As the end of my maternity leave with James approached, in
January 2015, I did enough naval gazing/night feeds to decide that life needed
to change. Specifically, I decided it was a really great idea to learn to
drive, join Slimming World (I was a monster chubster almost 12 months after giving
birth) and look for a new job all at the same time. Because having a 1 year old
and working clearly wasn’t enough to keep me busy/stressed to the max.
I absolutely hated
the job I was doing and going back to work floored me. Not necessarily because
I desperately wanted to be with my baby. Hell, I’m not Ma Walton! The job
completely drained me and I was, quite frankly, shit at it. By the end of my
first week back in work, I was applying for jobs internally. Within 6 weeks, I
was starting a new, much less soul destroying job, which happily included more
money. By the end of 2015, I had passed my driving test (Christ knows how.
Google Maureen from Driving School and you will get the idea), lost two stone, changed
jobs, sold the house and was pregnant again (and well on my way to piling that
two stone back on and a bit more, besides. I don’t believe in doing things by
half). Last year was pretty busy. This year has been a bit quieter, arrival of
baby number 2 aside, but now I’ve adjusted to life as a mum of two (hahahaha!
who the f@^k am I kidding?!), once again I am reviewing the last 33 years and 8
months and realising it’s high time I Got My Shit Together™. You know, like a
proper adult.
All my life I have wanted to write. I don’t know what about.
I love books and words (I use far too many) and imagination. Once upon a time, I
thought writing meant journalism but, it turns out, being relatively
passive means you are pretty lousy journalist. Journalists, good journalists,
don’t just want to write. They want to uncover the truth, they want to learn
and they want to educate others, not just happily tap away and hope to avoid
confrontation. I was dreadful so I abandoned my ambitions a year into my
journalism degree and instead plodded on at uni, getting drunk and racking up
another few grand worth of debt to avoid being a grown up for another year or
two. When I did have to grow up and get a Proper Job™, I worked in finance for
local authorities and banks. Which is where I am currently on the payroll. My job now is fine but it’s not where I ever
visualised myself and it’s not where I want to see out my working days. I have
recently found blogging and it’s reignited my burning ambition to write. It’s
also helped me feel like a person again, after motherhood knocked the wind out
of my sails a little. I’d like to see where it goes. But, having two young
children, do I really get a say in what I do or should I just get on with
paying the bills and ensuring my humans are fed, watered, educated and
emotionally supported? It feels like the answer is no, I don't get a say. My choice has gone and I
need to suck it up, ditch the pipe dreams. The petulant child in me,
however, refuses to accept that answer.
Mumsnet Blogfest, a conference in London for bloggers to
network and learn, somehow came onto my radar a few weeks ago, whilst I was
dicking about on Twitter. Probably at a
time when I should really have been making sure my toddler isn’t poking my
baby’s eyes out or feeding him grapes. Going to Blogfest looked an amazing
opportunity for me to actually figure out what I am doing with this blogging
thingy. But I daren’t even mention it to Rob, let alone suggest I go.
My house is nothing short of insanity. On days at home with
both kids, I find myself stuck on repeat; “gentle with your brother”, “calm
down”, “stop jumping on that”, “don’t throw that,” “no!” I’m fairly sure a day
at my house, and Gandhi would lose his shit. Blogfest requires me to leave
Liverpool Lime Street at 5.45am and arrive back at 9.35pm. I could not leave
Rob alone with the kids for THAT long could I? Not if I wanted the house still
standing and for my husband not to be rocking in the corner, crying, upon my
return.
I should make it perfectly clear that Rob is a hands on dad.
He works six days a week but he still does night feeds, he changes nappies, he
does bath time, he does bedtime, he cooks, he cleans…. Actually, what the f^@k
do I do?! My grandad marvels at Rob’s parenting skills; “How do you know how to
change a nappy, Rob?! Men in my day never knew how to change nappies” Funnily
enough, grandad, he learned the same way I did. By having a go and hoping for
the best. It’s a generation thing, though.
Rob’s probably a better dad than I am a mum. So why do I
feel like I can’t go? I’m not breastfeeding. There is absolutely nothing I do
that he cannot. The kids will be fed, changed and watered. Rob will probably be
stressed to the max but no more than I am on a Wednesday and Saturday, when I am
home with the kids and he is at work. But
it is a long ass day. Rob will be with them from the moment he gets up until
the moment they go to bed, without me to help. Juggling getting a shower, meal
times and their bath time is messy and stressful. (How do you single parents do
it?!) Also, we don’t have the money to waste on me dossing about in London for
the day, trying to be something I’m not. Blogfest maybe they key to my lifetime
ambition. It may just be a massive waste of time and money and, this time next
year, I’ll still be writing blogs for no one, like some aging wannabe rock star,
playing empty working men’s clubs, convinced his big break is just around the
corner. After all, what makes me so different? Who is remotely interested in
what I have to say? Can I even write? Lastly, I feel shitty that I am buggering
off and leaving my kids when I feel like I should spend every waking minute
with them.
Some mums don’t want to leave their kids for a second and
don’t leave their sides. But I do. On the odd occasion, I meet friends for
dinner. No more than once a month or so. However, I do bugger off each week to
do my best impression of a fat Jane Fonda on a sugar rush. I go to bootcamp for
two hours on a Wednesday, go the gym twice a week when the kids have gone to
bed and run on a Sunday (FYI, I’m still fat) I try and justify this to myself
using the words of the great Jillian Michaels of Biggest Loser fame. She once
told a mother that it was more selfish of her not to lose
weight as she wouldn’t be around to see her kids grow up if she was obese. Whenever
I feel guilty, I tell myself that it’s so I can keep up with my boys. That all
changes when I see people discussing losing baby weight and I read comments
such as “I would rather be with my baby than spend hours in the gym” and I feel
terrible. In reality, I don’t go the gym to prevent ill health. I go the gym
because I want to lose weight and be a MILF like Beyonce. Me turning into
Beyonce is about as likely as Andy Day finally responding to my stalker like
tweets and asking me to marry him, therefore, I shouldn’t be down the gym. I
should be spending time at home. I know my babies won’t be babies for long. I
know that they need me. I shouldn’t go the gym and I definitely shouldn’t be
mincing off to London to chase a pipedream, like Dick bloody Whittington.
Most women of my mum’s generation stayed at home or were
dinner ladies or part time secretaries. Be it through choice or, perhaps, expectation,
they were happy to do that. Or so it seems. I am not knocking those choices so
why aren’t I happy with that life? I don’t really recall my mum going out or having
a hobby of her own. Everything was me and my brother (and what a delight we
were, I’m sure) I am horribly guilty of looking to others for approval and
judging myself by the standards of others. I worry what my family will think if I have my own life. I worry what my friends think. Everyone else is Mother of
the Year. Will people think I am terrible for wanting a life for myself? Will
people think I am unfit as a mother? Worst of all, will my kids one day end up
in therapy because I was an absent mother who never gave them enough time? Will
they want to know me?
Yet, what life am I making for myself when the kids do grow
up, which everyone always tells me happens all too quickly? What happens when
they go to school? When they have friends and girlfriends (or boyfriends)? What
happens when they go off to university to get hideously drunk and waste their
money like their mother did or bugger off on a soul searching gap year? Do I
sit there twiddling my thumbs, hating whoever takes over presenting This Moring
on a Friday, because my children were my only interest? Is it so awful to keep
some things for me so that when my children have their own lives, I can have
mine too? Is it so awful to be vain enough to want to look and feel good about
myself by doing regular exercise? Why should I feel like Waynetta Slob’s ugly
sister?
The urge to go to
Blogfest was too much and I couldn’t stifle it much longer. I had to ask if
could go and as I did I burst into tears. I felt hugely selfish. Was it fair on
Rob? Was it fair on the kids? But was it fair on me? Happy mum/happy baby and
all that.
He was reluctant but essentially supportive. He was clearly
nervous about being left alone with our feral off spring. As my husband, though,
he wants me to be happy and agreed that I should go. He reassured me that I was
a decent mother, that the kids loved me but I felt wretched. I still do.
When I sent a stalker like message to Katie Kirby, the
incredible Hurrah for Gin (I effing love her), asking for blogging advice, she
replied “Leave your husband with the kids and do Blogfest, why not? It will be
good for him” Thank you, Katie. It does feel like the validation I need. It
doesn’t make me a bad person. Maybe it will be good for Rob to spend 18 hours
of the day with the kids, to show him he can cope, that he’s an amazing dad and that
he also has a great support network in our families, who have agreed to chip
in.
Motherhood is ALL about the guilt. All of it. All mother’s
question themselves about every minor detail. Do any of us really feel like we
have 100% made the right decision all the time? I doubt it. So I am going to
take my vanity and ridiculous dreams and run with them. I honestly feel like I
can’t tell my children to chase my dreams if I refuse to chase my own.
Life is about balance and I am well aware that you can’t
“have it all.” Something always has to give. I do find it stressful trying to
be a good mum, trying to maintain a house, trying to lose weight, trying to do
something I love, trying to earn money and trying not to neglect my marriage.
Maybe I shouldn’t try to be super woman. Maybe I should accept being flabby
fishwife (and I do fishwife chic exceptionally, effortlessly well). Maybe I
should accept doing a job that doesn’t set my world on fire. Maybe I should
accept that my house is an absolute shit tip and that I hate having guests
because I am ashamed that I can’t keep a show home with two wildlings, ripping
the place up. Maybe I should accept that play doh and the ‘Hunks of Cbeebies’ (my
Mastermind specialist subject) are my main interests. But what is life without goals? Without an aim to keep you going? Don't we just stop and stagnate?
Like the selfish bastard I am, I am doing my Dick (head) Whittington bit and skipping off to Dat Der London to see what I can see. Perhaps the streets are paved with gold and one day, I’ll be able to say to the boys, “I chased my dreams. It worked. You go out and chase yours and be happy with who you are because you are amazing”. And they are amazing and they are my world. Even if they drive me to cake and the need for ‘me time.’ I just hope they will want me to come home from London. Besides, it’s only for one day.
Like the selfish bastard I am, I am doing my Dick (head) Whittington bit and skipping off to Dat Der London to see what I can see. Perhaps the streets are paved with gold and one day, I’ll be able to say to the boys, “I chased my dreams. It worked. You go out and chase yours and be happy with who you are because you are amazing”. And they are amazing and they are my world. Even if they drive me to cake and the need for ‘me time.’ I just hope they will want me to come home from London. Besides, it’s only for one day.
As you should! Good for you and I hope it's wonderful. I'd delete selfish tho. That word isn't appropriate in the sentence #Stayclassymama
ReplyDeleteOh gosh we really beat ourselves up don't we! Your man sounds very supportive and you deserve that! Every man should pitch in like him I am lucky mine does or I would be insane by now! I also applaud single parents it must be so tough. I used to NEVER take time for me. I found myself so burnt out a couple of years ago, I literally couldn't get out of bed one day I was crying and so tired. My mum guilt was eating me alive. Finally I eased into among time for me and started blogging and wow it made huge difference. I had to loose the word SELFISH and funnily enough the more I took care of myself the happier my hubby became and our kids too. My hubby took up bike riding and photography and is loving life so much more, my kids feel more confident to follow their dreams too, my 12 year old gave up dancing even though she was amazing at it and winning competitions because it was no longer her passion and stared art classes and is much happier. So do not feel guilty, trust me when we are happy and being our true selves we are giving our family the best gift ever! Sorry I clearly blab on lol #stayclassymama
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