I got all bent out of shape some time back when my favorite uncensored mommy blogger suggested that people should suck it up and “own” whatever situation they are in.  Easy to say when you’re half-white, decidedly middle-class, and don’t have to leave your kids in someone else’s care 50 hours a week while you shuffle off to a job you absolutely despise, cursing the whole way, and plotting the ways in which you will make your husband pay for doing this to you.

But, I get her point.  She wants people to be happy.  And it's not her fault. She just happened to post that at a time where I was especially miserable with my circumstances, and wasn't gonna listen to anybody tell me I needed to "own" any part of it. I was in no mood.  I don’t agree that people need to shut the fuck up when they aren’t not happy, and I don’t believe that being happy is as simple as some middle class whilte folks make it sound.  But hey, I really do want to own my choice – so long as I actually have a choice.  I could bore you all with a philosophical theory on the origin of ownership and how it is not possible to own that which you have not purposely either cultivated or bartered for, but c’mon, you guys don’t come here for a dissertation on Locke, so let’s just do this the navel-gazing TFB way instead…

I think people are essentially responsible for themselves.  Sure I do.  I was raised in a conservative household.  You know, the kind of people that grow up poor as hell, but still vote Republican because they think that other people want to take away all the money they don’t have.  Yeah, those maddening people.  The Joe 6-Pack people.  But for all their mislead political alignment, I am bred with a “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” mentality, and that is essentially a pretty positive, Protestant, hard-working approach to life.  Thus, I work my tail off, and I take responsibility for the things I am responsible for.

But add marriage, kids, and global economic crises to the picture, and I think the waters become a bit muddied.  People are not islands, and sometimes the choices of others contradict what you may have chosen for yourself.  It’s not always as easy as walking away from their choice, especially when you are contractually or genetically bound to these people and responsible for their well-being.

So, for a very long time, I suffered through doing what I had to do instead of what I wanted to do.  I focused on work and fit school in where I could, instead of focusing on school and finishing my law degree.  I ached for leaving my kids, but I slaved over a breastpump all the hours of the days so I could do right by them even when I couldn’t be physically present. 

But now, I get to make a choice.  It is not an easy choice; that is certain.  It’s not like a Coke bottle filled with gold coins fell out of the sky and landed in my bank account so I could just walk out of my job without a single backward glance.  There is a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of second-guessing myself.  But, there came a point in life where my corporate employment was no longer worth the opportunity cost of the other things I was sacrificing in my life.  It’s very hard to come from poverty and not place an intense amount of value on money and stability. However, I am trying to focus on all the good this change will bring, and not feel suffocated by the $1500 deficit we’ll be facing each month: a deficit that I will have to find a way to make up with cake orders and school loans (and the money I’m pulling out of my 401k, and the loans we’ve already taken from the mother-in-law to help us get out of that condo debt, etc. etc.)
 
Even though we will not be comfortable financially, and I have no idea whether I’m cut out for being a work-at-home-mother , this is still easier than what I was doing.  This choice I made.  This choice I labored over and worked for.  This choice wasn’t made by someone else without my permission.  This one is mine.  And I will be happy to own it.

Look out world… here I come.