How do you do it?
As a mum to two children I am finding it increasingly hard trying to juggle the responsibilities of a business and parenthood.
I'm sure I'm not alone in being in a horrible catch 22 situation of juggling. On the one hand I have the freedom and flexibility to be able to attend sports day, drop off and pick up my children at school and often nurse a sickly child back to health, but on the other hand I am left feeling totally deflated and often dealing with horrible tantrums and bad behaviour due to lack of structure and routine.
I try my best to keep to a regular working pattern of 3.5 days a week when I actually 'go' to work, but the admin and organising doesn't do itself so I can often be found on the computer late into the night, or grabbing iphone minutes in the playground of a morning or during swimming lessons after school.
I'm well aware this is not great parenting, the kids are often left to fend for themselves whilst 'mummy checks her messages' but what's the alternative?
I'd love to be a stay at home mum and enjoy my children all of the time, go to toddler groups with the littlest one and play in the park after school with the older one, but it's simply not possible. I have to work to pay the mortgage and I am fortunate that my skills and abilities allow me to work part time and for myself.
The other option would be to 'get a proper job' as many of my friends and family have said, but how would that honestly improve the situation? I could not do the school run and would rely on 100% childcare provision from someone else and I would be working simply to pay for childcare.
Surely it's better to be with my children, even if I'm not always able to give them 100% of my attention?
I would be really interested to find out how other mums with small businesses manage their days and childcare issues. If any of you would like to do a guest blog post about a typical day 'parenting your business' I'd love to hear from you.
I think all working mums have the same guilt. But like you say at least we are physically around our children and able to give them our attention (even if sometimes we have to devote that attention to work as well). I think that's better that than being in an office away from them.
ReplyDeleteThe hard thing is that the kids don't realise that they are actually getting a lot more mummy time than most children and resent it when you have to do a bit of work with them around.
I guess we can only hope that when they are older they realise why.