So, it turns out that when you work a full time job AND have a family AND have a 40 minute commute each way, you end up with a lot less time for things like blog writing…

Despite the busyness and the packed schedule, my ideas keep flowing…so I will continue to write this blog, even though a brand new season of The Bachelorette (my guilty pleasure) is calling my name.

Yes, I will write… And I will tell you about this new chapter of life called “Life As a Full-Time Working Mom”. This chapter was written into my story following many other chapters of motherhood including:

Life as a mostly stay-at-home mom
Life as a business owner mom
Life as a mom of little tiny kids
Life as a mom of school aged kids
Life as a mom with a very sick spouse
Life as a mom who GETS PREGNANT AGAIN AT 40!
Life as a homeschooling, working mom with a newborn…

So, at this point, I figure that God wants me to have the perspective of what it is like to be many types of American moms, so I can fully relate to any mother I meet. Therefore, for this chapter of my life, I am working full time.

I am beginning a series where I answer various questions, and the first one is: Is it easier to be a full-time working mom, or a homeschooling mom?

That’s quite a question to start out with, isn’t it?

I am six months into being a full-time working mom, and it is both harder AND easier.

This morning as I drove off to work in my quiet car and listened to a podcast that had nothing to do with parenthood, while sipping my hot coffee ALL BY MYSELF, it felt like being a working mom was VERY EASY and VERY QUIET. Hot coffee and quiet have been nearly impossible to come by for the past 14+ years, and now, for 40 minutes to AND from work, I have both.

Over the past several months I’ve had a very heavy workload at work, learning the nuances of nonprofit bookkeeping, the culture of a new workplace, the names and personalities of dozens of wonderful people I’d never seen before, but who now fill my daily life…it has been very, very intense.

But it’s not anywhere near as intense as homeschooling two kids while running a small business. Or closing down a business and moving across the country with three kids, two cats and two fish…

At work, I am able to complete a task from beginning to end, several times each day. If someone interrupts me, they are extremely polite as they ask for my attention. I am able to delve deeply into troubleshooting many issues, and actually come to conclusions…unlike most of parenthood, which changes just as soon as you feel like you’re getting the hang of it…

So, the day to day life…it’s easier in many ways as a full-time working mom.

Here’s what’s hard:

• Trying figure out a clothing style that doesn’t look completely like mom fashion, when you’ve been living in yoga pants for the past decade…or mountain fashion, when you’ve been living in the mountains for 20+ years.
• When to get to the dry cleaner, and the doctor and the dentist…why does everyone keep 9 to 5 hours, when the rest of the world needs to work, too?
• Sleep is also hard…if I stay up too late watching the rose ceremony on The Bachelorette, I still have to wake up to get to work on time the next morning, instead of letting me and the kids sleep in until we are ready to rise and greet the day.

But you know what is hardest? Missing my kids. Missing being there when they get home from school. Missing seeing my four year old make the day-to-day discoveries of that magical age. Having to catch up my kids’ days at the end of the day, instead of while they are going through it…that’s hard for me. My kids are my favorite people in the world, and it’s hard to have time with them limited by work…though I truly feel God has called me to this exact job and this exact point in time…

So I am thankful. Thankful for the contrast, and that I have spent nearly all of the past 14 years deep in the trenches of motherhood, living every single day alongside my children.

Thankful that Rich gets to be with our kids in a new way, spending loads of time with them as he lives out life being the official daily parent-on-duty.

Thankful for God’s palpable presence and direction in this chapter, just as He gave it in the last one.

And thankful for this new perspective on what it’s like to live life as a working mom.

Seeing all of the full-time working moms who now fill my life has convinced me of two things:

1. They love their kids fiercely and well; and
2. They are mentally strong, organized and admirable as they try to live out God’s call to steward their life at home AND in the workplace.

No one works as hard as working moms…except every other kind of mom. Motherhood is a lot of work, no matter how you live it out. And whether I’m home full time, or at work…being a mom is the best job I’ll ever have.