New Mummy Blog: Balancing My Work And Family Life

It’s coming up for six months since my maternity leave ended and I re-entered the real world, this time as a working mother. And it has been very different.

I’ve been back at work long enough for the initial insecurities to melt away. After so long at home, the doubts had crept in. Can I still do this? The thought of standing up in front of a room full of people and talking (far easier with an audience of one, especially one without the capacity to argue back yet) was more daunting to me than it ever had been at the start of my career ten years ago. Do I have anything to say these days that’s not about Iggle Piggle or baby-led weaning?

But before long, I found my rhythm and realised it is all still there after all. And how nice to use my brain again! To push myself, to engage in adult conversation without one eye on whether there’s a toddler escape plan hatching as my daughter tries to balance precariously on her ride-on Minnie Mouse car to try to reach the door handle.

There’s so much I love about my work life – I appreciate the really simple things, even the fact that the coffee barista knows my name and my order every morning (and the fact I can both justify a morning coffee now I’m working again and drink it while it’s hot). I’m part of the real world again and I get to be me, Claire, as well as me, Mummy.

[New Mummy Blog: Going Back To Work Was Heartbreaking]
[New Mummy Blog: How I Manage To Get A Full Night's Sleep]

But that’s not to say I wouldn’t drop everything in a heartbeat to be at home with Honor. I find the best way to deal with constantly missing her and knowing I’m missing out on her day, her development, is to not think about her. Impossible, of course, but I try.

I remember a friend recommending to me that I don’t have any pictures of her on my desk at work. I followed her advice (but have since succumbed to one little picture).  At work I do find it easier not to talk about Honor (unless someone asks, and then I can’t resist). I’m there to work and want to get on with my job and do it to the best possible standard I can.

It’s been a steep learning curve – my job is not a nine to five, yet I’m now trying to cram it into nine to four! My commute and the nursery pick up cut my day short. But I do think it’s true that mothers are some of the best employees (I would say that, of course) because there’s no dilly dallying, no procrastinating – you work flat out while you’re in the office, no lunch break, no chit chatting in the kitchen, because if you don’t get it done then you’re doing it at home during precious family time.

Much has been made in recent years of the so-called divide between stay-at-home and working mothers. Alongside this the debates rage on about women trying to have it all. Not to mention recent news of two of the leading tech companies offering egg freezing as a perk to their female employees.

[New Mummy Blog: Going Back To Work Made Me Feel Guilty]

For my part, I can’t help but wish that it would all just go away. As long as we’re all doing our best, does it really matter? Yes, it’s really hard juggling the two sides of my life, but this is the choice I made – for my family’s finances and quality of life and for my own career.

In a way, I’m very lucky. It’s not always easy to convince myself of this, but maybe in a way I’ve got the best of both worlds (as well as the worst at times). Every moment with Honor is precious and not being with her for so much of the time makes me determined to make the time we do have together the most magical I can.

At least that’s what I tell myself to get me through the days when Honor has clung to me crying the night before or when she hasn’t seen me for 48 hours because work or train problems have delayed my return home until after her bedtime.

Because that guilt does nothing to help. I need to put it in a box and get on with the day job. I’ve found I’ve wanted to prove to myself, as well as to those around me in the workplace, that I’m still as dedicated as I ever was, despite this huge shift in my circumstances and priorities. Never mind the fact that I’d only been back at work for a couple of weeks when I had to tell my boss I was pregnant again…