This week I join the great sisterhood of the working mother. For five months my sole focus has been Alice; bringing her in to the world and then getting to know her. The past three months or so has felt like a dream. Granted, there were some nightmare moments, but on the whole it has been a wonderful, rose-coloured float through life as the weeks drifted by and I was able to fall hopelessly head-over-heels in love with my baby. But now, with parental leave payments finished (thank you, tax payers), and a family to run, it’s time to get back to the real world.
I love every thing about my job; the people are friendly, the paperwork is challenging and stimulating, and above all, the forty or so children I see every day are all sorts of wonderful. And yet, the thought of leaving Alice (with her grandmother, in her own home, for only two hours a day) makes me feel panicky, guilty, and downright sad.
Going back to work for a few hours a week is logically a good thing for me. It will keep my head in the game, giving me more teaching experience and a chance to keep up to date. It will mean I’m not surviving on savings and I may even have enough money to go to the gym – the only thing I feel I’ve really sacrificed since having Alice. It’ll also mean Alice will have a chance to form a bond with another person other than her dad and I, taking the pressure off when she stays with Nana and Grandad for longer than a few hours at a time.
I keep telling myself all these things, as well as reminding myself that Alice is being cared for in her own home, by her own grandmother, for just two hours three days a week. I know in my brain that Alice will be more than fine. I don’t even know why I’m dreading the return to work, I just am. Not even the pull of neat kids and awesome colleagues is enough.
I think part of this emotion is the fact that my returning to work is a choice. I know that if I didn’t go to work the mortgage would still get paid and Alice would still get fed. We could survive on one wage, for a few months at least. But that’s just it, we would just be surviving. There would be no money for petrol for me to get to town with Alice, and we would become very isolated. We may not be able to care properly for our dogs and goats. Our home would remain unfinished and the land un-scaped, not suitable for a growing child. There would be no money for extra clothes, or emergencies, or to print the countless photos I've taken of Alice’s first, well, everything. We don’t have a high maintenance lifestyle by any means, but it’s a lifestyle that still requires one and a half incomes to maintain. I don’t feel guilty for wanting to keep living how we are, but I do feel guilty for sacrificing time with Alice.
However, I know I have it lucky. So many mums have a stress that previous generations of mothers as a whole didn’t really have to deal will - a stress that I will most likely never know. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be in a position where returning to work is an absolute necessity. I know that right now I feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place. I imagine that if I had to leave Alice for a full working week just to keep our home and get food on the table, I’d feel like I was up against a concrete wall with a gun to my head.
I’ve always had a deep respect for working or studying mothers, and I’ve sympathised with their guilt, or worry, or their problem of never having enough hours in the day. But I’ve not truly understood it until now. I guess time will tell how I will go with balancing the mother hat, the teacher hat, the girlfriend hat and the Tiffany hat all at once. For now, I will keep focusing on making Alice smile and unashamedly love every moment of not having to be anywhere in particular, except right here.
No comments:
Post a Comment