Thoughts that form at 4am

I used to have a problem with over-sharing, less so now I can spill my guts in a mostly-anonymous blog, but occasionally when I meet new people I get nervous and forget myself, and before I know it I’ve told them perhaps a little too much about myself and I’m left feeling a bit over-exposed. That’s especially the case with other mums, there is nothing scarier than other mums, they give me proper verbal diarrhoea (I’m sorry, is that too much information?)

The Working Mother's Dilemma

Then

Scratching around to find work to do when you know management are looking to make cuts, well, it’s not the ideal situation to find yourself in. And I’ve been there for the last year. I’ve tried hard to make myself useful and find a way to make a difference, while at the same time trying not to make it too obvious I had very little to do, and it’s been so tricky. I’ve run the gauntlet of emotions, fear of being made redundant, frustration at finding myself unable to make an impact, anger at being ignored, feeling deceitful about pretending to look busy, then paranoid people were pointing the finger and trying to catch me out. It made me lose self respect and turn on myself, blaming myself for not being dynamic enough and not rising to the challenge. It's been time to go for a long time, but finding a decently paid part time job is no easy feat right now and so I've been plugging away, taking on whatever project I could, volunteering for everything going and trying to look busy when I'm not.

From the kitchen sink to the office desk

One thing I hear regularly from both my mother and mother-in-law is this: “It was different for us when we had babies, we weren’t expected to work.” And it has made me think. While it is wonderful that I am no longer chained to the kitchen sink the way my female ancestors were, instead I am chained to the office desk and I’m really not sure this is what the early feminists intended. Or that this is the best thing for the human race in general.