It was hard to know how much we were supposed to work. We were freelance writers; we had no office and no boss and no dependable means of support.
⁓Claire Dederer, author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses
Before Harry, the freelance lifestyle was pretty great. Ross and I traveled the world—Australia, India, Japan, Tanzania, Spain—but with Harry, freelancing has become tricky. That’s why Claire Dederer’s quote from Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses hit a nerve.
Just to clarify—I’m not a yoga person. Sitting in silence and trying to get my body to contort into unnatural, uncomfortable shapes drives me crazy. Literally insane. I compile lists in my head—endless to-do lists. So instead of feeling Zen at the end of a yoga class, I feel like having a stiff drink. Luckily, the book isn’t really about yoga. It’s about tackling life after having a baby and still trying to be a good mother, daughter, friend, and wife. It might sound trite, but Dederer’s sense of humor makes it good.
Like Dederer, I’m a freelance writer. We both married men who also freelance for a living. (Ross isn’t a writer, he’s a filmmaker.) Like Dederer and her hubby, Ross and I don’t receive steady, month-to-month paychecks, which gets pretty scary at times, especially with Harry in the picture. But unlike Dederer, we don’t live in Seattle. Instead, we live in New York City, so it’s not hard to “know how much to work.” We need to work A LOT to keep living in the Big Apple.
Some months are better than others. For instance, this month is a good one because it’s film awards season, so I have a few stories lined up with entertainment magazines. It’s also proving to be a good month for Ross. He traveled to Utah in early January for work, and on Wednesday he will fly to India for two weeks to help film another project.
You would think I would feel a sense of relief, comfort, and reassurance knowing that money will not be an issue this month. Rent, 21 hours of weekly daycare, the occasional babysitter, and groceries will not be cause for concern. But regrettably, NO—tranquility and I are not friends. Problem is, when Ross leaves for two weeks to work halfway around the world, I transform into a single mom. It’s not the first time it has happened—Ross had to work in Kenya and Libya for the entire month of September—and god willing, it will not be the last time Ross travels for work. But I have still not wrapped my head around being an only parent, who also has her own aspirations. While Ross is away, I rather ungracefully take on Daddy duties, including bath time, breakfast, and Daddy/Harry playtime. Needless to say, my work gets put on the back burner. There isn’t enough time in the day to be a mom, maintain a household, work, and be creative. I try. I really do. I have 21 hours to myself. If I’m not on deadline and I don’t have any papers to grade or classes to plan, I try to focus on what I really should be working on everyday until May—my thesis (I’ve already taken two extensions). But when Ross is gone, the reality is that I simply try to make it through the day without having a nervous breakdown. Determining what the external, internal, and philosophical conflicts of my MFA thesis is unfortunately not on the top of my priority list. Instead I have Music Together, Gym Tots, and Rumble & Tumble classes on my mind.
But in all honestly, the extra responsibilities and limited work time aren’t the worst part of your spouse leaving when you have children. The worst part is not having him around to eat dinner with, or watch Friday Night Lights re-runs with, or even to wake up with in the middle of the night to try and figure out why the hell Harry is crying…again.
Despite this, I still like what Ross and I do for a living. It’s tough, but it’s who we are. And despite Joanne Woodward’s astute observation that working moms feel tremendous guilt, at this point, I can’t imagine giving up on my writing and losing that chunk of my identity.
Addie Morfoot is a freelance journalist at Daily Variety and is finishing her MFA in creative writing at The New School. Last year, her world turned upside down when she gave birth to her son Harry. Each Monday, she writes about juggling work, school, marriage, and motherhood in the Big Apple.
