A Woman’s Work
Posted 23 Mar 2009 in Activate , Work Life Balance | No Comments
I hope all the Mammies had a lovely Mother’s Day yesterday. I was fairly spoiled and had the unusual experience of hitting 10pm not feeling exhausted.
Because like most working Mammies, there is a huge amount of juggling on a daily basis. Being self-employed adds more complications to the mix. Not only is there work to be completed, but the admin side of a business, the invoicing, reporting, marketing, travelling to meetings, tax, VAT etc. How do you balance this so it minimises the impact on your work, and also minimises the impact on your family?
After my last daughter was born, I managed to take a break of a full 10 days. Then it was back to work. My husband took 7 weeks off work, and I took breaks only to eat, shower and breastfeed. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it, but I felt I had little choice. Now my daughter, who is coming up to the year mark, is cared for at home by a fantastic child minder. I start work at 7am and finish at 2pm, just in time for the school run. Then I become mammy, cleaner, cook & grazed-knee kisser until the kids go to bed, and quite often then I’m to be found on the laptop until midnight or later.
When the baby was 5 weeks old, I had to pitch to a large multinational, with the potential of taking over their Irish online marketing. So, physically wrecked, I did my research, made my preparations and drove to Dublin with baby in carseat. I fed her, handed her over to my own fantastic Mammy, and headed into the meeting. About 15 mins into proceedings, I could feel something was amiss, but I ploughed on. In the back of my head I wondered about the etiquette of stopping a meeting due to ‘leaking boobs’. Should I just say to the Marketing, and IT Directors “Sorry, just give me a second but I appear to be leaking all over my freshly pressed shirt “?. And if I did, it wasn’t like I had a change of clothes in the car. And the implication to me was unfair – to stop proceedings would imply that if they were to work with this woman they would be presented with problems, when in fact I had surmounted more on that particular day than anyone else to be there.
As it turns out I ploughed on, and everyone pretended not to notice the very large stains on my clothes.
And as time has worn on, I have gotten used to pretending not to notice the unmade beds, or the stack of dishes, or the occassional empty fridge. I have decided that being superhuman is not on my to do list. I have hired a cleaner, taken up Tai Chi and joined the gym.
And I had a really lovely day yesterday, because I had help around the house, and because I took the decision that I wasn’t going to clean, cook or wash anything. I guess sometimes we have to decide which of the balls we are juggling is least important and let that one go.
I leave you with the haunting Kate Bush, Maxwell’s version just can’t touch the original for me.
Tags: Work Life Balance, working mothers
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