Lifestyle Choices

I’ve read a lot about women who serenely cope with the three roles of full-time working woman, wife, and mother. However, I’ve never actually met one. All the ones that I know feel inadequate.

Going back to work after having children is a practical and emotional problem and both are interdependent. You risk worrying about them when you’re at work and about work when you’re at home, and end up being happy in neither situation.

Two requisites for a working mother are stamina and an understanding family Sympathetic they may be until it comes to your interests versus theirs, but they still want their evening meal on time and they don’t want to hear about the bus queue which made you late. But any husband should be willing to take the occasional snack meal in a crisis — and to cook it if necessary. What a working mother risks if she goes out to work is her health. She needs to be an exceptionally well organized person to survive and even if she manages the mechanics she will probably have emotional problems. Her biggest unrecognized problem will probably be to get a certain amount of private time to herself every day.

Your attitude

It is important that you shouldn’t feel guilty about working — and this is impossible. You have been conditioned to feel guilty. Accept it. Children instinctively know that your guilt about your work is your Achilles heel and will use it, when they are bored, or cross, to have a crack at you. ‘ Why don’t you ever make cakes, like other mothers?’ once nagged my son, who hates cakes.

A doctor once told me to do as much as you can for your children, but never make gargantuan sacrifices for them because they will resent it. He also told me that children have a very good basic set of priorities. They don’t care about mess or dust as long as they feel they are loved and if they feel secure in this then it doesn’t matter much what else you do, because that’s the only thing which really matters. This seems so obvious that one is left wondering what you’ve been so worried about all this time. However, it’s a good thing to remind your eldest of it when, raising an eyebrow, he runs his forefinger along a window ledge like a music hall mother-in-law.

The family attitude

Your family will probably never regard your work as anything but tiresome. There are certain occasions when you would, of course, never think twice about asking for time off work: for anything special which involves your husband’s boss, any special occasion involving your child at school, or when a child is ill. Before you start a job you may have to sort out that odd days such as these come out of your holiday time.

It helps to realize that husbands can be unconsciously selfish, emotional and unreasonable about the working wife situation and that therefore it may be unreasonable of you to expect him to be reasonable. If yo_ucan’t be insensitive then be sensible enough to shut up and put up with it when the caveman in him surfaces.

You must be unobtrusive about your work, and never expect your husband to help you do it: that’s really baring your breast for the dagger.

I find that it is difficult to slow down my working pace to a child’s pace. Except for emergencies I have also found it easier not to expect any help from my children and then I don’t irritate them or rely on them. Small children are no use in an efficient domestic routine. They are slow and messy and they break things. What children over seven can be expected to do is to provide a certain amount of self-help. They can make their own beds and tidy their rooms. Over ten they can wash up, but I find it’s not worth the effort to get them to do it, and then have to check it, and then redo it. Teenagers can be careless and reluctant, if not downright resentful, and they’ve probably got their own full quota of school work. I found that as my children grew into teenagers, they needed more of my time and undivided attention. Their needs were more complicated, and obviously at this stage they want you, not just your services.

Your child’s teacher is tremendously important to you because he or she has a balanced, objective view of your offspring and their problems.

My sons’ teacher once offered to sew nametapes on their clothes, but she was rare. Ask his or her advice if your children develop any anti-social habit, such as bullying, or if they seem to be doing badly at school, or if you have any misfortune such as divorce, which will affect the children.

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