Apologies, readers.  I meant to publish this days ago, but I got hit with a really terrible case of good ol’ Influenza and I’ve been in bed for four days.   Enjoy this next recommendation.

While looking something up at work, I stumbled upon a photography project that blew me away and touched me so much that it made me choke up.  Alice Proujansky has an ongoing project on her site called “Working Mothers.”  Without words, it shows just how many personas are wrapped up into one working mother.  Working mothers have to be powerful and articulate enough to present in meetings, yet flip the switch at any given moment and kiss boo boos, clean vomit, nurse fevers, and buy diapers.  They have to maintain an air of professionalism yet also dash away to private places to hook pumps up to their breasts to nourish their babies.

I struggle every single day with trying to understand how a full-time working mother could ever find balance.  I think about it at stop lights on my terrible commute home; while in the shower or tub, which is my place of peace and solace; when I start to do a yoga pose that reminds me of a part of my body I don’t love; while paying bills; when deciding which dinosaur cake to make my son; when I’m making dinner for my family; when I’m longing to sleep but can’t because there are still a million things to do; when I drive to work with tears in my eyes because I just want to be with my baby; and when I realize that days have gone by without kissing my husband because life can be so overwhelming.   I’ve always been really career-driven, and yet nothing has pulled me harder than the biological yearning to be with my child. Women’s roles are so vastly different now compared to the generations preceding us and I do feel I’m part of a pioneering group that future generations will dissect.  I think it is possible that the working mother appears selfish, but I don’t agree.  If my family could survive on one income, we would.  I don’t feel like an anti-feminist by admitting that I’d gladly stay home full or part time if I could while my child is young.  I think that, economically, it is extremely hard to survive on one income now and it is more common to have two parents working just to keep afloat.  I also think that the U.S. Government’s lack of support for working mothers (6 weeks of disability for bringing a child into the world? Really?) hurts us as a society in the long run.

Back to the photo portfolio, I can’t wait to see how it develops. I am in awe of the project.