I Spent Years Ashamed Of Waitressing. Now, I Realize It Made Me A Better Mom.

I was a waitress longer than I was anything else. I covered breakfasts at a highway diner, worked weddings at a local hotel, tended bar at an Irish pub. I’ve replenished salad dressings at salad bars when that was a trend for a while; I’ve married a million ketchups. I’ve counted beer bottles and changed kegs, modified orders of fish and chips, and separated bills for customers who never told me they needed separate bills until it was too late.

I thought I hated this job. I resented this job. I felt ashamed of this job.

For nearly 20 years of my life, I clocked in at some restaurant or another and willed my shift to end. I bought myself a t-shirt from the Old Navy clearance section that read “Just a Waitress Until I’m Discovered,” and I was positive this was true. I would be discovered. I would be saved from this life of shift work, of angry patrons, of cooks who picked on the dishwashers and dishwashers who never took out their earbuds to listen when I said that I needed more cutlery, stat.

Waitressing felt like a punishment for the wrong turns I had taken. I could have gone to university, but I went to Europe to be a nanny and goof around instead. I could have taken a desk job that would have turned into something else, but I became a mom at 21 and couldn’t afford the daycare costs. I could have gone back to school at 30, but I was a single mom of four kids and it all just felt too late.

And so I was a waitress.

I wish I could have seen it then, the deep truth of it all: Being a waitress made everything better for me and for my kids, especially as a single mom.

The jobs I really wanted — the important jobs I thought I could have done if only I had gone to school or if only I had moved to a big city or if only I knew the right people — I know now they would not have worked for me. Not like being a waitress.

When I became a single mom at 30, I found a job at a local roadhouse-style restaurant. The kind of place that closes at midnight and opens at 11 am, serving food in wicker baskets lined with wax paper that gets thrown out with chicken wing bones and leftover nachos.

I had a manager who was also a mom, and she worked with me every two weeks to come up with a schedule that served everyone. Some day shifts while the kids were in school, and a few evenings so that I could volunteer on field trips and work while my kids slept. I had enough nights home to have a homework routine and enough days available to help in their classrooms or take one of my boys out of school a bit early for a mental break afternoon with me. They all got a turn — a bit of time alone with me, and a bit of a treat. An ice cream cone. Some hot french fries. A long chat. A break from our regular lives together.

I could do this because of my shift work. Because I was a waitress. I could make the mom math work, the tips making up for the odd hours. I could be present.

I could also take my kids out for dinner because the restaurant gave a generous staff discount, 50% off your bill, usually once or twice a week. Plus, I would bring home food at the end of my shift that kept well for the kids’ lunches.

I got to have a social life because I was a waitress, something I did not have time or energy for outside of work. Regular customers who became friends, and co-workers who remained friends for years. People who brought in cookies and little gifts for the boys at Christmas, construction workers who ordered club sandwiches and shoveled my driveway on snowy mornings if they were working on my street. A group of carnival workers who once set up a little fairway in the parking lot. They appreciated the free coffee and hot chocolate I brought them, and let my kids ride for free one evening. A delight for them, a moment of rare dignity for me.

My kids learned about empathy because I was a waitress. They paid attention to the way people treated me at work. The way some people stared right through me, or snapped their fingers, or were thoughtless. The way others made eye contact, smiled, and connected. This was a lesson I might not have been able to teach them on my own — giving every person they interact with grace. Treating everyone equally. Noticing everyone equally.

I miss being a waitress now, like I miss that life with my kids. I miss the busy quiet of a restaurant 30 minutes before we open the doors. I miss the group of older ladies who came in once a month for lunch and drank a bit too much. I hate that I wasted years of that life feeling bad about my job, myself, my future.

In the end, I could not have raised my kids as well or as happily if I wasn’t a waitress.

They knew it then, and I know it now.

Jen McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she is not traveling as often as possible, she’s trying to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once, but she’s open to requests.