Alright Part-Timer? 7 Things I Thought About Working Mums Before I Became One
I have so many regrets.
Forget having the baby, forget raising the baby. Going back to work after maternity leave was the single hardest thing I’ve ever done. For a year on mat leave, I had been swimming blissfully in the sea of motherhood. Sure, there had been tough bits, but on the whole I had happily lost myself in a baby-themed world that smelled sweetly of steamed carrots and poo and was soundtracked by soft piano versions of Wheels on the Bus. I was comfortable and in control.
And then I came back down to earth with a bump. One day (with a black eye my daughter gave me in her sleep: true story), I pulled on my too-small smart trousers, dropped my favourite creature off with some people I’d only met a week before and jumped back on the crowded Overground to use a forgotten part of my brain managing people who had no idea I was sobbing on the inside.
Long story short, it didn’t go well. Only now, a year-and-a-half, one small breakdown and two jobs later, do I feel like I’ve got some confidence back. (Side note: if you’re about to head back, I promise you this is not a universal experience. Plenty of my friends have loved heading back.) But I struggled because in my naivety pre-child, when I was living large through a haze of long hours and after-work drinks, I hadn’t ever considered the shoes that the mums in my office were walking in. So, when those extra responsibilities fell on me, I crumpled like a wet rag.
Because we don’t think too hard about working parents before we become one of them, do we? Here’s a few (amazingly naive) thoughts I had back in the day about the mums I used to work with…
They only worked part time?
“Out the door at 4:30? The rest of us are here until at least 6 yeah?” Little did I know Barbara was off to her second job: wrestling two toddlers through the bedtime routine, washing 40 items of little clothes, making some dinner and cleaning up before finally crashing into bed around the time I got home from the pub and settled into Love Island.
They were selfish with their holiday days?
Look, my kid is two. I am far from experiencing the joys of the school juggle. Things like wraparound care, school holidays, inset days… all of this is still in my future. But I’ve glimpsed over the precipice and feel ill. Working parents have been handling these school holiday schedules all this time without me noticing? Before kids, parents booking up all the paid time off for the summer holidays in January seemed a little rude. What if July came round and I fancied a trip to Barca?
They kept complaining during the pandemic when we all got to WFH?
My friends worked from home with a two-year-old in their flat and no outdoor space during the bit of Covid when nurseries were closed. Cute! I thought. More time with the baby. Now, the thought of this makes me feel like throwing up the litres of Aperol I was consuming in the park daily during that time. The idea that vast swathes of the population were also teaching their multiple kids lessons whilst WFH is beyond humbling. Superheroes, the lot of ya.
They weren’t team players?
I used to eat up that ‘one team, one dream’ thing in the workplace; the idea that ‘we’re all in this together’. One of my last workplaces was Vice Media Group and you only have to look at the bankruptcy bonuses the the execs took while the company laid off its workforce to realise that actually, we were very much not in it together at all. Back before I realised this though, when Barbara ducked out of the late night work session or didn’t stay for Thursday drinks, it felt like she had other priorities that weren’t work-related? Turns out, she, uh, did.
They, or their kids, were always ill?
Classique Barbara leaving early to pick up sick Timmy again. Now, two years into the nursery winter virus routine, I know my sorry behind should have been thanking Barbara on my knees for staying home and protecting me from the petri dish that was her son’s never ending snot.
They kept saying they were tired?
Which was weird because I was the one out in Soho until 2am. What could possibly have been keeping you awake Barbs?
They kept showing me pictures of their kids?
The day I came back to work after mat leave, I would have given anything for just one person to ask to see a picture of the human I’d spent the past year-and-nine-months growing and raising, and obsessing, crying and not sleeping over. My proudest achievement, the best thing I’d ever done. The fact that no-one asked to see a pic hurt me almost as much as leaving her. Especially as my previous indifference to other workplace mums and their pictures came crawling back. Do your workplace mum a favour, look at the kid pics. It might be the one thing that gets her through the day.