When Enough Is Never Enough

Am I enough? I have yet to finish a day and say, "Wow, I was a superhero today!" That's another fun surprise in the motherhood package no one warned me about. The constant questioning of whether I can be the Swiss Army knife my kids apparently think I am.

From homemakers to executives, I have yet to meet a mom who thinks she's nailing it and has zero regrets about her parenting choices. I bumped into an old acquaintance last week at a restaurant, and naturally, our chat veered into the wild world of motherhood. After cracking a joke about how I'm still lugging around the "baby weight"—he was 22.5 inches long and 9.2 lbs at birth, and let's just say you don't just bounce back from that, especially at 40! —she kindly advised me not to be too hard on myself.

But seriously, how are we supposed to go easy on ourselves? We want to be superwoman and supermom, but the truth is, there's just not enough time, and where exactly do you buy energy in bulk? And then there's always that one overachiever who chirps, "Just make the time!" Oh, sure, let me just whip out my magic wand. Or maybe it's just me who's misplaced hers.

Last week, I took a deep dive into my daughter's school calendar for the fall. Brace yourselves: besides weekends, public schools are gifting kids 85 weekdays off. Add weekends, and that’s more than half a year where kids have no set school schedule.

Upon this revelation I did something I haven't done in years. I bought a yearly calendar to slap on the fridge, plotting out the school year like a treasure map. You have to ration those days off like they're rare Pokémon cards to survive the no-school days (outside of the summer break).

I've also noticed that with the new school schedule, my anxiety is sky rocketing. How this new schedule can feel like a tidal wave, I can't quite grasp, but here we are. And it's not just the days school is not in session. I'm right now fretting about my kid being out of school every day for 3 hours before I can swoop in post-work. In daycare, the day is one long stretch like my job. But this new school schedule is breaking the monotony, and I'm not handling it with grace.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the idea of leaving the workforce to become a full-time domestic goddess is terrifying. Before this year, I hadn't seriously entertained the thought of hitting pause on my career. And I actually like my job most of the time, so it's not an easy choice. But I've been pondering it so much that I'm wondering if the best thing for my family is for me to become the master of my kids' schedules.

Will that make me happy? Or will I end up resentful? Especially knowing my kids are too young to grasp the significance of me waving good-bye to my corporate career. And their demands will be as relentless as ever because, well, they're kids.

This has led to reading more studies and articles, hoping to figure out if I'm even remotely on the right track. Studies say kids with working moms are just as happy as those with stay-at-home moms. Plus, kids with working moms might even be more career driven. But that doesn't soothe my heart when the nagging thought creeps in that I'm prioritizing work over my kids. A career no one will remember but me and possibly my kids because I didn't pick them up from school or spend long summer days with them.

Other questions swirling in my mind: If I stay home, does the toddler stay home too instead of daycare? How will that affect his social skills, considering my social calendar is a bit of a ghost town? Is part-time daycare a better option?

What about nixing the after-school program for my daughter? She's thrilled about riding the school bus to this program (I don't recall being that excited about my epic 2.5-hour-combined- daily bus ride as a kid), but maybe she'll enjoy her 20-minute daily bus ride.

More questions: Will losing my work identity be detrimental to me? As moms, we try not to be selfish, but if staying home turns out to be bad for my emotional well-being, it certainly won't be good for the kids.

Then I remind myself that nothing is set in stone. If staying home is a disaster, I'll just go back to full-time work (trying not to dwell on the potential career setbacks from a brief hiatus). Or maybe I'll snag a part-time job to escape the house and mingle with other adults. I'm not one for impulsive decisions, so this life-changing decision will sit for a while. It might be another year before I decide to take a leap and say good-bye to my old self and embrace a new self--a more rested stay-at-home mom (yes, that's a joke!).

But the question remains if that will be enough? When is enough actually enough? I fear as moms, the answer will always be never. Here's to all of us moms who continue to battle ourselves more than anyone else every day.

--Amber