Baby vs Career? Really?

This is a thought that occurs to me pretty much every day. Stay at home Mum, working Mum, stay at home Mum, working Mum. Which is best for my two gorgeous mini-people? 

Me on maternity leave...not sure why my hubby just spat out his coffee...

It is a massive conundrum that I have not ever been able to solve in my mind even after a couple of guilt-ridden posts on Mamamia when I first returned to work, both with about 500 "helpful" comments from other women. So when Gumtree did this infographic (below), about it I thought it time to revisit this modern day non-decision. 

I don't think I will ever be entirely comfortable with my full-time work choice, but I can say my two boys seem happy, well-adjusted and I dare say they are in no doubt of how much I adore them.  

I have come to believe that wholly defining your life by your children is quite unhealthy for all involved, especially the kids. So I am glad to have something else. Of course it doesn't need to be work that fills that gap, I think the trick is ensuring it is not solely your children, that's too much of a burden for them to carry.  

For me it is work and I do love my job, the challenge and the personal development that is required to work successfully with others even makes me a better Mum. Some call it selfish but knowing what looking after yourself mentally and physically, individually means for you is a responsibility that must be taken seriously to actually be a good parent. So whatever that is for you, and it is different for everyone, you owe it to your children to make sure you do look after yourself. 

So stay at home or go to work, the choice is only one each individual Mum can make and whatever that choice is, as long as your children are loved well and they know it, I think you are making the right decision. 

Gumtree infographic baby versus career is an infographic that was produced by Gumtree

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Over the Moon or just on another planet?

When contemplating why a certain unnamed website would choose me over other potential candidates to write a guest post, I did what most women do and then instantly regret, I asked my husband. The exchange went something like:

Me: “It’s hard to describe isn’t it?”
Hubby (smirking): “Well not really…your point of difference is you walk around with a rocket up you’re butt”
Me: “You wish! I should have asked our 8mth old, his babble would’ve been more insightful.”

Welcome to my sophisticated life.
The irony of my husband’s tragic attempt at being funny and/or an r-rated porn star is that it got me thinking…no not about rear-ends but rockets. You see when I was a ‘child’ (really only six years ago) I wanted to be an astronaut. It wasn’t just the idea of flying through space, it was more the amazing feat of it; astronauts were simply superhuman. But what made my heart really long for NASA of Apollo 13 was the greatness humans can achieve when they work together towards a common goal. 

One superhuman feat surveys the moon.

 As an art director at the time, although I did achieve the advertising equivalent of spaceflight, there was no teamwork. So much so when the creative director got bored with doing nothing everyday while high, my beloved Cannes Lion^ also disappeared. Like most people’s reality, my working life was defined by people working against each other, while the one with the longest and hardest working tongue got what he wanted. So I was busy doing tongue stretches when…

I became a mother.
Look at it, such an innocuous little statement, short and simple. The truth is every time the phrase ‘became a mother’ is uttered there should be a universal sound effect like “dun dun doooouuunnnnn”, because it turns worlds upside-down, brains inside-out and bodies, well let’s just say zero-gravity would be useful. Basically being a mum requires years of superhuman feats and transforms your existence such that you may as well be blasted through space to another planet. Ok so I know that astronauts face G-forces that make it feel like a cow is sitting on their chest for 15mins, but try settling a screaming toddler for 4 hours straight on 3 hours sleep per night? I think even the wimpiest of men would prefer the cow.

The truth was I no longer needed to see the earth through a spaceship’s side window; I could see it in my son’s blue eyes. (SFX: a collective “oooaaawww”, no seriously if you saw those eyes you’d understand)

I used to NEED my career, I used to long for great heights of achievement within it and worst of all I used to think climbing the corporate ladder would make me whole. I was wrong, why, because now I’m an ambitionless, tracksuit wearing, naval gazer and happier than an ex-battery hen let loose on a free-range farm time has given me perspective.

Corporate tunnel-vision is gone and a big wide bottom life has replaced it, albeit with a long, strong tongue now only useful at parties. I’m not going to pretend I’ve had a brain transplant, and am now happy rolling in tulips with my boys and oh yes, playing with my kids too. I am still ambitious, I've just realised there’s more than one way to skin a cat*. I've also worked out that whatever I end up doing, that doing isn't the sum total of me-ness, there are other things that define me like skinning cats the weird stuff I say on twitter at 3am, (or given this post, on this blog during daylight hours *scary*).

Anyway at the moment life with my three boys; 8mths, 2 and 35yrs; and my blog beats hurtling through the atmosphere, driving a gold corvette and having a twitter handle like Astro_girl. For one thing being a Mum is unlikely to endanger my life which is a plus, (although my two year old recently practiced his new found skill for head butting on my cheekbone), and secondly I’d probably feel a little out of place in Houston with no PhD. (PhD’s in ‘how to avoid sitting in a poo bath with a toddler**’ don’t count)

At last I am over the moon.

P.S. The title of this post is a rhetorical question, although it's ok if you do answer it as I love all comments
^The advertising equivalent of an Oscar.
* Before you call the RSPCA I don’t really know many ways to skin a cat, in fact I don’t even know one way to skin a cat – this is probably my biggest issue. If I could skin a cat I may have found perspective when I was only a quarter of the way through my life but instead I am half way and all the cats I know still have their skin. The one that hacks up indescribable gunge on our side path has been asking for a skinning for months now so better get to it and I’ll at last be on my way to a happier life).
** This actually happened and I have yet to write a paper on avoidance strategies but I know it would contribute to the body of knowledge, just not the body anybody knows. 

© My IdeaLife, 2011. All rights reserved.

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a beautiful madness

On 3 hours sleep I am trying to see the positive side of a new baby in my life. My second bub is less work than my first but it seems so much harder this time. Probably because they wake each other and my previously perfectly sleeping-through 21mth old is now night waking and wanting to cuddle, read books and generally get some reassurance that the footsteps he's hearing at all hours of the night are mine and not some green-eyed monsters'.

But if another older woman, be it my mother or the well-meaning neighbour tells me again that this is the best time of my life and I should be relishing it, I'll scream. It is not the best time – yes it is amazing and I am so lucky in so many ways but until a baby's brain is taught how to sleep you can't truly enjoy them. Let's be honest on 3 hours sleep you start getting desperate and you do resent them for making you wretched in every way.

Don't get me wrong I adore my two sons, but as Charles Dickens wrote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." and it is exactly that. I long for that person that laughed more, that didn't have a headache most of the time, that had spare time to think and just be. It probably sounds selfish but I miss myself – and I am scared of who I have become...namely more like my mother than I care to admit, (if she could get me to care about the housekeeping 100% of the time the incarnation would be complete).

I know I'm not meant to complain about this - what about people who can't have babies, or those that have lost them - god forbid.. I am aware logically of how blessed I am - I have a happy healthy family which is all that should matter. But sleep deprivation seems to remove all logic. And when I look at my life through bleary eyes I only see the negatives. 

Here's hoping tonight my youngest will sleep more than 3.5hrs at a time then my world will be clearer, my guilt will be less, my husband will sigh with relief and I will truly appreciate the beautiful madness that my two gorgeous boys have made of my life. 

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