Two Years Ago, and Still I am Learning to Practice What I Preach...

Two and a half years ago, I wrote the following as my farewell "Life at Work" column that appeared in the Baton Rouge Business Report. I wrote this column just as I was deciding to begin pulling back my career, the first time. Reading it now, I am astonished at the tugging, to-and-fro nature of this decision. I knew the answers back when I wrote this column, and still, have to come back to the questions over and over again. Such is the nature of life, I suppose. So here, I decided to go ahead and reprint this column. It first appeared in June 2006, when Ryan was a baby, commando crawling everywhere, months before his sister was even conceived. Life since I wrote these words has been so sweet, such a gift. I see the growth and feel a bit bugged by my own judgment of stay-at-home moms embedded in this column, even as I danced to join their ranks. Make no mistake. Being a SAHM is no frou-frou, frilly, can't do anything else, silly existence. This is serious work. I am humbled by it.

Life at Work
first published June 6, 2006
Baton Rouge Business Report
(c) Amy Alexander

Perhaps the greatest gift of being the owner of a small business is flexibility. Granted, there are times when owning your own business feels anything but flexible. Weekends can turn into marathon work sessions, as can evenings and the dead of night.
Still, woven within those long hours is the freedom to decide, in what can feel like big, choppy, intuitive moves, where your life—and hence the life of the business—is going. This can change over time, of course, as your values shift and evolve.
A few columns ago, I shared a bit of my story about working from home while juggling the days and oft-interrupted nights as a stay-at-home mom to my 7-month-old baby boy. I anticipated that I’d feel differently about my work after he was born, but decided I wouldn’t make any changes to my business until after I’d experienced a few months of motherhood. How else can you know, for sure, whether you want to work or stay home with bambino?
Seven months in, I’ve decided to make raising my son at home my main priority. To make this happen, I’ll need to cut back my freelance writing workload a great deal. That means—with an achy heart—putting down the pen on this column.
It seems oddly fitting that this goodbye is appearing in the issue where Business Report celebrates influential women. Today, women have the opportunity to become influential, and they have the right to decide for themselves what it means to influence others.
Making the decision to step away, temporarily, from bylines and deadlines feels sometimes like a step backwards. I find myself wondering if I am betraying all of my foremothers by choosing such a “traditional” role. Then I remind myself that what my foremothers fought for was the choice. As a modern woman, I can survey the landscape of wonderful writing opportunities, intriguing interviews in executive suites and entertaining lunches with contacts and opt, instead, for sandwiches eaten while plopped on the floor, chasing after blocks and pulling my precocious boy off of power cords and plants. I know this choice—and the chance to pace work to mesh with motherhood—is a privilege that precious few have, even in this time when women are told they can do anything.
Far too many mothers are pushed to make a decision about their careers and families while they’re pregnant or have just given birth. Then, it can feel like a rigid, confining either-or selection. Either you log into the office at 7:30, get home at 6, and try to shove homework, dinner, meaningful dialogue, time with your spouse and a wee me-hour into ever-dissipating twilight time. Or you sign up for a fairly isolated existence at home being all things to your little ones, doing laps around the mall to tinny shopping music and praying desperately for a good afternoon nap.
The hope I have for myself and other women out there—especially those who influence in ways that aren’t celebrated in our culture—is that we can carve out a way for women to knit motherhood into the pursuit of their goals and fulfillment of their educations. I’ve been blessed with a supportive husband and understanding editors who have allowed me to line up the stones and pave my own way. On-site daycares, paid extended maternity leaves, creative scheduling and community resources could transform what I deem serendipitous luck into every woman’s right.
“Life at Work” has always been written to help employers, professionals and just about anyone understand who they are and figure out how to expand on that and reach their potential. That calls for constant questioning: Why do we do things this way? Is this method working? How can I get from here to there? Signing off, I hope that in the last four years, I’ve inspired a few folks to see beyond the cages of the way things are, into the possibility of what can be. I hope that workplaces are learning how to operate as productive communities, always searching for the connection. Keep that line of thinking alive, Baton Rouge, and thank you for reading.
I’ll see you at story time.