I often allude to my struggle with Working Mother Guilt (WMG). So much so that it's even got it's own 'tag' on my blog. I thought it might be time to explain myself a little.
I've been working since I was 13. I don't want to make it sound like my parents threw me down a salt mine the minute I was in high-school, but essentially my younger sister (she was 11 / 12!) and I had a gig at my mum's friend's cafe on Saturday morning. We worked hard all day for about $2.50 an hour (it was 1984, but still!). Very, very, very hard. Any job after that one seemed a very good job indeed.
I've worked in advertising / marketing for about 20 years now (ouch, that's hard to say!). I started my first advertising job a week after I finished high-school and I haven't really been out of the game since then. I worked throughout uni, in foreign countries, between backpacking jaunts, work, work, work.
So, to be honest, when it came time to have my babies, the thought of not "going back to work" never even entered my head. It wasn't something I thought about, I just planned that I'd take maternity leave and then return to work. I don't think LOML and I ever had the conversation of "will I stay or will I go?" - we just sort of knew that I would "go".
But, beware the Working Mother Guilt. The older my children get, the more WMG is settling over me like a persistent rash. I'm so lucky that my work is flexible, for without flexibility in my days I fear WMG would have covered me up by now. It just means so much to me to create a childhood for my children that is as similar to my own as possible. But how to do that when I'm at work 4 days a week?
I'm home on Wednesdays and I flog it. I bake, I play, I clean, I nuture, I coach the soccer team, I do the odd canteen duty, reading in the classroom, whatever I can fit in. By the end of the day I can barely see straight I'm that tired.
I clean at nights and work from home once a fortnight to make more room for the extras so I can devote my weekends to the Tsunamis as much as possible. I wash my floors while I'm on a conference call. I do loads and loads of laundry between emails. I race over to the school running carnival, but slink back home to work after just 1 hour feeling like I'm missing out. I do the drop offs and pick ups and mingle with the other mums, but I can't come for coffee because I've got work to do.
The biggest guilt for me right now, though, is that I'm just not fitting in the 1 on 1 attention with each of my children that I feel they deserve. It's after 7 before Maxi-Taxi's reading each night and his eyes are falling out of his head with tiredness. How can he really learn this way? And where can I find the extra time he needs to practice his writing and build up his 'magic thumbs*'? And I'd love more time to do craft and art with Cappers and swing The Badoo on her little red swing more often. What will happen when they have reading and homework to do too?
I feel selfish for being at work. I feel like I'm putting myself before my children and it just doesn't feel right. It's not as if I'm even into a 'career' anymore, I couldn't care less about proving and advancing myself. I park my ego at the door. But I do still enjoy the work itself and being part of a working team. I'm also conscious that reality bites and in today's society we work, that's what we do. My children need to know that.
Is that enough?
Will I regret working when my babies are grown and leave home? Am I being selfish for trying to fit in a 'career' as well as being a mother? Is it too late to have the 'will you return to work after maternity leave' chat? And what would my response be?
I just don't know.
* Maxi-Taxi has hyper-mobility, particularly in his thumbs. Their 'comfortable' position for him is bent straight back off the hand (wince), which makes writing and other 'close work' very difficult for him.
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