{"id":1801,"date":"2010-01-05T18:26:50","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T23:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1801"},"modified":"2010-01-05T18:26:50","modified_gmt":"2010-01-05T23:26:50","slug":"mama-wpen-back-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2010\/01\/05\/mama-wpen-back-to-work\/","title":{"rendered":"MAMA W\/PEN: Back to Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a day late in posting this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mama w\/Pen column because, well, this mama has gone back to work. With huge passion for the venture<\/a> and a pang of guilt in my heart (froze my first packet of breast milk last night in preparation for spending feeding time away), I join the legions of working parents who work at paid employment and at raising kids. Canned words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153juggle,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153balance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (which, from what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen and heard, is nonexistent) and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prioritize\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (clumsy, inhuman term) allegedly now take on meaning. In truth, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always been a juggle\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfar before parenthood set in.<\/p>\n

And yet. As my brain works to adapt to new realities, the imperative to multitask feels more intense–and actually absurd. This morning, when my partner Kamy Wicoff came over for a kick-off meeting with me, I actually found myself thinking \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Will you take this breast and feed Teo for a sec while I write that email?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As if the parts were interchangeable\u00e2\u20ac\u201da milk-producing breast and a keyboard being merely two comparable peripherals to accomplish what I needed to do. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same impulse that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made me want to hit control \u00e2\u20ac\u0153s\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a thought I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wanted to forget, but no pen in hand. Funny, how the brain plays tricks on you. My desire to be hyper-effective is that grand.<\/p>\n

That desire isn’t new, only newly inflected. Now that Anya and Teo are here, the thousand and one things my brain focuses on in any given day here in this hyperstimulating city of New York become a thousand and two\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor rather, a thousand and three, a thousand and ninety-four (there are two babies, after all!). The beloved new additions occupy not just bandwidth, of course, but a supersized chunk of my heart. They say your heart grows extra chambers when love is this big, and I’ve definitely felt those chambers expand. The trick, now, is how to put body, mind, and heart in service of the multiple jobs that must be done. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to need a word far better than \u00e2\u20ac\u0153juggle\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to accomplish that trade.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m open to suggestion. Any takers?<\/p>\n

(PS. Today is my mom’s birthday. Happy Birthday, new Grandma Renee!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a day late in posting this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mama w\/Pen column because, well, this mama has gone back to work. With huge passion for the venture and a pang of guilt in my heart (froze my first packet of breast milk last night in preparation for spending feeding time away), I join the legions of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21107],"tags":[3109,4374,21938,1008],"class_list":["post-1801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mama-w-pen","tag-motherhood","tag-parenting","tag-worklife","tag-workplace"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1902"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}