Perks of the Job

SJ was itching to get outside by 7:30 this morning. She sat in front of the door, with her arm and hand extended toward it, making that ascending-pitched sound that is obviously her way of asking for something. When I opened the door to let her walk in the hallway, she immediately walked to the elevator and did the same thing, begging to go outside. So I put her in the stroller and we walked to work with dh. I haven’t been out walking much at that hour of the morning. When we turned around to go back home, I discovered that we were walking against very heavy foot traffic: hoards of people dressed in dark business clothes headed to work. We stopped at a traffic light and the crowd on the other side of the street kept getting bigger and bigger, until the light changed and walking against the oncoming traffic felt like dividing a sea of black-haired, darkly dressed figures all marching to the drudgery of work.


It reminded me of the opening scene to Joe Versus the Volcano, the first movie Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (boy, she’s aged better than he has!) made together. But instead of heading to a gray, steaming factory, everyone here in Tokyo was headed to a harshly lit, cubicle-studded office. But the feeling was the same. Such monotony. Such repetition. Such mind-numbing work. Of course, I’m making the assumption that every person in those waves of workers has a job they don’t look forward to. But it quickly made me grateful to be headed home in the opposite direction, wearing my worn cords and pale-blue fleece jacket, pushing SJ, dressed in pink, in her bright yellow and navy blue Maclaren (um, yeah, we stuck out). I felt free and light in comparison with these slaves to full-time paid work. Granted I have full-time, and plenty of over-time, work at home (for which I don’t get paid). But at least my work allows me to get outside and choose (in those few hours that napping, feeding, diaper changing, or bathing aren’t required) whether I’m going to take SJ to the playground, or go shopping, or clean the floor, or study Japanese, or work on publicity for my book, or call a friend, or invite people over for playgroup, or do some ironing. Of course, whatever I choose to do will be interrupted over and over and most likely won’t get done until three days from now. But at least, I can choose, and there’s no boss or colleagues needing the work done by a certain time, and I can wear whatever I want, and I’m not stuck inside an office all day long.

Despite getting up at 5:30 to a hungry one-year-old every morning, I’m glad—for the moment—to be a stay at home mom.

Any other perks worth sharing as we near Mother's Day?