Now that I am a mom, I find that I want my mother like I haven t since maybe a really bad day in second grade. We re replaying my parents lives as academic nomads, living 400 miles away from the nearest grandparents. We don t live in a culture that knows how to measure happiness, or that knows how to value what it can t measure. It Takes a Village. Our days needed more structure, and my daughter and I needed more connection to the world than one mom in a new city could provide.
Kids like to be part of a purposeful group.
Besides, peer pressure can be a good thing. And if I m really honest, I d probably admit that the money from working helps. Ever since I became a mom and reordered priorities, I ve felt as if I m living with no context not only did I have to build a whole new kind of support network from scratch, I had to learn to function off-resume. Motherhood is its own reward, but I m still learning how to do it. The rewards of the working world bylines, paychecks are gratifying and comparatively easy to earn, because the expectations are so well-defined.