The funny side to life as a working single Mum. My stories of embarrassing escapades, toddler tantrums and great expectations.
Sunday, 21 April 2013
A full time working, full time Mother.
Over the past week I have breastfed Ethan on a busy 7am bus ride, taught a couple of hundred teenagers in total and pushed the buggy in heels, laptop and all on my back! I have laughed, cried and felt exhausted and elated. I will quickly explain the heels. Work trousers too big since buying two months ago. Didn't realise. No other trousers. Heels only shoes to stop trousers dragging on floor. Back to my week anyway. Teaching was great and I feel challenged and happy to be back at it, especially as I feel I am really making a difference on my new students. Ethan has settled into nursery and enjoyed time with my Mum but has been so poorly with teething and a two week long cough and cold. He hasn't been himself and has just wanted cuddle after cuddle. This is the terrible bit of being at work; I am not there 24/7 to give cuddles. I have cried when Ethan cried at my leaving him but had to pull myself together to teach year 9. This is a positive of teaching, in that there is no time to wallow. Your students are the priority and your focus is on their needs.
This weekend has been a joy. Our family together just playing and cuddling. Watching Ethan learn and laugh, kissing and holding hands with my husband. Long walks in the sunshine, chips on the seafront and lazy afternoons spent with Disney. All the simple pleasures which make it all worth it.
Back to work now. I admit to feeling guilty and heart broken leaving Ethan to a horrific extent but I am still 100% Mummy. I am going to say something now which some people might not like but I have been thinking for a while: I hate the phrase 'full time Mum.' It offends me. It upsets me. It confuses me. If a Mum who stays at home is full time but a Mum who goes to work isn't then surely the working Mum a part-timer? It may be because on the brink of my return the prospect that my time with Ethan will be interrupted and limited, making me a part-time parent hurt me but I don't think it is just this. It's more than that. This is personal, political and social, reflecting all that is wrong in attitudes to the role of women. We are mothers, lovers, workers on many levels and yet there is still an imbalance here. Can society really see us as many faces on one imperfect body or are we destined to be typecast as a one woman show? On my bus journey to work this week it dawned on me that 'Shit! I'm a working Mum!' and I considered those words carefully. Just as the full time tag is problematic to me, so is the working Mum title. Don't we all work? Seriously, I have worked for my SMP the past 8 months and it was really tough. So, a Mum who stays at home past maternity leave is surely a working Mum? We are all full time workers, whether in or out of the home but most of all, we are all full time Mothers. Isn't that the most precious and important job of all, regardless of how we manage it?
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