Here’s another woman whose advice I wont be paying much attention to. Her name is Samantha Ettus and I only know she exists because I read an article about her yesterday which probably gave her all the exposure she wanted. She clearly writes to alienate, in fact she quite smugly suggested she’s already getting hate mail and the book she’s written isn’t even out. Goals.
The perfect job
June 6, 2013 by 12 Comments
One of the things that happens when you suddenly stop working 20 hours a day 7 days a week is that you have a lot more time to think. Not about work and page views and headlines but about family and real views and heart lines.
Naturally, given that I am slightly neurotic and an extreme over thinker , I’ve spent a significant amount of my newly discovered time worrying that somehow I missed out on my family during my years of 20 hour days.
Let me just preface everything I am about to say with the fact that I support/respect/admire/love women that work outside the home just as much as I support/respect/admire/love women who don’t. This is not about judgment or privilege (even though I realise what I privileged position I am in), this is not about pointing fingers or blaming the patriarchy or the feminist movement– it’s just about me, my position and the way that I feel about my own experience. Read this paragraph again and again every time you feel like I may be judging you, talking about working women in general or your own personal situation.
I don’t resent the job that I did and I understand that it was as much my pursuit for perfection, as the role in a 24/7 cycle site that contributed to the fact that I had no life outside work for at least three very long years.
And I can’t help thinking and stressing and ruminating and worrying about my son.
It’s not that I believe that he missed out on anything while I was stuck in my laptop. He has an amazing father who plays as significant a role in his life as I do, he has an awesome and supportive extended family who have shown him unconditional love and support, and I have the kindest most givinng friends who have loved him as their own. Added to which he goes to a school where the pastoral care is above and beyond the call of duty. So he’s been fine. Loved, cared for, stimulated, educated and supported.
But I worry that I missed out on him. I worry that there were things about him I don’t even know I missed. I worry that I nearly missed him growing up while I was watching the world go by on my laptop.
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Every week there seems to be some flare up in the media about working mothers – either they are really good or they are impossibly bad. But overwhelmingly I read the online comments that mothers make saying “mother’s deserve a break” and “working mothers make better role models” and “child care provides the best alternative for mothers and children” and, at the risk of sounding like the middle class white guy complaining about persecution, I almost feel bad to admit that I am happier not working full time, I am actually much happier to be parenting full time and working part time only when my child is at school. It’s not that I don’t want to work – I’m actively looking for work. But work that fits in with my son. I don’t want him to try and fit in with my work.
I don’t think we’re being anti-feminist or going back in time if we allow women to acknowledge that they want to stay at home with their kids. I object to working mothers telling me that the mothering experience is lesser, especially those working mothers who have never known any different – if it’s my choice it’s not lesser for me.
If feminism is about choices I want to feel validated in my choice to look after my family. I want to be able to say to people – I choose not to work full time because I am lucky enough not to have to and because above all else I want to be a mother. Children are children for a short time.
The other morning I confided to my husband that I feel awful that I have become the kind of mum that drops her child at school in her gym clothes and then spends the morning between a treadmill, a coffee shop and sometimes a meeting or two. I told him I didn’t feel like I was contributing. In the best husbandly fashion that he exhibits on a regular basis he just looked at me and said: “You are making a bigger contribution now than when you were working full time – you are the family glue”
I didn’t feel offended or indignant being referred to as the glue. I didn’t fight with him about the fact that women don’t get to choose the work or family option because of the patriarchy because, more than anything, I want the family option. I feel loved and validated and grateful beyond words that I can be giving the biggest part of myself to my family.
It’s sad that I can’t say it out loud without worrying that someone is going to take offence. But you know what? I’m happier being a mother than I am being any other role and I am trying not to be ashamed to admit it.
Just a thank you….
March 31, 2013 by 22 Comments
For a time at work it became all about page impressions and unique browsers. I hovered over Google analytics every day to see how many visitors there were to the site, how many were new and how many had visited before. I pored over Facebook to see how many new likers there were and how they were interacting with the site. I scrolled through Twitter feeds looking for mentions and retweets. I went to Pinterest like a mad woman ignoring the images and looking only at the repins and the likes.
It wasn’t how I started at Mamamia, it wasn’t even who I was. I’m not a numbers person, a stats kind of girl – I used to balk at the sight of a graph and I’m still innately scared of numbers.
Soon after I announced that I was resigning from Mamamia/iVillage the messages started to flow in, both here on my blog (you people made me cry with these comments) and into my email inbox, my Twitter DMs and my Facebook messages. People that had contributed to Mamamia and iVillage started sending me messages without contributions attached. The most beautiful, heartfelt tear-producing messages you can imagine. Messages that I read again and again and will keep forever.
It wasn’t just the readers but the amazingly beautiful and talented Mamamia/iVillage interns* who sent me emails last week that turned my world around very briefly. Because they worked with me and they got what I was about.
My friends are supportive, amazing, reaffirming. Kerri you are getting a special mention because AWESOME.
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All the messages and the feedback I have been getting just confirm for me that, in the end, it’s not about numbers and figures, stats and unique browsers. For me it’s about being connected. I want to be part of a community where I can be good and kind and be around people that are the best people that they can be (in a very non soppy and totally cool way) and essentially be true to myself.
I don’t want this blog post to be about me patting my own back or singing my own praises, Lord (and anyone who knows me in real life) knows I do not like spotlights in any shape or form but I have been overwhelmed and humbled and I have been feeling better about myself after reading those messages than I have in a long time.
So thank you everyone. Thank you for helping bring me back to my own blog
5 years after I started commenting on Mamamia…..
March 12, 2013 by 65 Comments
Five years ago I was working from home, writing copy, putting together presentations, compiling articles for industry newsletters and you know, surfing the web. In reality I was doing more web surfing then anything else and it was there that I found my two happy places – Twitter and Mamamia.
Mamamia and Twitter were inextricably linked for me – the friends I met on Mamamia were the friends I saw in my Twitter feed. We were taking Mamamia to Twitter and taking our new friendships back to Mamamia like a perfectly formed circle of conversation.
I commented on Mamamia a lot (l’ve always had a lot to say). I commented enough for Mia to notice me and to start talking to me on Twitter as well. It was more than 4 years ago – both Twitter and Mamamia were much smaller.
In a glorious turn of events Mia reached out to me, the very gorgeous and gifted Kerri Sackville and the amazingly talented Amanda Whitely. We worked together scurrying around the back end of Mamamia for a short while before Amanda and Kerri went on their very successful ways and I went to work for Mia at Mamamia.
It was the dream job for me – I learned more than I could possibly have imagined I would ever know. I got to meet amazing people and experience extraordinary things. I was often bruised – just from pinching myself that it was actually my life I was leading.
The move to iVillage last year was a big step for me – I left the safety zone of the Mamamia community and I embraced iVillage with everything I had. And it was an amazing ride.
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But I’m getting off.
I resigned from Mamamia/iVillage yesterday with a heavy heart and an eternity full of beautiful memories. Mia, Jason and the team at Mamamia – especially Nat, Nicky, Lucy, Bec and Rick (although he is no longer there) with whom I have shared SO much, have built me the perfect ramp from which to fly my coop. I need to spread my wings with these incredible memories , I need to fly to new places.
And even though my first foray into Mamamia was almost 5 years ago, it is testament to the strength of that early community that when I announced on Facebook that I was leaving, it was the people that I met all those years ago commenting on Mamamia as Sharpest Pencil, wishing me well.
Benita, Angela, Danya, Rachel, Emma, Julie, Amanda, Sandra and of course my very dearest Kerri* let’s raise our glasses to Welfington – hope we get there soon
*with a special mention to Miss Manly 😉