that, she claims. I want to tell her dreams are prettier in concept. That my “dream life” quickly turns nightmarish when Baby Girl is screaming for me and I have to go in the bedroom and shut the door against her cries because I have a conference call in two minutes and I can’t comfort her right then, no matter how much I want to.
There are days when it just breaks me at the core. At least her daddy is right there.

I get through it with prayers under my breath as I tiptoe behind her to the bathroom, hoping she won’t turn her head and break into a full-on cry because I passed without stopping. I get through it with self-reminders that I would rather have sixteen quick snuggles than nothing between eight and five. I get through it by writing down my daily thanks for moments I’d miss at an office. I get through it knowing we are blessed with a warm home, food on the table, and our physical needs met through my days at that little desk, phone headset jammed into my ear.
It’s good constant reminding that blessings sometimes come with challenges, and those challenges don’t weaken the blessings. I can bear the sting and the guilt, count the blessings, and still need the grace.