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2001-11-15 - 6:54 a.m.

VACATION DAYS

Today I�m taking a vacation day to do additional work as a Mom. (I�m going on a school field trip.) Sometimes I take a vacation day to do additional work as a public defender but I never call it that. I call it taking an extra work day. The language is deceiving. I work as hard or harder in my Mom hours as I do in my public defender hours.

Still, I�m not sure I really take vacation days very often. Days I�m not at the office tend to be spent in home errands. Days I�m not at home tend to be spent on office errands. Vacation has to be something different. I took a rare vacation in September and look what happened then. (Yes, I�m sure it all happened because of me. The world revolves around me. Didn�t you know that?)

I think it must have been a single guy or an uninvolved husband and father who decided what was work and what was not. It certainly wasn�t a mother with children and a job outside the house (although there are a few mothers who work solely at home who seem to want to make the case that only what goes on at home counts.) I can see that single guy now, feet up on a chair, remote control in hand, drinking milk from the carton. �How can anyone consider this work?� he asks, knowing that no one else will consider it work but never recognizing that home doesn�t look like that for everyone.

Balancing outside work and work at home can be like walking across a tightrope. You can take either the pole or two balls. You can�t take both. The idea that you can have it all and be the best at all of it all time is a myth. The secret to the balance is in too words: good enough. You have to settle for good enough housekeeping. You have to settle for good enough achievement of career ambitions. Organization is helpful. Being driven either at home or outside leads to ruin.

But balancing also can keep you sane. If things are going badly in one realm, perhaps they are going better elsewhere. If we seem to be low on milk again, I can take pride in managing to keep the office stocked in paper towels. If clients are yelling at me all day, perhaps I�ll be lucky and my kids will tell me I�m the best mom in the world. (They should. Right now I�m holding tickets to the Harry Potter movie for Sunday.)

So what is a vacation day? Surely, it�s not a day when one�s mind is vacant. I�ve had a few of those but they are usually unplanned (and, unfortunately, tend to sneak up on a body.) I suspect it�s a day set aside primarily for play. I�m just not sure what one of those is.

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