The First Crack

Before becoming a mother for the first time, I always worked full-time as an employee — and it worked out great. I still had plenty of time for myself, my partner, my family, and my friends.

After eight months of maternity leave, I enrolled my firstborn in daycare — and suddenly, something inside me broke. It just didn’t feel right.

How could I leave him in the hands of strangers for eight hours a day after we had been together nonstop for months? And on top of that, I had to pay quite a bit for it. And where was my time supposed to fit into this whole arrangement?

Not to mention, during that first year, he wasn’t even in daycare for about a third of the time because he was sick so often. About every two weeks, we’d get that dreaded call from the teacher: “Please come pick him up, he’s not feeling well.”

As young parents, we had to drop everything, leave work, and then make up the hours late into the night. Everyone around me — all of them parents with full-time jobs — didn’t quite get what I was talking about. Whenever I brought it up, I’d hear:“But that’s just how it is. Everyone works full-time. It’s okay to leave a toddler in daycare all day — look, everyone does it.”

But that answer didn’t satisfy me. Deep down, I knew it didn’t have to be this way — that it just didn’t fit me. I hoped that one day, I’d find another path — one that felt like mine.

To be continued in the next post 🙂