Why I Quit My Job

             When my twin daughters were about five months old, I knew I had to start thinking about arranging childcare for when I returned to work. We planned on finding a nanny, since three kids in daycare would be just too expensive. Still, I worried about my two-year-old son being on his own with his baby sisters; he played so enthusiastically with kids his own age. It occurred to me that it would be great if we could do a nanny share with someone else with a toddler. Clayton would have a playmate, and we'd save money. But could one person really handle all four kids, and still do the fun ac tivities we were doing regularly? It seemed like a lot to ask, and yet, I would be able to do it, I thought. Surely, if I could do it, someone else could. And then it hit me: I could! I could take in one more child, and the extra income that would bring in would make the difference. We wouldn't be as well off financially as if I went back to work, but we'd have enough to get by without worrying that we wouldn't be able to make ends meet. 

                The moment I realized that possibility-- that I didn't have to go back to work-- the seed was planted. Still, for weeks and weeks it was unclear whether it would ever see the light. I was a teacher! Would I really leave my job, my entire professional identity, to be "just" a mom?  "Now I know why there was a feminist movement," I had joked with my co-workers on a recent visit to my school. "Millions of women losing their minds at home." Sure, not working was  a possibility, but that didn't make it necessary. My son had thrived at daycare, I had told myself and countless others. My father had read some study that couples in which both partners worked were, in general, happier. I had been happier after I'd gone back to work after the birth of my son.

                But now, it wasn't just Clayton. There were three of them! The thought of working full time at a demanding job and running a household of five was daunting. There'd be cooking, laundry, groceries, cleaning, baths, bedtimes... I felt overwhelmed just thinking about it. Weekends would be consumed by the chores we'd be too busy to get to during the week. And what about me? I'd recently started meeting my friend Holly for a run in the woods on Saturday mornings, a sliver of time in the week I'd carved out for myself. I couldn't see keeping that up if I went back to work--my time with my children would be too precious.

                Plus, work could be just that-- work. Going back to work didn't just mean freedom from the constant demands of kids, although that was certainly the gist of my fantasies. I imagined stopping for coffee and donuts on the way to work, lounging at faculty meetings with nothing to do but chat and laugh with colleagues, walking down empty hallways without a stroller or diaper bag. "But you always stress about work," my husband reminded me, and it was true. My job was demanding, relentless, consuming. There'd be planning, grading, scheduling, meetings, gate duty, chaperoning... There'd be days I'd leave the house before my kids woke up, days I'd come home barely in time to put them to bed.  "But you're so lucky," people say, "you have the summers off!" True enough, but by next summer, the girls' infancy would already be over, Clayton would be pushing four!

                Now that the decision is behind me, all the agonizing seems muted. But at the time it was a constant cacophony in my brain, a neverending weighing of pros and cons, a daily flip-flopping. At three o'clock, when Clayton was crying because I'd turned off the videos and I was mindlessly changing yet another diaper, I was sure I would go back to work. I would lose my mind from boredom at home, resent Donald ceaselessly for the freedom he had to leave the house unencumbered, the ten minutes he spent each way in the car without kids, the cups of coffee he could stop for without unloading a van full of kids. Or, pushing Clayton in the swing in a deserted park, I'd feel so lonely. "There's no kids," he would point out, and I would long for the comraderie of co-workers, the thereaupetic venting of my carpool.

             But then there were the other moments: walking into the girls' room when they woke in the morning, and seeing Dee Dee's mouthy grin while she rocked from side to side in her crib, as if simply being awake were the best thing she could imagine. Seeing Sylvia's sudden, exquisite smile transform her aura of seriousness, like the sun breaking through clouds on a gray day. Watching Clayton bring his sisters toys and then congratulate himself, "That was nice of you!" Eating cereal in my pajamas with Clayton in the morning while Don hurriedly made his coffee and left for work, I felt like the priviledged one. He was heading to all the stress of teaching and students and grades; we were headed to the library or the gym or the lake. I almost felt guilty-- this was the life! More and more, I thought of Clayton, the girls, and me as a team, venturing all over town in our minivan. Clayton felt it, too. We'd be getting ready to go somewhere and he'd point at his sisters. "That baby go! And that baby go!" he'd tell me excitedly. I'd get them all loaded up and start the car and Clayton and I would give a little cheer, "Yeah!" Would I really be willing to give up the driver's seat? Even just sitting on the couch with Clayton after the girls had gone back to bed for their morning nap, reading and talking about book after book, I thought, "This is it! These are the moments you don't get back."

                It wasn't all sunshine, but even when Clayton was petulant and whiney-- "Read this book!"-- and I was feeding one girl cereal, nursing another, and reading Clayton a book or telling him yet another story about a choo-choo who meets animals who won't share their food,  I felt strangely gratified. It wasn't rocket science, but I was good at this job.

                The girls are so good and play so independently and  still nap so much, I feel like the moments when I am actively interacting with them individually are few and far between. And so I feel jealously possessive of them-- I do not want their little smiles and giggles directed at someone else. I do not want my attention divided among them for the three hours I'd get to see them if I went back to work, three hours that would be riddled with chores and responsibilities: exercise, laundry, dinner, bedtimes...

                At the end of the year breakfast the other day, which every June our school puts on to honor teachers who are leaving, my colleagues said such nice, generous things. My friend Kristen said that while we were sharing a classroom, she had been inspired by my teaching everyday. Matt, my principal, said I was probably "the finest teacher in the school," and John said I was "among the very best." It stroked my ego, hearing such things said about my work, even knowing them for the exagerations that they are. I feel like I sucked them up like nectar, knowing that it was the last time for a while that I would hear such compliments articulated, the last time that I would feel such pride in a professional identity, the last time that I would feel the value I had in a community of people working to do good in the world.

                The value of good mothering is less defined. Probably the kids would be fine either way. I like to think that the hour Clayton and I spend reading books in the morning is making a difference for him, that the stories he begs me for aren't just a way to kill the boredom he feels being stuck at home with his mom and baby sisters. But you never know. I think of my co-worker's frustration with his unmotivated, dead beat sons. Who knows what makes a child turn from an endearing little boy who makes you grit your teeth with love countless times a day to an infuriating teenager whose parents have given up on him? Who knows? But I don't want to look back one day and wonder if it would have helped if I had been around more.

                People sometimes talk about this decision as if it is a selfless one. "This is the hardest job you'll ever do." "Your kids will thank you for it." And I do remember feeling grateful that my mom was home with us, and pitying those latch-key kids who couldn't go home after school. But still, I feel that really this decision is about me. I don't want to feel overwhelmed with the conflicting demands of home and work. I don't want to have to leave the house in the morning without seeing my kids. I want the chance to savor every moment of these fleeting years when they are growing so much everyday. Even the things that drew me back to work-- the mental stimulation, the professional identity, the camraderie and adult converstation-- that was about me, too. Making a difference for my students didn't even make it to the pros of going back list. I hope my being home makes a difference for my kids, but ultimately what tipped the scale was not wanting to lose out on this. I can be a teacher again, for years and years and years. This is the one chance I get to be a full-time mom to my little kids.

                It seems lots of my life decisions are driven by a similar motivation. I stayed in Italy for another year for the experience of it; college would always be there. I moved to the East Coast for something different; I was tired of the lack of community I felt in the Bay Area and longed for the chance to put down deeper roots. In the hard decisions, a thirst for a new experience has always won out, has been the deciding factor against the status quo. In some ways, this isn't so different. I want this experience, I want what a friend of mine described as the "golden years" of her time at home with her kids, I want to one day look back at these years as a time to be treasured. But it's also about love, a gut-wrenching, teeth-clenching love that convinces me again and again that I belong with my children, and that, right now, they belong with me.