So, as I have said previously I did work when the children were young. My occupation was as an administrator/P.A at some local law offices. I worked no less than 30 hours approximately a week for the first 6 years of motherhood.
My husband’s job means that he has to work away from home a large amount of the time. This means that I am a lone parent for most of the time. Luckily I do have family nearby who are very helpful and supportive. This was invaluable particularly when the children were tiny.
The reason that I stopped working was effectively because I could not physically or mentally continue as I was. I felt like I was split in half, spread too thin between the two roles and I was not able to give either role the energy that was needed. I had to make a choice between the two.
I chose to give everything that I had to the upbringing of my children and to allow myself to recharge properly.
If you are a working mother I am sure you can relate to the feelings that I am talking about. If your at work you feel guilty because your child is being taken care of by a family member or a nursery and if you are with your child then you are thinking about what is happening in the office. I would often find myself going through the bedtime routine and suddenly a task would pop into my brain that I had not done that day at work.
I would often catch myself reading the story to the children but my head space would be filled with the plan for the following day. What can I move around to enable me to do this? What absolutely needs to be completed in the office tomorrow before I go home? Where did I put that file?
On the flip side, I would be in the office working out the timetable for collecting the children and getting them ready for bed. Wondering if I need to pop to the shops on my way home. Do I need any nappies? Did I remember to put the bottles in the steriliser this morning? Is it bath night?
Mum guilt is a very real emotion. There are many times, even now, with the children growing up where I am reminded that I missed various milestones in their lives. Their first steps and some of their first words for example. I saw videos of these moments or would see a note in their day books from nursery but I wasn’t physically present.
I had my reasons…I needed to work as so many people do and I had to contribute financially to our family unit.
Weekends were a real challenge. I had a two day window to catch up on the household chores. This really did not leave much time for quality family time. Our typical weekend would be my husband spending time with the children as he had been away all week and me rushing round trying to make sure that everything was clean, tidy and organised ready for the upcoming week.
I am conscious that this may sound like my husband is a chauvinistic git but he honestly isn’t. He is incredibly supportive of everything that I choose to do. This was all on me, I made it that way in my head he was the main breadwinner and any money I was putting into the pot in the grand scheme of things was just pocket money. He was working just as hard as I was and he was missing out on just as much as I was , if not more so the least I could do was to allow him to make memories when he was at home.
People say that parenting gets easier as the children get older. Personally I think this is a white lie that people tell new parents who are struggling with a newborn. I have not found that it has gotten easier over the years but it has changed. The challenges and concerns that I face now are different. Sleep deprivation has been replaced with worries about “stranger danger”, acceptable amount of screen time and ensuring that my darling cherubs remember their manners.
As a working mum my days were dominated by set routine and timetables. I would need to be at work for 8.45 am in Exeter so I would have to make sure that all three of us were out of the house by 7.30am each morning. This meant I had adequate time to drop them off and be able to get to the bus with an allowance for traffic delays so that I would not be late into the office.
I would then finish work at 5.00pm (ish), rush to get back on the bus to my car, push my way through the traffic out of the city to ensure that I was back to collect my children no later than 6.00pm. We would then head home, I would get them ready for bed make their bottles (yes they were bottle fed…more on that later) to have a cuddle with them both before putting them to bed. Then I would head downstairs make sure everything was ready to repeat the next day.
I remember being in the office one day talking to some colleagues who asked how I keep track of time in the mornings. I replied that its really easy. I know that if Postman Pat has started I had ten minutes before I have to be out of the door, if Go Jetters started then I was late!
The scheduling of TV programs is an invaluable prompt and it works well for me, even now. That is until the programming is changed due to the change of the seasons. Then I am thrown and it takes a couple of weeks to get back in sync.
As the children got older the routines changed and when they started school, one of the adjustments that needed to be made was an adjustment to my working pattern. I needed hours that would fit around the school day. I wasn’t able to find a position that would fit perfectly so compromises were made, my hours were reduced but unfortunately it was not sustainable for me to continue.
The decision was made that I would stop working for the forseeable future as the regimen that was in place to enable me to work began to do more harm than good to my wellbeing.
Which is how I have got here.
I can’t help feeling that the mini me’s are not the people they are because of my input but because of the input of everyone around me who took care of them so that I could work. I am very grateful that I had that support and I believe that my children are better than they could have been as a result.
Does that mean I no longer feel guilty? No. I think that feeling will stay with me for the rest of my life. Do I regret working when they were small? No. It was invaluable and essential for me to be in an office environment and to feel like I was contributing to our home life.
The above is a short outline of my experience.
There were many evenings where I would be in tears because I had missed out on time with my children but there were also experiences and memories that were made together which would not have been possible without my job. Its all swings and roundabouts.
Mumma Bear Roars 