| Modern Mom |

I slide into the drivers side of my truck and slam the door behind me, sending an echo into the parking lot of the school. Parent council meeting, what a joke . I punch the steering wheel and immediately regret it, the stinging hot burn from my hand also is the final tipping point and the well of tears I had been fighting since leaving the school finally came washing over me. The release of emotions - anger, frustration, embarrassment, all come crashing in like a tidal wave, filling the cab of my truck and replacing all the oxygen. Gasping for breath between sobs I replay in my mind the judging looks from the other parents. The mom's who weren't late to the meeting on the first place, who aren't the last to sign up for the volunteer positions and the ones who bake the cookies instead of buying them at the last minute. I feel their eyes on me, sometimes with what I assume is pity, sometimes annoyance, almost always judgement. Yes, I am a single mom. I'm doing the best

I worked in a car dealership for 2 years before I became a stay at home mom to my daughter. I didn’t apply for the position, it kinda just fell into my lap. I was working as a waitress in a local pub - one of the only watering spots in town so it was quite busy. Especially in the winter months   people would gather there for a cold beer and socialize rather than gathering around a fire and cracking a few cold ones and sharing some laughs.   On one particularly busy Saturday night, I was joking and laughing with my tables, ensuring that their memory of their waitress was a good one - so that when the time for the bills to hit the table they would be extra generous with their wonderful server. I don’t mean to brag, but I was excellent at my job, and was able to create a relaxed atmosphere where no one saw the bottom of their drink and was often compensated quite handsomely. It made up for the fact that I barely saw my boyfriend. There were times he would open the door at home fo

I feel like I need to preface this with one idea. I love being a mom. And I am so grateful that I have been able to be a stay at home and raise our daughter. My husband and I talked about how we wanted to parent our children, and what roles we would take on to ensure that our family functioned the way we envisioned. We came up with this plan together, and we are each holding up our ends of the bargain. Some days it feels like we are each holding so much that we want to crumble, but I also know that such is life, and that even if we didn’t have a tiny human - our beautiful combination of his smirk and my eyes - that we would feel the burdens that life always throws at people . Bills that never stop, household items that break and need fixing, taxes - and the feeling that I’ll never really be “adult enough” to do those taxes on my own, and the feeling of being pulled in a million different directions at once; all of them demanding my seemingly immediate and urgent undivided attentio