Ira

Once a long time ago I went to live in Russia for a semester.

I lived in a very hoity-toity neighborhood outside of Moscow.

So hoity toity that one of my four year old students was pulling on Dolce and Gabbana galoshes. I didn't even know Dolce and Gabbana made galoshes. I don't even think I'm spelling Gabanna right but I don't care enough to google it.

We lived in a funny little house with no kitchen. We had three separate rooms at the end of a hallway. There were bathrooms in our rooms, but the kitchen was a separate building. Some of the Russian teachers lived in our building, too.

All of the Russians were incredibly gorgeous and thin. One of them was named Ira. Ira was blond and beautiful and also, as it turned out, a mother.

Ira was from a small village that was quite far away. Train tickets in Russia were rather pricey, as well. Her husband had abandoned her and her young son, and she had moved in with her parents for awhile but lack of money had forced her to take the only job that was available. Teaching in this hoity-toity village. Far, far away from her baby and family.

I did not have children back then. I was barely 20 years old and the hardest thing that had ever happened to me was nothing in comparison to leaving my baby. Ever since I've had my babies, I think of Ira. I see her in my mind and want to weep with her. She was a mother doing the very best she could for her child, and that's the best that any mother can do. I can't imagine how indescribably hard and devastating it would be to leave your child for months at a time, and I am in awe of Ira's strength and her love. I can't imagine what it must have been like for her to teach kids who wanted for nothing all day long only to come back to our funny little house in the evenings and miss her sweet baby, who I'm sure was missing his mother.

People keep saying things to me about how hard it must be to leave my kids during the day. Granted, I haven't had to yet. I still have weeks and weeks of glorious maternity leave left. I know it will be up soon enough, and I have no doubt that the first week I go back I will cry as I drive from the babysitters to my school.

But I love my job. I LOVE it. I love teaching, and I find it immensely fulfilling, and I know without a doubt that for some students, teachers are the only source of love and consistency they receive in their whole little lives. That breaks my heart, but it's true. What I do every day is important, and it matters, and for that I am grateful and also very blessed. If I didn't find my work so fulfilling, I know it would be much harder to leave my kids.

I also don't feel deprived of time with my children. I know that the "mommy wars" seem to spread the idea that babysitters raise the children of working moms...but I don't see that. I think that's hurtful and ridiculous, and that moms love their babies and do the best they can. Like Ira.

Even when I'm working, I come home to my babies every night. I play with them and read stories to them and rock them and love them. So does their Dad. My children are not being raised by a stranger, as I've seen many a stay-at-home-mom assert about children who go to babysitters. My babysitter is not a stranger. She is a lovely woman that I appreciate and that I trust with the very most precious parts of my life. And she plays with my children, loves my children, rocks my children, and reads stories to my children, too. But she is not raising them--I am. And while the work she does is quite important, my children go to a babysitter for a very short time in the grand scheme of their lives. To say that someone who will be a part of their lives for three or four years has raised them is not accurate. Not to diminish the important work of caregivers, but involved and loving parents raise children, and the other loving people in their lives are bonuses. I am giving my kids another person in their life that loves them and cares about them and I just for the life of me do not see how that is a bad or negative thing.

My life is not hard. My life is immensely blessed. Sure, I have bad days. And I have definitely had moments when I wanted to immediately quit my job so I could be home at all times with my children, but ultimately, I am doing the very best I can for my family. My best might be different from your best. What works for my family is probably different from what works for yours. But don't feel sorry for me. I truly feel like I have it all.

I spend every day doing what I love with the people I love the most. How could it get any better?