You don’t hear much about the up-side of being a working mom. The topic is usually full of complaints, tears, sad stories, warnings, criticism, and frenzied emotions. And some of these bad things are true, sometimes, for some people. But not for all of us. Allow me to share one of the good things, a good thing that happens to me every single day.

It’s this. It happens at the end of every day. She sees me. She breaks into a run. She’s smiling and squealing. Then we hug and she kisses me. She whispers, “Mommy hair” and strokes my head. She breaks into a stream of part gibberish, part words. She talks about colors and her friends, “Noah, Kateeee, Maggieeee, puhpul, bwew, wed, gween…”  Her little sunny heart bursts with positive energy and happiness. She doesn’t care that I’m not home all day. To her, I’m just Mommy. She loves me, and I love her.

I think there’s a nagging fear among women that daycare children aren’t as bonded with their mothers as stay at home kids. There’s a nagging fear that somehow we working moms aren’t doing quite as good a job. And to this, I present these photos as evidence, and I say, “Phooey.”

She makes every day so worth it. She makes working worth it. I do it for her. I do it so she can live in a house, eat good food, and have good health insurance. I also work because I like it. Because I’m good at it. Because someday she’ll be good at something, and I want her to know that she can do it.

I hope one day when she graduates college, or beauty school, or basket weaving school (because we want her to be who she is meant to be, not who I think she should be) and discovers the working world, I’ll have been a good example of hard work. An example that yes, sometimes women work the same as men (some want to, some have to), and that’s OK, and we can do it, and life is still good and happy and right. And one day if she has to work, or chooses to work, and has a little one of her own, I hope she gets the gift of evenings like this.

Every. Single Day.