💜 #27: 3 Working Mum Mistakes I've made
Sharing is caring and why you should be the 30-year-old cheerleader
Morning everyone,
I’m a day late!
Why? Balancing ( / dropping) the plates this week as my partner is still away. 😭😭😭.
Solo parents = K.U.D.O.S. Seriously. 😟
Does it matter?
Let’s get to it.
Mistakes I’ve made in working motherhood
1. Thinking that things will never get better
I wish someone had just told me that the baby stage can be reeeeeeeally hard.
And that when they are a little older, working mum life gets so, much, easier.
I just thought:
“This is my life now. I’ll never get my career back. I will never ever reach normality again. I’m going to be changing nappies and breastfeeding and packing spare outfits and snacks and snotsuckers forever, and meanwhile my husband will just sail on through his career”.
I was in bits.
Familiar?
😬
- but, I was wrong.
Some of it was made better by the sheer fact of time elapsing ⏰. Accepting that it was a marathon. And that I needed to just … wait it out ⏳. I’d made it this far, right? Actually - I could do it 💪.
But the other, huge part of my total and terrible despair was that… I was massively sleep deprived 🤷♀️.
Funnily enough, 99.999% of things are a LOT easier when you have actually had some sleep. No one really told me that one day, THEY. WILL. SLEEP.
(If you don’t know this already, my eldest didn’t sleep until he was 2 and a half. We were up for hours plural, every. single. night. I’d had a sleep-through ONCE. Until I spoke to this lady - my sleep partner for The Spring Back Guide. Because … you need sleep to be a working mum.)
There will come a day where it gets better, and that you get ‘your life back’. But it takes a little bit of work, and most importantly - time.
2.Thinking that my mental health would not improve, and that it would end my career
I had postnatal depression severely with my first, and probably mildly with my second.
NB: I did get help for the severe case and saw a perinatal team weekly - for half a year.
I had prenatal and postnatal severe anxiety, with my first and second, but I don’t think I realised at the time.
I found the first year of (both) of their lives so incredibly tough, and I spent so long being so angry and resentful about what women face, that I was in a real state and terrified that I’d never work properly again. I was really not enjoying motherhood for a long time after each birth. I was wearing a constant mask.
What made it improve then?
Professional help when it was urgent.
And then weirdly … Researching 📚.
Realising that it was in part me, but also realising that a big part of poor maternal mental health was down to the system, helped me.
And I channeled the negative energy into something positive.
We all know that with mental health right, it’s good to talk.
Things that helped me were:
Interviewing lots (and lots) of women on their own fertility, birth and working motherhood HELPED me.
Helping women stay in jobs that provided for them and maintained their independence - or find their passion - has helped me.
Starting a movement to get workplaces to wake up and retain their productivity powerhouses that are working mums = has become a huge pleasure 🥰.
I realised… I wanted to help other women feel better. I wanted to challenge the system. It was all about #MakingReturnityAThing.
3. Thinking that “I’m a Mum now, so I can’t possibly do (insert thing)”
I had a supreme identity crisis after my first.
What do I even wear now?? (Milennial stuff still, with a token attempt at Gen Z fashion that usually fails)
Am I cool anymore!? (No. One day the Gen Zs won’t be cool either though, don’t worry. Teehee).
Am I *gulp* - young?!?? (Yes and no. But in the grand scheme of your life, yes actually)
My answer to it was to hold a massive 90s/00s party for my 30th, which in the past I would have died of embarrassment admitting that I wanted.
My male friends all dressed in all white, brought in stools to the pub and inflatable microphones and sang I Want it That Way to me.
Obviously it was amazing.
It made me realise that given that growing and bearing and nurturing life is so damn amazing, that actually we can do whatever we like now.
Go to karaoke. Be the only 34 year old at gymnastics. Have the 00s party (and consider having another for your 35th 🤔)
You’re a working mum, so actually you’re practically superhuman, so for goodness sake do the fun thing.
LIFE IS NOT THE DRESS REHEARSAL, and you’ll never be as young again as you are at this exact second.
So JFDI.
If you want some help with this, it’s all in The Guide - your digital back to work Coach, created by me and based on 5 years of Mat Leaver data.
Have a lovely week guys.
xx