This year is my first "real" Mother's Day. I spent the holiday last year going on long walks, eating spicy foods, and trying anything else people claimed would get an overdue baby moving. To no avail. I eventually had to be induced. My son, Jasper, is now proving equally strong-willed as he reaches his first birthday. There is no force on earth that can deter him from trying to grab the phone we keep next to the living room chair. He's feigned interest in snuggling when you sit in said chair, only to reach for the phone after you pick him up. It's delightful to watch such a mischievous personality develop. Seeing a child's joy as he figures out how he can make things happen in his little universe is a gift every mother treasures.
But, of course, as every mother knows, these moments of discovery are wedged into the day to day rhythm of some rather tedious work. You nurse the baby or make a bottle, change the baby, wake to 2AM crying spells, dress the baby, spoon applesauce into the baby, wipe the applesauce off the high chair and try all over again. The caretaking can make a person a bit batty, particularly when you are also working a full-time job, and still doing the lion's share of childcare. Many a mother has noted that it's like having two full-time jobs, but there's a key difference between the two. You can often put away your paid work on the weekends. But the work of caring for a small child never really stops.
Is this a problem? Over the past few years, various social critics have noted with concern that many Americans don't take all their vacation days. So these critics dutifully trot out studies showing that vacations have a number of health and lifestyle benefits. They reduce the risk of heart disease, boost your mood, and make you more productive when you return to the office.
It's not a stretch to think that there might be similar benefits for women who remove themselves from the day-to-day duties of motherhood for a short time. Flowers are nice. But a break might make you a better mom.
At least that's what I've been thinking this spring. My husband has been doing a lot of business travel over the past few months - Singapore, the UK, and so forth - and since we don't have family around, his absences usually require me to do all the parenting duties when he's gone. Add in some frustrations with my own career, and I was definitely nearing burn-out. So I asked for a rather audacious Mother's Day present. Would my husband take the baby for a week so I could travel somewhere exciting?
Happily, he agreed to do it. So I decided to go on a culinary tour of Peru. It's one of the few places that's still relatively cheap despite the declining dollar, and my husband had already been there, so we were unlikely to go as a couple. It turned out to be a wonderful choice. Eating ceviche in restaurants by the Pacific Ocean in Lima was fabulous. So was walking through the Cusco marketplace, and seeing stalls of bread, mangoes, chocolate, strawberries, whole hog heads and the like. I missed my baby terribly. I ran up a huge cell phone bill calling to hear him babble and press the phone keys (Daddy apparently lets him play with the phone). But for a week I got to read in my spare time, write in my journal, see marvelous scenery, and get reacquainted with the person I am apart from my work and family life.
I know none of this was easy on my husband - just as his travel is never easy on me. Leaving was a problem in and of itself. Jasper had developed an eye infection three days before I left for Peru. I found myself engaged in that quintessential parental ritual of standing in line at 11PM at a 24-hour pharmacy filling a prescription for antibiotics. I kept him home for awhile, but he seemed a lot better by May 1st, when I was scheduled to leave. His daycare didn't agree. They called 20 minutes before I was supposed to get in a cab for the airport with the instructions that we needed to come pick him up. So my husband worked at home that day with Jasper underfoot, just as I had earlier that week. He told his co-workers he had to miss a meeting because of a sick baby - something I don't think many people are used to hearing a man say. I'd tried to make things easier for him by hiring a sitter to pick Jasper up at daycare. That way we'd be covered if my husband had to work late. But then he decided he really needed to go to Seattle for a few meetings. So he took the baby with him - six hours on the plane each way.
Do I think the experience gave him more empathy for the experience of working moms? Perhaps. But I know what it did for me. I came back from Peru ready to take on new writing projects - and with a lot more patience for the day-to-day joys and tedium of caring for my little one. Any job can lead to burn-out. Why would the job of parenthood be that different from any other job we love that both challenges us and frustrates us at times?
I realize not everyone can afford to go to Peru - or even to the next town over. Not everyone can take a week off from work (I am blessed to have an extremely flexible career). Single moms who already have to lean on their family for tons of support may not dare to ask for some "me-time" in addition to the work-shift babysitting loved ones already provide.
But even if it's just a sleepover at a girlfriend's house, or a solo hike some afternoon, all moms could use a little time off. As the Hallmark cards point out, motherhood is all about generosity. If you're tapped out, though, you have nothing left to give. A little sabbatical can fill up that space - at least as well as balloons or breakfast in bed.