So most of the time at Tokyo playgrounds I would be looking around at all the mommies and think to myself "wow, they are so young and make-uped and fashionable. i feel so frumpy and old"

sometimes that was okay. I mostly didn't care because I was a foreigner, right? I didn't fit in anyway, so why bother putting eyeliner on when I could spend those precious morning moments when the girls were watching tv catching up on email?

but I have discovered myself having those same kinds of moments recently in the Beaverton playgrounds.

I felt old and frumpy again. I looked around myself and said "how can those young, blonde, fashionably dressed women with dyed hair and gaelic jewelry do it?"

Then, last monday, I had an epiphany. Over the course of the week two different women in conversation dropped the fact that they were nannies, not mommies.

I get it now. They aren't mommies! They don't HAVE to deal with the children when they get up in the morning, nor worry about spending money on fripperies instead of saving for college.

It made me feel much better.