Tag Archives: working mum

Working for the woman with no children

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I vaguely recall being in my mid-20s, working as an editor on a magazine and having no children barnacled to my ankle. There were several working mums in the company, and rather than thinking ‘how do they do it?’, I would wonder to myself, ‘why do they do it?’

It just looked so exhausting; all that juggling, constantly being on pick-up deadlines, and trying to have it all. They also seemed, dare I say it, pleased to be at work. I remember one going on holiday with small children and coming back looking more tired, ragged and hollow-eyed than before.

Fast-forward 15 years, and the tables are turned. At one company I work for, there’s a 50:50 split between parents and non-parents, and while everyone, for the most part, jollies along together, the divide occasionally widens into a gaping canyon.

Just before Christmas, a children’s afternoon was arranged, in which an onslaught of small kids arrived to wreak havoc in the office. As they drank apple juice in the boardroom, smeared sugary donuts all over the furniture and hid behind the filing cabinets, I sat back and enjoyed the whole thing, mainly because my boys weren’t there to have to supervise.

I loved watching my colleagues – steely journalists – in Dad mode (not many of the mums brought their kids in, can’t think why), but it didn’t go down well with everyone. One young fella, about as far off reproducing as I was in my mid-20s, looked visibly pained by the chaos, and eyed any toddlers who approached him as though they might be carrying explosives.

Before sidling off home early, I heard him say: “They did this last year too. One kid ate so much junk that she was SICK everywhere.” [almost shuddering as he recalled the horror!]

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I’m the one (happily, depending on the day) in the shadows now!

For me, the mix of parents and non-parents is a refreshing change, but at another place I work, it’s a different set-up: the staff are all younger and it’s here that I came across her:

The 20-something career woman with no children, bucket-loads of ambition, two Blackberries and dry-clean-only clothes.

And I found myself working for her.

At about 5.40pm, she (nicely) asked me to make some fairly extensive changes on the project I was working on.

“Ok,” I said, nodding, and because she needed them that evening and DH was already on his way to pick me up, I offered to email it later.

“What time?” she asked, a little sharply.

I made a mental calculation: get home [45mins]; see kids [1.5 hours]; bedtime routine and reading [1 hour]; do work [1.5 hours] … it would be at least 10.45pm.

“Um. About….” I couldn’t say it. “9?’

We locked eyes. I could feel tension. She wasn’t impressed.

Ouch.

“Alright, I’ll stay now and get it done,” I relented.

“Good,” she trilled, and turned on her heel to get back to her desk to start her evening shift.

One day – if she has kids, that is – she’ll get it.

The working mum’s costume fail

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Tomorrow is book character day at school – the day school is invaded by a mini fictional force made up of Harry Potter, Dr. Seuss, Angelina Ballerina and other favourite storybook characters.

Sigh.

It’s all part of book week, during which we’re invited to send in money so our kids can spend it at a book fair (or attempt to buy crisps instead, as I suspect my son might try), take part in the Gazillion Minutes of Reading @ Home initiative (okay, it’s a million, not gazillion) and come up with a costume for the dress-up day.

Don’t get me wrong. I do think all this is great – I absolutely love reading, and trying to impart a love of reading to my sons has been really rewarding, as has watching BB learn to read.

It’s the dress-up part that’s bothering me. Because tomorrow BB will go to school wearing a pair of too-small yellow plastic trousers (part of an old fireman’s outfit), a T-shirt emblazoned with a train and a kids’ pilots hat – the dishevelled assembled sum of which is meant to make him look like a steam train driver from his Flying Scotsman book.

Not an accurate depiction of the blogger

Not an accurate depiction of the blogger

Even he knows it’s a crumb-y costume. And I know there will be outfits that mums will have spent ages making. Costumes that originated from Pinterest and were then lovingly hand sewn and accessorised.

Still, it’s not that I didn’t try. I’m just having a crazy busy week, with a new freelance job (ironically, for the PR company handling the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, which we dragged the boys to this weekend and STILL failed to come home with a suitable book) and I haven’t had a spare minute.

After work today, I sped into our local bookstore, practically setting the paperbacks alight, to try to buy a Fireman Sam book, to go with the old fireman costume I knew was hanging in the cupboard (they not only have to dress up, but also take the book in).

“Do you have Fireman Sam?” I asked the man in the bookshop hopefully.

“No,” he replied after glancing briefly at his computer screen.

“How about any book about firemen, perhaps?” I tried.

“No, nothing,” he said, shaking his head (and I’m sure he laughed, sensing my desperation).

I tried to persuade BB he could wear his Halloween costume instead. “Look, we can use a pen to colour in the skeleton so it looks like a normal pirate’s outfit,” I trilled, as he looked on glumly.

“Or maybe your brother’s spiderman top will fit.”

“That’s a film, mum.”

“I want to go as a dog,” he finally said, getting excited at last. “Floppy the dog from my phonics book. Can you make a dog costume? Please, mummy, please make me a dog suit?”

And mums who work and also leave things like this to the eleventh hour will know exactly what the answer to that request is.

The interview fail

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It was my first interview in years and I was running late – not seriously late, but time had marched forwards, leaving me with about 30 minutes to get dressed, shovel on some make-up and find my portfolio at the back of the cupboard.

I may have put a little more mascara on than usual, because my pink-rimmed eyes looked like I’d been up all night (which is not surprising, because I had). I’d landed back in Dubai at 6am that morning, slept a little and was heading down to Media City for an interview on a fashion magazine.

It had to be that afternoon; it was the only time they could do. And, while a part of me yelled, ‘You’re a mum now. What do you think you’re doing? You left the high-profile stuff behind years ago,” I was excited – the thought of working once again on a beautiful glossy magazine setting my brain alight with possibilities.

As I waited nervously in the foyer, I marvelled at the rows of magazines on display, the glamorous receptionist, the fake-smile PR girl flicking her blonde hair and the overall swishness of the place.

The editor appeared, looking trim and trendy in a metallic skirt, and led me to the canteen. Decked out in white, my eyes were drawn to the green, grass-like herbs on the formica counters, the ping-pong table and the view outside.

You could even get a massage upstairs (I’m not kidding). It beat my kitchen, where I boil the kettle and battle endlessly to feed my children, hands down.

I must have ended up in the right-hand tray

She put me in the right-hand tray!

We seemed to get along; she was nice, interested (and at least didn’t take one look at my hurriedly thrown together outfit and rather dated boots and step back into the elevator).

But there were some stumbling blocks.

“We sometimes have to work at the weekend,” she told me, eyeing me squarely. “I realise you have children, but I need to know you wouldn’t let us down.”

“Umm, that should be okay,” I faltered, “although if my husband and nanny are gone, I’m really stuck,” I blurted.

“I’ll be in touch later,” she said at the end. And sure enough she was – with a writing test she wanted by the next day.

I did the test and sent it at 1.30am, ploughing through severe fatigue, but jet lag at least working in my favour (the position, covering a two-month absence, was to start on Monday, hence the urgency).

And you know what? They haven’t even been in touch. I don’t need to tell you that it’s Tuesday today, and that the deafening silence obviously means I was rejected.

But it would have been nice to have been told [she says, in a depressed little voice].

My DH tells me not to worry, that something else – more family friendly – will come along if a proper, more regular job is what I want, and can’t fully understand why I’m so upset. “I’m a mummy, not an Airbus,” I tell him. “There’s no quick-fix for a mummy who’s conflicted about her career being in tatters.”

And then my mum’s words (of reason) come into my head. “These things, they tend to work out for the best, you know,” she says.

She’s right, isn’t she?

EDITED TO ADD: I finally heard from them – still a big fat ‘no’, but feel so much better to know the reason!

To work or not to work?

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I’ve been working a lot recently, in an office, with adults who listen and don’t break everything. They don’t shout, fight, or fall off chairs and injure themselves.

Nor do they need help in the toilet.

At the end of the day, my colleagues are still alive, without any assistance from me whatsoever.

I like it. I really like it.

Except I wish I didn’t enjoy it quite so much, because our lives would be so much easier if I didn’t work. If I hadn’t struggled so much with being a stay-at-home mum whose days felt like one long, open-ended project that I was as likely to finish as I was to climb Everest, backwards.

Perhaps if I’d been able to pat myself on the back occasionally for singing the baby to sleep, or dangling a rattle for him to swat, things would have been different.

But the truth is, whilst I love my children more than I ever thought possible, I found it difficult having them barnacled to my ankle/breast/hip 24/7 – and I really missed work.

Anyway, they started growing up, not needing me quite so much. And since it costs money just to stand still in Dubai, going back to work not only stopped me from going round the bend, it also made sense.

What goes up...must come down

What goes up…must come down

So now we juggle. We make complicated arrangements involving my husband, our nanny, and kind mothers who do me an enormous favour and bring my youngest son home from school if needed.

I bark orders as I grab the keys to leave. “Don’t forget, you need to go to school 15 minutes early as it’s ‘Look at your child’s learning journal’ day. And then drop LB and C [our nanny] at the park for the class playdate. Oh and there’s French homework.”

DH looks at me, wanting to throttle me.

(He’s here quite a bit in the day, due to an erratic flying schedule that often sends him away at weekends instead. I know we’re lucky in that respect as one of us is usually around.)

I rush home from work and stuff money into envelopes for school trips/teachers’ gifts. I attempt to come up with the latest demands from school for things I don’t just happen to have lying around (yesterday it was 31 of something…buttons, beans. I sent Lego).

I worry a lot about missing things.

The Festive Sing-a-long. The Winter Festival. “And, oh god, Decoration Day. It’s next week, in the middle of the day [about as convenient as a hole in the head]. I can’t go!” I think to myself.

But it’s the mummy guilt that really gets me.

“Mum, how many days are you working? Why are you working again?” my children ask.

And the line my youngest son came out with this morning: “What takes you so long at work, Mum?”

Those Cosmopolitan magazines that told every female who’d listen in the 70s that it was her right to have it all/have an orgasm/combine motherhood, homemaking and career changed everything, didn’t they?

That sinking feeling at bedtime

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My sons are absolutely obsessed with the Titanic. It started after DH told them the story at bedtime, and has grown out of all proportions so that they now want a story about a different sinking ship every night.

Yesterday evening, when I got in from work, they were both sprawled on the sofa, watching the Titanic movie again.

“Mumm-eeee,” they squealed, immediately bouncing into action to kick off the most frenetic two hours of my day.

Not the part little boys want to see

We fast-forwarded the ‘kissing bits’ and got to the part where the boat hits the iceberg and the seawater comes rushing in, which always grips them until they’re wide-eyed – their pupils dilated – with an emotion I can’t quite define.

And that’s when the torrent of questions started.

“Mummy, how many doors did the Titanic have? What was it made of? Wasn’t it stronger than the iceberg? What happened to the iceberg? How many rats were on board?”

“I know Mummy, let’s make an iceberg!” [requiring ice, water, a plastic bottle, pens and paper].

I love getting home from work, but I must admit, after my commute and long day, my head feels like it might actually burst if I’m asked one more question I can’t answer, or I’m thrust into a Blue Peter-style project that simply can’t wait until tomorrow.

Upstairs, I finally managed to chase them into bed, only to be met with a barrage of demands that I stay with them until they’re asleep.

“Mummy, don’t go,” whimpered a by-now alarmed BB, coming down from his watery special effects-induced adrenalin high and entering over-tired territory.

“I’m scared the house is going to sink…”

Cue another 25 minutes of cuddles and reassurances that we’re not at sea.

Next time, they’re watching the romantic bits instead – even if it means listening to that Celine Dion song.

The transition from work to mummydom

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I’ve come to the conclusion that never mind massages and spa treatments, what I really need after work and before going head first into a long weekend with two small boys is a decompression chamber.

It was nice and quiet down there! Anyone else feel like they get the bends when they transition from work to home?

Maybe it’s just me, but after being in an office where everyone sits still, the computer more or less does what it’s told and the noise levels are fairly muted, suddenly being reintroduced to the demands of two energetic boys is like surfacing too fast from relatively tranquil depths.

The decibels, the goading, the speed at which the boys fly round the house, the way they ricochet off the walls (summer temps mean we can’t exercise them outside), their neediness after my absence – whilst I’m overjoyed to be back home, it makes me feel quite giddy.

So, now it’s the weekend – and it’s a long one because Sunday, when we usually all go back to work and school, is a holiday for the ascension of Prophet Mohammad. And DH is out of the picture because he’s ‘in the Sim’ – airline lingo for training in the simulator, during which they practice fires, engine failures and other such scenarios.

My mind is thinking about something less terrifying but which has left me scratching my head nevertheless – BB’s homework.

It’s that time of term again when instead of doing the usual spellings and reading for homework, he has to complete a project – and present it – for his end-of term summative assessment. All very well, but he’s six. Some of his classmates are five. They’re in kindergarten!

Last week he had to design a ‘mode of transport’, this week he has to create it. There was the option of using Lego, but that would have been too easy. He’s opted to junk model a train, and so I’ve spent much of the week collecting boxes, buying art supplies and wondering how to turn cereal packets and toilet rolls into an express train.

As my working friend put it, there’s no way such young children can do these projects on their own. So when little Johnny comes home from school and says he has to create a solar system, it’s mum who ends up printing off stuff at work, coming up with ideas (styrofoam balls on sticks? genius!), and cajoling a child who can’t sit still for two minutes (heaven knows how mine gets through six hours of school) into completing the project. On time.

And, with all the tiger-mothering that goes on in Dubai (including presentations by seven-year-olds on iPads!), you really need to make sure your child takes it seriously. BB’s told me some of his classmates have brought their projects in early. On display already, there’s a rocket made out of bottles, a flying car and a train with wooden wheels.

By the end of this week, I’m fully expecting there to be 4by4s made from matchsticks, robotic trucks and remote-controlled airplanes.

I’d better get back to those loo rolls…

What I saw Wednesday

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I’m back at work – which feels good and it pays for the kids’ snacks, sometimes even the loo roll.

The view from the office is rather magnificent – blue sea, sandy beaches and the Palm on one side, and the city’s gleaming skyscrapers on the other side. On a really clear day, when we’re not peering through sand, we can even see as far as the next emirate.

As being back at work means I actually get to have adult conversations, I thought that for my Wednesday meme this week, I could also do ‘What I said’ (not much, as it turned out, but slightly more interesting than telling the kids off all day).

Keep in mind that, being freelance, I’ve just had a fairly long period of work famine, so I’m not normally the office idiot. Here goes…

“Umm, how do I switch this computer on?”

“It’s 111 degrees, really? But it’s only the beginning of May!”

“No, I haven’t been sun bathing, honestly. Just running after the kids outside.”

“Could someone please tell me the password again?”

“I know, I haven’t been in the office for ages. I’ve been, erm…” [tried to not talk about the kids too much, or my burst of housewifely spring cleaning, clearing out cupboards, drawers, etc, and being quite proud of the results!]

“Oh, the company’s got a new name. Top Right Drawer? No, Top Right Group. Wow. And L became the editor – in January. I’m really behind.”

“YES, I’d LOVE to do lunch!”

[Via text to DH]: “Sad I’m missing BB’s school assembly. He never told us it was a play they’ve been rehearsing for weeks. Will he know his lines, d’you think?” [*really* wished I was there. Turned out he was a tree and didn’t have much to say!]

[On my way home, to myself]: “Omg, what have they done to this roundabout! It’s completely changed. Where the hell’s my exit???” [while spinning round the intersection like a Weeble with an inner-ear infection]

[At home, to my 6yo]: “Right, BB, time to do homework. Spellings, reading.” [I’m sure I didn’t have homework until my teens]

And so to bed. Because, as much as I’m delighted to be working again, the thing is you not only have to stay all day, but you have to turn up the next day too.

Office life versus mummydom

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These past few weeks I’ve been working on a magazine down in Media City – some 10 years too late.

Publishing offices here are full of skinny media types, with trendy clothes, silky hair, and because it’s Dubai, a sun tan, exotic accent and just the right amount of bling.

They’re all so young, I sometimes feel like telling them, “You know, there was a time, not all that long ago, when people didn’t have the Internet at their fingertips.”

“And when we did start getting connected at home, it was dial-up. Imagine that. Bet you can’t, can you?”

“You were alive then?” I imagine the young whippersnappers responding, wide-eyed as it dawns on them I’m from a generation that remembers cassette tapes, Commodore 64 computers and mobile phones the size of a brick.

I cover at this particular magazine during busy periods and I said yes to the work because I know I enjoy it when I’m there and they actually pay.

So I’m reminded again what it’s like to be a proper working Mum – commuting for an hour-and-15 a day in rush-hour, doing the grocery shop with the rest of the world on Saturday, and only seeing the kids at bedtime, when they’re behaving monstrously.

It’s always a nice change. Here are some of the things I enjoy:

• Lipstick and heels (with toe cleavage) rather than jeans and flip flops

• Going to the toilet in peace

• Office gossip – generally, though not always, more salacious

• Still micro-managing the boys’ social lives and well-being, but being able to do it remotely, at my desk eating salt-and-vinegar crisps that don’t get nicked

• Not being interrupted every two seconds and when someone does need something, the request not starting with, “Mumm-eeeee, I waaaa-nt…’ Even the office twit seems mild-mannered and quiet to me.

• Incentives like a slap-up meal for the team with the tidiest desks (we didn’t win)

• Colleagues who don’t hit or bite each other

• Lunch out and even eating a sarnie at my desk that doesn’t come with a plastic toy

• Eyeing up a gorgeous dress and thinking “I could buy it! I’ve earnt the money myself!” then being overcome with absent mummy guilt and settling on something for the kids instead

• Not feeling bad about achieving nothing on my mile-long ‘things-to-do-around-the-house list’ – and instead writing on post-it notes that are dealt with by the end of the day

• Making a cup of tea while chatting to adults at eye-level rather than waist-level and who don’t shout at me, tantrum or cling to my leg

• Sneaking back to the mall later to get the dress

I could go on…. it’s one helluva lot easier than refereeing small boys, but there’s a big problem: I miss them and hardly see them! Talk about the grass always being greener on the other side…