I’m a working mum. I’ve said that many times but I don’t remember ever having written it before. I’ve signed many school homework notebooks as Mum, many school documents as the mother and written down my occupation many times but I don’t think I’ve ever combined the two in written form - working mum.
What does that mean? I’ll get to Victoria Beckham’s take in a minute but first a look closer to home. According to the budget it means that had I kids under three, I’d be entitled to €2,000 more than stay at home mums. Is that fair?
Possibly not but it is also not fair for the hard working stay-at-home mums to be pitted against the hard working mums, based outside the home. This payment has been a long, long time coming but there is never an excuse to pit us against each other, nor stay at home dads and working dads either for that matter. We really need to support each other, to work together. In this post-recession world, we need to unite to learn from the hardships of the austerity and help pick each other up, dust ourselves off and continue to claw back some of what we all lost. Perhaps the government should be allocating equal funds for both sets of parents.
What else does being a working mum mean? It means, for me anyway and maybe for others too, a weird lunch. Every week I start off with plans to get away from my desk, to go for a walk, to meet work colleagues and acquaintances for chats, to get a bit of ‘life laundry’ done. (Incidentally, I have two loads of laundry done - the second will beckon to be hung up any minute). I even put my running gear into the boot in the hope of squeezing in a 20-minute loop, only to take it out a day or two later, unused.
It means hoping to clear emails in between sandwich bites. It means having time to get a healthier lunch which involves a slightly further trek to buy the healthier soup option versus the stodgier but more convenient one. It means getting to the shops to buy healthier options so I can make a nice salad for the next day as the food shop of fresh, healthy essentials, meant to last the week, has run out.
In reality though lunch wise, what does it really mean? The aforementioned, easy-access stodgy lunch at the desk, wiping away crumbs and frantically trying to stay on top of the urgent tasks and prep for what comes at 2pm. Or on the bad days, an apple, a coffee and a rumbling tummy. I would fret and freak if I thought thats what the kids ate at their lunch breaks and ensure that their boxes and flasks are a varied mix of all that they need but for myself? That’ll do.
What does it also mean? It means feeling guilty 24/7 about not being a good-enough-worker or a good-enough-mum or it used to. I never thought I’d see the day where I would be quoting a former Spice Girl but Victoria Beckham is increasingly becoming a woman-to-admire, from this distance certainly and she gave a great interview in The Sunday Times Style magazine recently. The self-confessed workaholic admitted that she asked Diane von Furstenberg: “…When your children were younger and you were working, did you feel guilty?”
The reply? "Absolutely not. It's a waste of time and it’s a waste of energy”, and von Furstenberg added: “It’s ageing.” I like DvF.
Guilt-free living sounds great. Healthy lunches sound great. Healthy kiddies even better and big warm hugs at the end of each working day? I love more than all.
Ok the beeps have gone, laundry is cooked, times up. As Dory says: “Just keep swimming!”
I love Dory.
