<a href="http://blessingsofaworkingmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/slater.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-27" alt="slater" src="http://blessingsofaworkingmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/slater-300x159.jpg" width="300" height="159" /></a>Today I feel like Christian Slater in Pump up the Volume. I've got my pirated station-Ok blog (burst my 1990s bubble why don't ya).  I must have watched that movie about a hundred times growing up.  There was something in his call to rise up against the evil that dwells in the high school halls---the repression of pearls and perfection, that truly resonated.  It might have had a little something to do with Slater's abs and bad boy appeal but no, really, I think it was mostly the moral:  "The truth is a virus."

This blog is my truth.  Close to forty, half-way through life, I'd like to think I've got something to share.  Why Blessings of a Working Mom? It's not catchy or sexy- my husband asked twice and did a little eye-rolling when he heard it. By definition every mom is a working mom. Believe me, I know. But, it's a take on the best-selling book <em>Blessings of a Skinned Knee</em>.  We don't tend to think good can come from pain or hard-work.  We are told or sold to believe absence of pain or work can equal happiness.  That the goal in life is to reach this state of bliss, absent of real emotion.  If you ask me, this marketed happiness starts to look an awful lot like escapism.  I call it magical thinking---"If I can only get this, then I will be happy." But boy is this line of thinking easy to fall into.  I needed to remind myself of all the blessings of a working mom.  As a daughter of a working mom, I have been the recipient of many blessings and as a working mom I hope to bestow many blessings on my daughters.

I spent last month agonizing about what I should do for my daughter's fifth birthday.  Should I throw a big party even though the budget would be stretched?  Should we go to Disney even though I was in the midst of my hectic time at work?  What "should" I do? Desperate for a special way to celebrate, I decided to take her to The American Doll store and then a special dinner at the Melting Pot.  Three trips to the bathroom, an unplugged fondue pot and an unruly three year-old sister, I was truly starting to question my plan.  I must have said something to my husband about it not being easy when my five year-old turned around and said, "Mami, life isn't always easy."---Gasp-the breath left my body.  My poor baby--robbed of her innocence.  I did not let on.  I inquired further:  "Who told you that?"  She replied without a moments hesitation, "You did." Gulp.  She was right.  I had told her that.  "Well", I pressed further,  "What do you do when something is not easy?"  You work hard and don't give up."  That's right.  I had not only said it, I believed it.  I had forgotten that I believed it--that it is not my role as a mother to make my daughter's reality a eutopian dream world that she will never enter---or possess. It is not my duty to turn her into an American Girl doll.  It is my job to give her the tools necessary to make sense of her world, to make meaning and have purpose. Thank God for her reminder. I guess Christian Slater was right-  the truth is a virus.  I caught it from my daughter.