I am not supermum

Someone asked me the other day if being a working mum makes me a better mum.

“Oh, yes!” I replied. “It’s important for me to work. It’s part of who I am and working makes me happy. So that makes me a better mum.”

I was lying.

Dishing out the sugar candied response I’m ‘supposed’ to.

The truth is being a working mum does not make me a better mum. In fact, I constantly worry if I’m doing the right thing when I go to work.

Worried that the ‘hurried life’ that comes with balancing parenthood and a career could actually be harming my children.

Worried that when I burst out of my house every morning, shouting: “Hurry up! We’re going to be late!” that I’m stressing out my kids as I stumble on my heels, frantically stuffing lunch boxes and homework books into school bags. 


Worried that, when I explain to my son I can’t help out in the classroom with reading groups, or serve him at the school tuck shop, it will break his heart. 

Worried that the carers at my daughter’s day care centre won’t watch her the way I do. Cuddle her the way I do when she falls. Stroke her hair the way I do when she needs a nap.

Worried that the people sitting near me on the bus will see my tears as I make my way to work.

The truth is, as much as I want to keep my career alive, it also kills me to be away from my kids. Kills me. And I don’t even work the fulltime hours that many other working parents do. Through my own business I can increase or decrease the flow of my work depending on my needs, depending on how much I can cope with.

But you see, I have to work. I have to work to generate the income to pay off our debts and allow us to live the lifestyle that we have decided is important for our family.

I have to work to satisfy my own personal ambition that fueled the birth of a career well before the birth of my children. A career, that required a university degree and many years hard slog, to realize.

This is why I write about what’s it’s like to be a working mother. Not because I want the world to think that being a working mother makes me a supermum.

I write about being a working mother because in some companies the benchmark for  ‘professionalism’ means doing things like working long hours and showing a willingness to put your career in front of your personal life. Things that are incompatible with being a good parent.

I write about being a working mother because the desire to be with your child, and the ambition that fuels a career, are terribly conflicting emotions that I often find hard to rationalize in my head.

I write about being a working mother because I want what’s best for my kids.

And that’s how I think we should be framing our discussions when we talk about supporting the needs of working parents.

Yes, a woman’s right to have a career after she has children is important. And yes, a company’s productivity is important too.

But nothing is more important than what these things mean for our children, especially when ‘healthy parenting’ is cited as critical for a healthy society.

So when we find those solutions to help women go back to work after they have children, and when we find those solutions that allow a company to be flexible and productive at the same time, we should always be thinking about what these things mean for our kids.

Things like high quality and accessible childcare staffed by carers who are paid an income that recognizes the importance of their job.

Things like challenging traditional ‘working hours’ to allow parents to work around their family’s needs. Who the heck came up with 9 to 5 anyway?

Things like having the ‘right corporate attitude’ - all the workplace policies and initiatives in the world mean nothing if an employee feels they can’t use them without being judged as ‘soft’ or less serious about their career.

Things like schools that factor working parents into their schedules and plans.  Open to ideas like job sharing reading group duties for those of us who can’t be there all the time, but definitely want to be there some of the time.

All of these things with the same goal: to enable working parents to be there for their kids. Without jeopardizing their careers. Without jeopardizing their income. Without jeopardizing their children’s happiness.

So, back to that question: does being a working mum make me a better mum?

I don’t really know. But I do know that full-time, part-time, job-share, stay-at-home…whatever. We’re all just trying to do the best we can.

The hangover, the indoor play-centre and a smug mummy

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a mother in possession of a hangover must be in want of an indoor play-centre.

I don’t get hangovers very often, on account of the two little people who pulled the handbrake firmly on my social life some time ago. I also don’t go to indoor play-centres very often, on account of some very good common sense.

But it appears there is a cruel algorithmic rule applied to my existence:

So it should come as no surprise that when I was recently invited to bring four year old Little Fairy and six year old Boy-Who-Asks-Questions to a new indoor play centre in my local area, I accepted the offer and then promptly went out with friends and drank too much.

At this point I can imagine the more sensible reader saying: “I just wouldn’t have gone to the play-centre”. And trust me, as I opened my eyes and tried to focus on the ceiling above me, that thought did go through my mind.

But I had foolishly told Little Fairy and Boy-Who-Asks-Questions about the impending visit, so I knew I was well and truly locked in. There was also no coffee in my house, and if memory served me right, indoor play-centres generally serve coffee.

So I dragged my hangover and the kids in to the car and off we went.

The play-centre we were invited to was Wanna Bees in Frenchs Forest (Sydney), boasting a mini city where the kids get to dress up in costumes and role play what they want to be when they grow up. And when we walked in, and I lifted my heavy head to survey my surroundings, I was impressed.

There was a mini fire station, a mini hairdresser, a mini super market, a mini police station, a mini television station, a mini post office, a mini restaurant and a mini doctor’s surgery. There was even a mini hairdressers and mini gym complete with mini cross-trainers and treadmills.

The only thing there that wasn’t mini was my hangover.

My two mini-me’s were hyper excited and ran off in different directions to claim their future careers. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being curious about which direction they would head.

Rather predictably Boy-Who-Asks-Questions headed straight for the fire station, where he promptly extinguished a ‘fake fire’ then hi-jacked a fire car from a much smaller fellow fireman, and proceeded to patrol the town.

Little Fairy skipped past the hairdressers and into the grocery store where she proceeded to, well, shop.

They both made a dash for the mini restaurant where mummy ordered bacon and eggs for her ‘headache’.

And then Little Fairy toddled back down the city road in search of her next job. I watched as she paused outside the gym, toyed with stepping into the television station, turned her back on the bank…but then ran into the doctor’s surgery and donned a stethoscope.

And I may have smugly smiled to myself.

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Little Fairy, Boy-Who-Asks-Questions and the hungover mummy all attended Wanna Bees as guests.

Looking for the good news

I’ve never been a fan of public transport. But yesterday as I sat on the bus that regularly takes me home from the city, I felt uneasy.  My mind wandered to a dark place in the wake of the Boston bombings.

What the victims saw and felt. What their families are going through. How it could have been anyone. Could it ever happen here? On this bus? Could it ever be me?

I glanced at the people sitting quietly around me. Dark people. White people. Young people. Old people. All of them strangers. I felt anxious and willed the short trip to end so I could get home to my kids.

We came to a stop and some of the people rose from their seats. An elderly woman and a small boy, probably her grandchild, made their way towards the door. Then I noticed they had left something behind on their seat. It was a small bag with a soft toy peering over the top - probably the boy’s comforter.

As they stepped off the bus I grabbed the bag and ran to the door calling out to them, but they didn’t hear me as they walked away from the bus. I called again, louder this time, as the bus driver waited to close the doors so we could move on.

“Excuse me, you left this behind,” I yelled from the bus doorway, reluctant to jump off and run after them in case the driver left without me. I needed to get home to my kids.

But still the woman and the small boy didn’t hear me.

It was then a teenager suddenly appeared before me, with his baseball cap turned backwards and his skateboard under his arm.

“Give it to me,” he said as he snatched the bag from my hand. I watched as he chased the woman and boy down the footpath, finally catching them and returning the bag.

I saw relief in the woman’s face that someone had been kind enough to return their bag and the toy. But more importantly, I saw pride in the teenager’s face when he gave me a happy thumbs-up as my bus closed its doors and pulled away.

It was only a small thing.  But it reminded me that good things happen. People do help each other. People do care. In fact, things like this happen everyday, but we rarely hear about them because they are not ‘newsworthy’.

How I wished our little episode would appear on the evening news bulletin.

“It was a case of unexpected team work when a teenager stepped in to help a passenger on a bus return a young child’s precious comforter.”

And then I started to brainstorm other good news stories I’d love to see:

“A missing child was returned home to her grateful and relieved parents today, by a stranger who noticed the distressed child crying in a park.”

“An intoxicated woman was helped home by a group of young men last night, who were concerned about her safety.”

“An elderly women’s purse, containing thousands of dollars, was returned after it was found on a bus seat today…”

I’m definitely not trying to make light of what happened in Boston. It was absolutely hideous, terrifying and incomprehensible. If you dwell on it, like I have been, it’s easy to despair for humanity.

But as our minds are swamped with horrific images and stories from events like this, it’s also just as easy to forget that there are still good people doing good things, all around the world, every single day.

And while these acts of kindness don’t always get the airplay they deserve, we must try to notice and celebrate them, if we are to preserve our perspective and maintain our sanity.

Confessions of a slow blogger

Forgive me bloggy gods for I have sinned. It has been 28 days since my last post.

I must confess to being distracted by the temptation of the almighty dollar. Lured by the desire to make money. Wait, I mean the need to make money. You see, Busy-And-Important-Husband and I have decided to buy a house.

What’s that saying, ‘once bitten, twice shy’? Well, not us.

You may, or may not know that we are still stinging from a disastrous foray into property in Ireland. Ever heard of the concept of negative equity? No? Why not give yourself a bit of a downer and read my personal account here.

*sigh*

But pity me not. Life has been good. We were sent here (for me, home) on an expat contract. A contract with the kind of benefits that made it easier to temporarily forget our black hole in Ireland (which is thankfully being occupied by some very lovely tenants).

But now we are ‘going local’. Busy-And-Important-Husband’s expat contract is coming to an end, and instead of heading off to another posting, we have decided to stay put. Grow our roots a little further into the Sydney soil.

And that means either renting or buying a house. And because we are stupid tired of asking permission to hang pictures on walls, we have decided to buy.

Well, at least try.

But it’s not proving easy, as so many people trying to buy a house in Sydney know. While I have always worked through my own business, I’m now taking on more hours. Enthusiastically counting my pennies each fortnight to see if we’ve enough to beat the competition who turn up to inspections in their Mercedes, deflating our hopes.

So it might take a while. It might also mean a few less blog posts along the way.

But thank goodness for the slow blogging movement, which I am proudly a member. Aiming to dish up posts that are: ‘like a good pork belly - worth the wait and with meat that falls off the bone the longer you cook it’*. Given my reluctance in a ‘real’ kitchen, I can only hope…

So forgive me if I go a little quiet occasionally. But hopefully this next phase of our lives will boil up some extra tasty bits of blog fodder.

*Credit to @LifeLoveHiccups and @MelbourneMum1 for this delightful, and not one bit insulting, line. x