Monday, April 7, 2008

Guilt

Today's post is entirely selfish - I need to expunge my guilt for the day. My daughter's classroom teachers have invited the parents in for a luncheon. Due to my new, lengthier commute that involves trains and buses, it is completely unfeasible for me to attend and I feel terribly guilty about it.

Having said that, my husband consoled me this morning by reminding me that I left work early last Friday to take both kids to a spaghetti dinner at my son's school and then spent the weekend partying with my daughter for her third birthday party.

The reality is that we want to be there for everything - every dinner, every dance class, every early release day. But as working parents, we always have hard choices to make. I know that I do whatever I can to be at all of the important events and many of the day-to-day things that come up. It's about that scale that balances back and forth...today it will have to balance towards the work side of the scale and I will tell myself that that is okay.

Renay

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is OK, and it is hard. I often struggle with being the one 'not here' while my husband is home with the kids. You can't be there for everything, and you have to try not to feel guilty about it - although I believe every working mom does. Having older children now (12 and 10), I find they remember me being there for all the important events in elementary school and tend not to remember the one or two smaller ones I might have missed. So take heart!