My son, who has barely noticed my existence since his Mimi showed up to help out during my infirmity, picked this morning to suddenly decide that he simply could not handle his life without his mommy. While I had been feeling a bit cut out, and can’t say the newfound attention is entirely unwanted, the timing is awkward. His Mimi is going back home this weekend, and he will not have the undivided and doting attention he has had for the last three weeks. It naturally follows that he will be going back to preschool this Monday.

This morning I got a preview of what is in store, and it ain’t pretty. Harry, in his Thomas jammies was crying “Mommy, I want to go WITH you, I want to GO!), clinging to my legs and my hands as I was trying, unsuccessfully, to crutch my way through the garage to the car. I am already running late because he woke up wanting to cuddle with Mommy and I am a total softie-wimp and could not keep myself from acquiescing to the point where Kris and I were both throwing on clothes and shoes while going out the door. I am trying to tell him that it is okay and I will only be gone a little while today, all the time trying to hold back tears myself and resisting the screaming urge to simply call in sick. Heartsick. Homesick. IwannastaywithmyBabysick.

There are those out there that will throw the “simple” solution of being a stay-at-home mom at me. Sometimes I get weary of the unspoken assumption that those of us who do work outside the home are doing so because we aren’t committed enough to researching the rearrangement of our lives that will enable us to do so, that time with our children is traded away to the desire for the bigger house and the nice cars and the yearly vacations to resorts. Well, please, don’t think I have never entertained the idea. But my time with my son has a different price tag – and the price tag is security for his future.

I live in a modest house. I buy my cars used. I shop for clothes on bargain racks. I horde business flier miles and bum rooms in the time shares of friends for vacations. I cut coupons, I buy bulk. I don’t drive when I don’t need to. I likely spend too much on restaurants than I should and more on my hobbies than I like, but I shun all other entertainments; no concert tickets that aren’t freebies. Most movies are seen in the dollar movie house.

I fully expect that within the next ten years I will be supporting at least one of my parents. Through a combination of bad luck and poor planning, my mother and stepfather are living paycheck to paycheck with no cushion against retirement other than a failing social security system. I will almost certainly be among those who are raising their children and caring for their parents at the same time. This is not the future I want for my son, an only child that will bear the burden of elderly parents alone.

I worked my way through college and graduate school. While I am proud of hauling myself up by my own bootstraps, the end result is that I have a foreshortened schedule to prepare for my golden years, a preparation that was shared by the late arrival of my son. I walk the tightrope between knowing that my time with my son is more limited than most, and the realization that I cannot, will not, force him to be caring for me during the prime of his life. I also don’t want him to have to make the same choices between school and family, between his child’s future and his parent’s present, that I have had to make. I want to help him on his journey, not the other way around.

I am like every other parent. I want my son to have a better life than I did. Not a more expensive one. A more secure one.

So I work. And I save.

I know it is hard for Harry to understand why his Mommy has to leave him for a while each day – some days it’s hard to make myself understand. Some day I hope I can explain it to him; that I work because I love him so very, very much. And I miss him every moment of the day, more than he will ever know.