the return of the guilt

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I feel uncomfortable, full of nerves and anticipation. In fact if you were to take a babies bottle and fill it with lemonade and then place the lid firmly on top and shake it like a tambourine and then watch the bubbles fight to explode out of the teet then you would have a good visual image of how I feel inside.

My time of being a stay at home mum is dripping away, in eight weeks I will need to learn how to walk in heels again, and master the art of applying make up before eight am whilst also getting three children ready for school and nursery.

Problem is; I am not quite ready. The first six months of BB’s life were fabulous but tainted by some rather god awful baby blues. I struggled on many a morning to find my happy face and instead painted on a mask for the world to speak to. The last four months have been a better place, my smile has been my own, the blues have turned to a pleasant pink and finally I have become comfortable in my own skin and role as mother to three. I want more time to luxuriate in the feeling of simply being, as BB calls me ‘momma’.

So change comes along as change has a habit of doing. I find myself visiting nurseries and doing long winded spreadsheets of hours, costs and pick ups. I lose sleep agonising about who will care for my older babies during school holidays and secretly whimper at the thought of someone else enjoying BB’s smile. And don’t let me even describe to you the worry I have that BB will have a seizure and neither me nor he who helped create them will be there to hold her afterwards.

I remain gob smacked that not one nursery or childminder has offered to have my baby for free after she has shone her one tooth grin at them. How it doesn’t melt their heart is beyond me…

I don’t have the luxury of staying at home as an option. To survive financially our little family needs two people to bring in the bacon.

As a upside it will be nice to have some of that green stuff again. I will enjoy holding it in my hands for a while before handing it over to breakfast clubs, after school clubs and nursery. But maybe I will be able to find a use for the silver and gold coins that are left over…

The memory of the guilt of being a working mum is coming back; and even though I know it is irrational as I gaze upon my beautiful elder two children who have so far survived in a house with two working parents; I can’t make it go away.

Whoever said being a parent was easy was talking out of their backside.

26 thoughts on “the return of the guilt”

  1. Oh I feel for you, I haven’t gone back to work purely because my old job and Mr L’s job would never work together and childcare is not an option. I would have to work nights so from 7.30pm to 8am Mr works 5am to 7pm no one was prepared to have Baba from 5am strangely! Good luck xx

  2. Guilt comes with the territory doesn’t it? I can only sympathise with one child so I can only imagine how you have done it three times. Just remember once you have got over the initial hurdle of returning to work things will fall into a pattern. I remember thinking maternity leave would last ages, it flashes by in a second 🙁 x

  4. There ain’t nothing I can’t tell you about working mother guilt! It’s crap really and that’s about it. But unless you can find a way of earning the money you need by working at home or super-flexibly then there is little option and therefore little point in beating yourself up about it. Just think, you did it before and you’ll be able to do it again. The twins will be fine because they will slip back to the way it was before and BB will be fine because she won’t know anything else. That said I find working 5 days a week incredibly hard and if someone told me I could give it up tomorrow I would, just like that. But until that time us working mums just have to stick together and console each other. If it weren’t for us then our kids wouldn’t have the life they have ie: a roof above their heads that won’t get taken away. x

    • It still seems unfair though; I read stories about benefit frauds etc who all stay home with their kids etc…

      I had forgot you are 5 days now; I am still four days but harder with childcare because of school. Logisitically its a bloody mare!

      But you are right; working keeps bread on the table

  5. I think if anyone ever said being a parent was easy us parents would have visciously killed them already! When I first returned to work I got stomach aches from how wrong seperation from my baby felt. I was surprised how it doesn’t feel so bad once you are back there in the ‘working world’ – and remember working with grown-ups is quite relaxing. They respect that you sometimes need a coffee break 😉

    • The real irony is I enjoy my work; and always have and I know deep down that when I get back to it all will be fine. Plus I work opposite a supermarket so the kids will never have to have another evening of crackers and cheese for tea!

      I counsel my friends when they return to work but this time it just feels harder and more complicated because of the school factor – logistically its a nightmare and finacially its very hard!

      lifes a bugger eh!

  6. Ah, best of luck, what a poignant post. Returning to work didn’t really work out for me after number two, but I do miss it. And guilt is compulsory – I feel guilty to not be bringing in, even very modest amounts, of bacon. Think I need a clone of myself around (at least one) to be in two places at once.
    ~M

  7. Hi Jane,

    I really feel for you, it’s such a hard time. I went back to work when my youngest was 3 and at first both of us were in tears. Eventually, we got used to it and I rediscovered parts of myself that had got lost to motherhood. I realised I was also other things than a mother and that’s something I’d lost. It was good for me because although I think I’m a good mum, full of praise and love & hugs for the children, I think I’m a really bad housewife! And that doesn’t necessarily do your self esteem a lot of good!

    I always got the impression you earned money from your blog (thru advertisers etc) – not sure why?!!. Is that possible? I think most of us would love to earn money through writing! Lots of luck with the work – you’ll get back to it I’m sure and maybe enjoy the adult conversation and lunchbreaks! There is no perfect situation after all, Julie x

  8. I hear you! I’m trying very hard to find the happy balance of working at home whilst having bubba full time but am thinking I may need to go back to employment. Im also working away, abroad for 6 whole days, next Sunday, I feel sick just thinking about it at the moment! But, like yourselves, we need me to earn to break-even a month. It’s so hard isn’t it!

    • Hats off to you for managing to work around baby some days I struggle to even get the laptop on around the three leg hangers. – remind me what you do again?

      I think I could manage six days abroad it appears i can transfer my guilt when it comes to getting on a plane!

  9. I completely agree with all of that. I felt the same:
    http://positivecomplaining.blogspot.com/2011/01/me-my-baby-mummy-guilt.html

    I cried when I first looked into childcare and now my Mini one cant wait to go and play with her friends.

    The best things about work for me:

    1) Drinking coffee while hot without having to yelling ‘Careful, Hot’ every 5 minutes.

    2) Going to the loo at anytime, in peace and keeping the door closed.

    3) Wearing heels (no need for running shoes).

    4) No fighting tiny sticky fingers for the computer keys.

    5) Having a lunch break.

    I do enjoy work but I still get the guilt, and I get the guilt about work on Wednesday’s and Thursday’s when I’m not there.

    I wish you all the best for your return to work.

    It must have been a man that said ‘being a parent was easy’

    M
    x

  10. I’m due to go on maternity leave in June and I’m already trying to concoct ways in my head that I don’t have to work 4 days a week when we have 2 kids. But we also need the green stuff too. I just don’t know how I’ll have the energy for work, 2 kids, being a wife and looking after a home. I think I’d feel guilt about everything even if I didn’t work – it’s just something society makes us feel these days. I’m sure my mum didn’t feel any guilt all those years ago!

  11. Do you think there is a link between feeling happier as a person and meeting me?
    just a thought
    I don’t feel guilty, I think because I knew I would always have to go back. I wish I didn’t have to work 4 days. 3 or 2.5 would be better. I like working and like you say once you get back it will be OK.
    I think what would help all of us is cheaper child care, more flexible child care, more flexible working. That would reduce a lot of the anxiety.
    Frankly, I don’t like that the vast majority of workers at his nursery are so young, I notice that the nurseries attached to schools that run only term time seem to have older workers, but then what does a working parent do during the school holidays or after 3.30?
    My biggest concern is that you will have less time to blog.

    • i love the idea that you cured my baby blues. and now i come to think of it those dates do work; I should gte he who helped create them to send you flowers or something!
      I agree with the nursery staff, i used a childminder with my older two and she was fabulous, but she doesnt drive and school is too far from her house for me to be able to use her again. other childminders show a reluctance to take BB on with her epiliepsy which i can understand.
      Dont worry, I have blackberry and can blog anytime and anywhere honey! Just may never include a picture again……
      Thanks for making me smile

  12. Oh your poor thing. Childcare is such a nightmare isn’t it? The stress of finding some is 90% of what prevents me from going back to work fulltime; the other 10% is pure laziness. I am very lucky in that we can afford for me to do my own thing but who can say that that won’t all change tomorrow? Enjoy the next 2 months with your bubba.

  13. I empathise 100%! I’m due back at work just after you, when Baby Badger is a year old. I will be in work four days a week at first, then full time, and she’ll be partly nursery and partly with grandparents. I’m really dreading it.

    If I did all the sums I could probably drop to part time, but I feel as though I ought to be going back and picking up where I left off, as promised. Expectations and all that. I never expected to feel this way, and wrote about it recently:

    http://badgermad.blogspot.com/2011/03/running-out-of-time.html

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