When you have a child you notice how quickly time flies. You know that good old saying “they grow up so fast,” you never really knew how true it was until you have children. Since I’ve had Emily the time has flown by like no tomorrow. I never realised how precious time is, because the last 2.5 years have flown by.
When you’re pregnant you cannot wait until your little bundle of joy is in your arms. My pregnancy wasn’t the best but, when Emily was born I could not stop looking at her, she was here, my little baby, and she’s now not so little anymore. Ideally I wanted time to stand still, I wanted Emily to stay small and innocent forever, and whilst she is that, the fact time has flown this quickly, before I know it she’ll be in school, a teenager, college, travelling, moving and whatever else her life has in store for her.
Emily is 2 1/2 now. She is a little Miss Independent toddler who loves to sing and dance, and live her best life. Sometimes I look back at pictures of Emily when she was in a newborn and I have a hard time remembering what she was like as a baby. Who knows, she did have me up quite a lot during the night so sleep deprivation could be the reason for that. But, time has flown and now she’s at nursery and I’ve gone from part time to full time work, which has changed my concept of time even more.
Emily loves nursery. Her speech has come a long way, same as her confidence. But she’ll always be my little girl. Next month her hours will increase at nursery. Although now more expensive for me, being a full-time work from home mum to one, I worry that spending so much time working I’m not giving her everything that she needs to keep entertained and with these extra hours, although I’ll miss her like crazy, but it will be great for her.
Interestingly I’ve spoken to other mums who think the idea of staying at home with a child and working is an idea of hell. But, I really rather enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong I have days where I’m internally screaming because my child is having a tantrum whilst I’m on the phone to a very important client, but it’s all down to time management, odd trips to the soft play centre, a trip to the park and endless cups of tea.
The new age of mums who work from home may appear completely normal on the outside, but I really think they deserve the title of Wonder Woman. Not only are we full-time mothers, we work hard at what we do, do the cleaning, cooking, washing, hoovering, Doctor visits, shopping, soft play, sign for deliveries and take care of mini me when she’s sick, or banged her finger on the side of a table.
To the outside world, we may seem like we have all the time in the world, but everything, and I mean everything, is down to time management and having a pretty neat schedule. It’s really frustrating that people seem to think that I quite frankly fuck around and do nothing.
Admittedly, I do work in an industry where I can work from home. There’s many professional jobs that afford people the luxury of not having to spend thousands of pounds a year to commute to London, like social media marketing, graphic design, virtual assistance, tech, sales and so much more. But one of the hardest parts of working from home with Emily is that people don’t realise that I do a real job. I had to convince a client before I started working with him the idea of remote working works for me for some many reasons. But I think it’s up there with stay-at-home-mums, people generally think they do nothing too and just want to meet in soft play areas for the social aspect of seeing their friends, not realising it’s a room of screaming, snotty children running wild, all in a bid for 5 minutes peace so your children can get rid of energy.
The thing is, as a full-time-working-mum-to-one and those stay-at-home-mums, no one will ever “get” what we do. We already have a full time job as a parent, to add a full time paid job on top, is difficult. I think the reality is there are a few people I know who don’t understand I can’t drop my job as easy as I could before because I have to work.
It’s really frustrating having to constantly feel like I need to explain my job to other people. I know a few people have commented in the past that I can’t be serious in my job if I work from home and be a mum.
But I can assure you one thing, I’m very good at my job, and I’m very good at being a mum.
For those other mums out there who are stay-at-home-mums and/or part time or full time parents, I salute you!
Missy, Me & Him 