Me ... a Supermom!

About once a month the guilt of being a working mother gets me down. I love my job, and I don’t really want to stay at home.

But, when my son’s daycare goes on a field trip I feel I am missing out. When I hear about a first, or when I observe him learning to read numbers and I haven’t taught him the ever-familiar guilt creeps in.

So, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I started reading the book “Journey to the Darkside Supermom Goes Home” by Kathy Buckworth.

The book is touted as a ‘good hard look’ at what happens corporate moms decided to become stay-at-home moms. Yikes!

It’s not like I was planning to quit my job and stay at home. That’s not why I read it. I just read it for fun. It’s written by a humourist who is a parenting writer, so I figured that it may be a fun read.

I was completely right.

Somehow Kathy Buckworth has the ability to make me laugh at myself. I’m what she would describe as a “supermom” because I work and manage having a child and everything that goes along with that in the evenings.

Some of her descriptions are dead-on. At one point she talks about how supermoms leave work and are proud to get to the child’s play on time while the parents who have been toiling away to get the play going look on in judgement.

Been there – I did a semester of Saturday gymnastics with Matthew. I wish Kathy had been by my side so she could have laughed along with me.

Anyway …

She takes an incredibly humourous look at what it’s truly like to stay at home with kids. She is somehow able to describe the boredom and busy-ness at the same time. Her descriptions of the various types of moms out there was hilarious.

By the time I finished reading the book there were two things that happened. First, I truly understood my sister’s life a little better (she stays at home). I sometimes wish I was doing what she was, but this book reminded me, in an incredibly funny way, that it’s not as easy as she makes it look.

Second, I was really glad to go to work. I’ve been reading this book on the train, and the further I got into, the more I realized I was quite happy to hang on to my title of Supermom just a little longer.

I really enjoyed this book. It wasn’t my typical read, but I was engrossed. And, this is one of those books that I’ll keep at work (really, I am) so the next time I am tired and frustrated and feeling like a crappy mom, I’ll pull it out and be able to say “oh yeah … I am making the right decision here.”

And, when you find a book that reminds you of that it’s a keeper.

But, don’t get me wrong, I think this is a book that a stay at home mom would enjoy too, because you’ll likely be reading thinking “finally, someone gets it.”