Untethered Typings

When I was pregnant I had a lot of people tell me everything about my life as I knew it was going to change. Sometimes this was said with a smug undertone to the tune of, "Oh those suckers are really in for it, they have no idea." Well as I've said before, I fully realized I had no idea what it would be like to be a parent, and did not for a moment pretend otherwise. I probably sound like a broken record to anyone (is there anyone?) who has read my other posts. Please bear with me - I am going somewhere new here. So to no surprise, things have actually changed with a wee one around. Pretty much everything to be exact. So there you go smuggies. You were right. Even though I never said you were wrong. Okay so here's the new twist, and the reason why I rehashed the little bit of info above. After being bombarded by comments of the sort I've just described for nine months, the comments, I've noticed, seem to have undergone an about-face. What do I hear ...

"Wow, you must love being off work for a whole year - like being on vacation, isn't it?" People really do say this kind of stuff to us mom-folk. My answer to these kinds of queries is two-part. First: yes, I love being off work for a whole year to provide care for my daughter. Second: no, it's not like being on vacation. It's a heck of a lot more responsibility on the whole and this new employer doesn't offer great vacation pay. So let's talk about that age-old debate: Who has it harder, the dads at work or the moms at home? Oh and yes, the ones at home will be referred to as the moms and the ones at work as the dads. Trying to be PC here will render me mealy-mouthed - or thumbed. Anyway, the problem with this debate is you can't look at it as who has it harder in terms of tasks performed between the hours of nine and five, Monday to Friday. Pourquoi? Well, we're not comparing apples to apples here - one side is talking about apples (dad...