Do Working Moms Overcompensate?

So my colleague made an interesting comment to me the other day. When I told her that I volunteered to be the class mom for Noah's class she nodded her head as if that were the most natural thing in the world. I expected laughter, shock, incredulity - anything but a knowing nod. If you knew me, you would know why it's particularly amusing that I would volunteer to be a class mom. Mostly because there are some would say that while my own children are the light of my life, I don't particularly like other people's children. She said that as working moms we overcompensate not being there for our kids during the day for volunteering for everything we can. It had me thinking. Do I volunteer to get involved to assuage my own guilt? But it's not guilt that I feel really - more like a feeling of "see, I can work and still be involved with my kids." Maybe I am trying to prove something to the other moms? The moms that wait every day outside the classroom and take their kids to the playground and bake with them and play patty cake and such. I mean, I'm not sure my kids really feel missing out because I am not there at the end of the school day.

I then got into a conversation with my boss about it (again, not all that bright) who said I was getting involved because *I* had issues that I needed to let go of and that my kids would be fine if I didn't once volunteer for anything. Now, I take issue with the idea that I have issues. But then why do I bother? Maybe the reason my boss said so assuredly that I need to get over my issues is that she never confronted her own guilt about climbing the corporate ladder while her children were still struggling through early childhood and now as teenagers, but she insists she never had any guilt. Maybe I do it because my mother did it. She was always on the school board or the PTA or something else that made every single teacher know me before I ever set foot in their classrooms. That made for an interesting high school career - the teachers either were afraid of me or had just the tiniest bit of contempt for me for being the daughter of the woman that signed their paychecks.

I don't know the answers. I just know that 2:30 this afternoon I will be heading to the elementary school to find out what being a class mother really means - then at 7:00 to find out what being a new parent at this school means - then at 7:30 to find out what the PTA really does and how my assistance might be needed. In the meantime, if this is guilt over not spending more time with my children, why am I leaving them home with a babysitter (or with their daddy) while I go to these incessant meetings?