Always there Mam ...
Facebook’s Memory function has helpfully reminded me that 3 years ago this month I embarked on what has proved to be a disastrous attempt to balance work – family – home life and still have some time to stand back and be me. What crazy idea had I come up with?
My LG was 3. She’d started part-time at dosbarth meithrin at school, and we were running short of after school childcare options for when she went full-time. My previous work pattern was unsustainable going forwards, as I couldn’t be there to pick her up at 3:20 every afternoon.
The after-school club was heavily over-subscribed, and could only offer
1 evening a week. We had no local family to help, the 5 hour / 200
mile round trip which any of the Grandparents would have been required
to undertake making it unreasonable to impossible.
It seemed that I was the only one who could alter my working pattern to fit in the school run.
I was still struggling with being at work, not at home with Rh, and really hadn’t managed to get to grips with balancing life. My boss was amazing. Having accommodated my previous random request to alter my hours around … this request was also granted. I now worked annualised hours, 4 days a week, to be completed during school-term time, and, for the most part, during school hours.
The perfect solution to the childcare problem, wasn’t a great solution to the work-life balance though. I no longer had any flexibility in when I took my leave. And while people accept that teachers and education staff are limited to when they can take days off, when you work in an office, that’s not the case. Unless I’d worked overtime, and accrued flexi, I couldn’t take days off during term-time. And every single day I was on leave, I had no time for myself.
But I only worked 4 days … so what about the 5th? That was meant to be the balancing day … but it never worked. Yes, I wasn’t at work, but everyone else I knew was. Or they were at home with their own younger children, and meeting up with other friends with children of similar ages. Essentially, I was working 4 days a week, but clock-watching for 5. I was still bound by school run schedules.
I was neither a stay-at-home Mam, nor a proper working Mam. I fitted neither group. I couldn’t go for coffee on a Tuesday afternoon … and neither could I just take a day off to go for a Spa day. Far from being the best of both worlds. It was the worst. I actually had less time to myself than ever before. And there was no way out.
So why write all this? Because, if there’s anyone reading this who has yet to sort out their working arrangements / childcare schedule. Think carefully before you jump into something that seems great on paper. It doesn’t always work in practice, and can be near impossible to undo once you realise it really doesn’t work for you.
It seemed that I was the only one who could alter my working pattern to fit in the school run.
I was still struggling with being at work, not at home with Rh, and really hadn’t managed to get to grips with balancing life. My boss was amazing. Having accommodated my previous random request to alter my hours around … this request was also granted. I now worked annualised hours, 4 days a week, to be completed during school-term time, and, for the most part, during school hours.
The perfect solution to the childcare problem, wasn’t a great solution to the work-life balance though. I no longer had any flexibility in when I took my leave. And while people accept that teachers and education staff are limited to when they can take days off, when you work in an office, that’s not the case. Unless I’d worked overtime, and accrued flexi, I couldn’t take days off during term-time. And every single day I was on leave, I had no time for myself.
But I only worked 4 days … so what about the 5th? That was meant to be the balancing day … but it never worked. Yes, I wasn’t at work, but everyone else I knew was. Or they were at home with their own younger children, and meeting up with other friends with children of similar ages. Essentially, I was working 4 days a week, but clock-watching for 5. I was still bound by school run schedules.
I was neither a stay-at-home Mam, nor a proper working Mam. I fitted neither group. I couldn’t go for coffee on a Tuesday afternoon … and neither could I just take a day off to go for a Spa day. Far from being the best of both worlds. It was the worst. I actually had less time to myself than ever before. And there was no way out.
So why write all this? Because, if there’s anyone reading this who has yet to sort out their working arrangements / childcare schedule. Think carefully before you jump into something that seems great on paper. It doesn’t always work in practice, and can be near impossible to undo once you realise it really doesn’t work for you.
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