Going back to work
I remember when I went back to work on my 1st child one of my friends in work asking me: “When do you get time to wash your hair?”
The truth is you just muddle through! I used to shower in the evenings after making a dinner for the next day. I felt like I spent the whole evening getting ready for the next day and then it would be bedtime, and I was off to bed only to get up and do it all again!
A couple of weeks into being back to work I had to go on a trip to London for 2 nights to a Client business review. At first I was dreading it, leaving my baby … I kept thinking something would happen to me and it would just be my husband left minding our child. I had left Matthew before for 1 night that summer when he was about 7 months old to go to a college friend’s wedding. I went on my own as the wedding was in west cork, a four hour drive away and we decided it would be easier for me to go alone than put a 7 month old through a 4 hour drive and also we weren’t completely ready yet to leave him overnight as I was still weaning him off from breastfeeding so my husband gave me a pass to go on my own. In that respect I was ok leaving Matthew as it wasn’t my first time and he was almost 11 months now but even so I felt like I was going to be so far away in London.
In the end the trip to London was like a holiday, the flight and travel aside, once I got to my hotel I was made up!
I had my own hotel room with a gorgeous big shower, walking distance to work and the prospect of a good, uninterrupted night of sleep!
I literally didn’t know what to do with myself, there was no housework or minding a child, sure, there was plenty of work to be done in my hotel in the evenings to prep for my meetings but I actually enjoyed that mental stimulation. I did miss Matthew like crazy and my heart yearned for a snuggle and to be beside him, but once I was home a couple of hours, I was dreaming about a break to myself again! Its funny the way the mom guilt works!
My poor Husband didn’t get on so well, he survived as I knew he would, he is great and of course perfectly able to look after our child, but I noticed he looked a bit disheveled and asked how he got on managing showering and his reply was that he didn’t … there was just no time he said!
Overall though, with work, I think I was naïve about how I was going to be able to juggle it all.
What I learnt pretty quickly was yes, of course you can have a career and be a good Mum, people having been doing it for years, but the kicker is deciding which version of each you are going to be and how much it takes it out of you.
Are you a mum who is there all the time for her kids does all the admin and takes a less pressured job to allow for more responsibility at home?
Or perhaps you want to go after the high powered job, with that you will need help, either your husband takes on more at home or if you are lucky the grandparents can pitch in and help to support.
The key thing was the mom guilt, does it sit ok with you not to be the person doing all the admin and seeing them through the 100’s of little things, like pick ups from creche, meeting the mom of their best friend in playschool so you can arrange a playdate, booking the swimming lessons, bringing them to the doctor when sick, buying clothes, arranging costumes for Halloween, remembering to buy the yogurts they like so they get enough calcium and so on?
For me, I discounted all these things and thought I could juggle it all, but soon figured out that the “mental load” of managing a household as well as a pressurised job was draining me and leaving me with no energy to just just be me without being in mom mode or work mode!
I spoke to friends about it and wondered how everyone else did it? Eventually after 9 months back at work, something had to give, I was completely burnt out.
There was a restructuring going on in work which resulted in a lot of changes and decisions being made about what new team I would join and what products I would work with, dealing with the change required a lot of additional mental capacity, usually in the evenings and on top of my mom / household role my brain was just fried.
I started looking for different roles internally and thinking about what I could do to help my situation, relieve some of the pressure and allow me to take back some capacity to be me. It was my mum, who saw me struggling, that suggested I look at the option of a 4 day week so I did and I found a role internally that really interested me, would still stretch and challenge me and give me the job satisfaction I needed but would also allow me to explore the option of working a 4 day week.
In the end, I went ahead and took that role, and it was great, in conversation with the Dept head I figured out that they were supportive of me working that 4 day week. I felt like my Boss in the new role was sent from above for me, I could not have liked her more as a role model, she was on top of her game in work, so well respected but also was so personable and family orientated and a huge advocate for work /life balance.
I am now back to work as a mother of 2 kids and just getting used to balancing everything again. Things are definitely easier this time around, post-Pandemic the new flexibility of remote working has helped immensely to be honest, being able to put on a wash and hang the clothes on the line during lunch or make a dinner during the day really helps to make the most of the limited time available during the day. Both myself and my husband work in the city center so the commute / creche pick-up / dinner time juggle was our biggest struggle but taking the commute out of the equation makes that so much easier.
Also, I think my husband understands the mental load more now and all the small tasks that I have mopped up while being on maternity leave. He has been really thoughtful about how to share the load at home with a list of family chores and tasks so it is easier. This helps as then it is not my responsibility to inform my husband we are out of milk as the household manager, it is as much his job to check the fridge and see if we need milk and put it on the shared list so it is a combined effort! The wheels may still come off from time to time trying to balance it all, but at least we are in it together.
