Balancing work and motherhood

So heaven knows what I’m doing writing about something actually controversial - balancing work and mothering!

Clearly the following is evidence that I will never learn, so be gentle with me.

Late last year, Sam Leader invited the mums amongst Flying Solo contributors to write on balancing work and mothering. The response was less than enthusiastic. We claimed we weren’t qualified. Excuses included “Too long ago for me”, “I only have one child’, “My business didn’t take off till later” and so on.

Women being women, maybe? After all I’m certain men would write on combining fathering and working, with quite some authority too. But also I think my reluctance and that of the other working mum contributors came from a position that we are just hanging on ourselves so who would we be to advise others?

Part of my lack of suitability to the task of writing on balancing work and mothering, I thought, was that my perspective tends not to fit mainstream expectations, so would not be what women wanted to read.

My view is women with children or planning to have children should combine their maternal pursuits with flying solo exactly however they please or are required to do because of economic, lifestyle, geographic, political, social, habitual or other reasons.

To summarise, women should mother and work or work and mother however they wish. They should ignore the opinions of others, and there will be many, and get on with doing whatever their circumstances require or enable.

Work? Not work? Close or sell the business? Just rest it for a while? Do whatever you want.

There are four important provisos but feel free to follow my earlier suggestion of ignoring the opinions of others, as these are just my opinions based on my 15 years of being a mum, 11 years of being a mum of three and 42 years of observing people living their lives.

Proviso 1. Maintaining your employability (or capacity to start or revive a soloist pursuit should you need to) throughout any full time mothering is more important than working through that period. Relationships can fail and so we shouldn’t let our capacity to earn an income fail us or our children. Studying, keeping up with trends, working part time and volunteering are just some ways to ensure you have current skills and knowledge to trade on if your circumstances change.

Proviso 2. Whatever combination of mothering and working you choose, including full time mothering, acknowledge to yourself th at it is hard.Too many mothers wonder why they are ‘not coping’ when their lives don’t resemble those in magazines. We need to understand that however much we enjoy it, mothering is hard full stop.

Proviso 3. Remember whatever decisions you make about working and mothering, the time you choose not to spend with your kids cannot ever be reclaimed. They are not young for long; it’s all over in a blink; they are just on loan to us - absolutely all of the clichés are true.

Proviso 4. Once we are mothers, our lives and our responsibilities are changed forever. We will never fly solo again.