About

There is definitely no solid line drawn in the sand with Beta Moms on one side and Alpha Moms on the other. In fact, while I count myself among the Beta rank, there may be – may be – times when I secretly wish to be an Alpha Mom but am smart enough to not even try. A Beta Mom by my defition is:

A term of address for a mother who approaches the customary motherly tasks and responsibilities, such as the proper feeding and dressing of children, a bit out of the ordinary so much so that she is often referred to as lazy or a slacker mom

I am a mom and wife of three mostly behaved children ages 7 8, 9 10, and 12 13 living in the fabulous city of Chicago. I’m the type of mom who never carried the quintessential diaper bag with dozens of extra diapers and changes of clothes. I don’t worry about germs and snotty noses… unless I know there is a camera around to memorialize the dripping. And even then I usually just say SMILE! I had 3 easy pregnancies and fast births…. and I am not ashamed to say I was blessed with the pure bliss and power of the epidural - 3 times over. I tried for 2 weeks to breast-feed my first and only experienced about 5 total minutes of guilt after stopping because I was raw. (Sorry about that, I have a bad habit of sharing way too much information.)

I have been in the professional workforce for nearly 13 years working throughout all of my pregnancies and returning shortly after each birth. In those 13 years, we moved to another city, had 3 kids, bought a house, husband started his own business, took fabulous vacations, earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s, and! (That last sentence reminds me of the if your plans don’t including having a baby Mirena commercial.) After 2 years at a miserable job, I was laid off in November 2008 and couldn’t have been happier. Although the layoff played out like a scene in a bad movie (me standing on a busy Chicago downtown street corner with my desk in a box minus only the stereotypical plant), I quickly got over my shock and fear and enjoyed my time off.  I was in no hurry to return to the workforce at least in the same capacity as I was. I enjoyed the time with my kids, taking them to school (on time!), and managing to remember to pick them up every day (on time!). I was cooking and baking, which are two things that I rarely did before as I just couldn’t stand the heat in the kitchen and got out. My husband’s running joke was that my idea of cooking dinner was to pick up the phone and call our local Chinese joint. Who knew I’d turn so domestic

And then I received a great job offer 3 months later. And I struggled with whether I really wanted to go back to work full time. But, I took it, and am fairly happy that I did. I’m still holding onto that Beta side of my soul – the house isn’t spotless and the clean clothe are still unfolded in the laundry baskets (baskets plural).

This blog is my online journal of my journey and oftentimes struggle through motherhood, balancing the kids and the house and the husband while working full time, and all while remaining Beta.

reach me at
onebetamom @ yahoo . com