<p>&quot;Papas work and Mamas don&#39;t.&quot;</p><p>My husband and I stop eating and look, surprised, at our son.&#0160; He was already happily back to eating his breakfast cereal. We, on the other hand, were stunned, and not just because he had been chattering away about spiders just a minute ago.</p><p>(Ah, the <em>non-sequitur</em>. That&#39;s just how it goes with a four year-old in the house.)</p><p>&quot;I&#39;ll have you know that your Mama is a lot smarter than I am, &quot; was all that my husband could come up with. I couldn&#39;t thing of anything to say. And I&#39;m supposed to be the smart one. But I knew that&#39;s not what our son meant, though I&#39;m well aware that to many people paying work and brains are one and the same.</p><p>Instead, I thought about the day ahead of us: The driving, the cooking, the endless negotiating. I thought about the nice air-conditioned offices where I have worked in the past - places with doors and windows that look out at planes, planes that I used to take to to go to Very Important Meetings. I remember the thrill of a job well done - and the bonus checks that felt much better than any pat in the back ever did. I thought about my diploma collection - high school, college, grad school - the last one obscenely large in size and filled with beautiful calligraphy (which I&#39;ve never bothered to decipher because it&#39;s in Latin. Once again, genius.). I realize that right now, no one cares.</p><p>Then I remembered. </p><p>I remembered what it was really like for me. I remembered working with my last boss, God bless her incompetent heart. The jealousy in her voice when I quit because I didn&#39;t want to be a brand manager anymore. I remembered the rows of cubicles and the persistent hum of the printers, white noise that would make me zone out - and what did I daydream about when I was half-awake and half asleep in front of an Excel spreadsheet? </p><p>Escape.</p><p>I remember that I chose this life of uncertainty. I wanted to write. I wanted more control of my days. I&#39;ve found that that&#39;s a lot harder than being told what to do. Have I wasted my education, my work experience? I don&#39;t know. But if there&#39;s one thing I know is that the person who should benefit the most from all my hard work is me. And I think I have: If anything, I have the confidence to say no to projects, things and people that don&#39;t fit me. I like that.</p><p>But enough about that. My kids and husband are still looking at me. Are they waiting for an answer? </p><p>&quot;It&#39;s a little more complicated than that,&quot; I tell my son. I rub his hair and smile. He smiles back and asks if he can wear his spider tee to school again, the one he wore yesterday.</p><p>&quot;Sure. Why not?&quot; One decision down. Another endless day is ahead. </p>
