I grew up wanting to be a mother. I was the child who played with dolls, babied my cuddly toys and actually fantasised about soothing crying babies and changing nappies. I was the teenager who’d babysit anybody under ten, I studied education so that I could be a teacher and look after other people’s kids before I had my own.
Then I was the adult who struggled to have a baby and when my son was born my dreams came true. I became a mother.
Over the years I’ve been a stay-at-home mum, worked from home; held down a couple of part time jobs and worked for a few years in a very full time role. I’ve been the mum frantically searching for people to look after my son when I couldn’t be there and I’ve been the mother that’s looked after my friends’ kids while they are at work. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky.
I understand I’m talking from a place of great privilege in that I am able to make work decisions around my son rather than the other way. I realise how many people have no option. I also understand that for some people the option I choose makes them want to gag, but that’s okay because I am not asking for judgment, nor am I making judgment.
I don’t want my name in lights, I don’t want to look down from the top of a corporate ladder to watch my child play out his life without me in it. It doesn’t mean I wont let him grow up and be independent, it doesn’t mean I won’t have a full and meaningful life, it just means I am aware that I only have one shot at bringing up my child and that’s what I really want to do.
And what I realise as he grows up, is that it’s not just the very early years that count. Newspaper headlines scream to us of the need for improved childcare, more spaces, better funding, longer hours. You would be forgiven for thinking going back to work after having a baby is logistically the hardest part of motherhood. But those little kids grow up and the truth is that big kids still need to be taken care of, even if it’s in a different way.
Big kids still need to be picked up from school, they still need to get to afternoon sports. They still need a parent in their lives. At twelve you are not an adult and nor should you be treated as one. And as travel time becomes “dinner table time” (it’s where all the talking takes place) you want to do all the lifts you can.
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On the weekend I read a column about Collette Dinnigan and her decision to close down her fashion label. The column quoted Dinnigan as saying:
“I wasn’t doing my job or motherhood properly, ‘I like to do things at full-mast and I wasn’t prepared to be a mother at half-mast any more.
“It was an extremely intimate and genuine decision. I believe children need routines, consistency and assurance. These things don’t come from a textbook. They come from your gut, your heart and instinct. I need to be around much more to teach them these things.”
“My mother’s love was unconditional. She worked but I never once felt anything was more important to her than my brother and I. Or that she wasn’t around for us. It felt hypocritical to be working at my pace and expecting the same outcome with my own kids.”
Good on you Collette Dinnigan’s for not preaching about how hard you work to balance it all. Because you can’t have it all. That’s not to say you can’t be a brilliant mother and work full time, of course you can. But you can’t have it all.
I often get told I’ll regret my decision to dedicate so much of my life to being a parent, that when my son leaves home I’ll have nothing left, I’ll be lonely and regret my life “wasted”. I laugh at that idea a lot. It’s not like I’m home waiting for him while tapping my feet on the floorboards to his favourite tune. I work from home, I have my own interests, I have friends, I have a life – he just happens to be the most important part of it.
Yes, I am sacrificing some career choices but I’m okay with that. I’m okay with fitting in with a stereotypical maternal role because I fit so well and I’m okay with my decision being a thousand shades of different from yours – let’s just get rid of this great 21st century myth of having it all.
