Working Mummies Support Group

[~clover~]

I've been on both sides of the fence. I've been the full time SAHM & I've worked 2 casual/part time jobs at once when DD1 was young.

I believe you need to work for your sanity. I did 4 years full time SAH after DS was born. I hated it. I couldn't handle full time 5-5.5 days a week, & I know that, but I can't not work part time. I get depressed, lonely & bored. My house turns to crap, because I have no real reason to keep it organised. I'm here all the time, I have time to search through the mess in my room for 2 clean socks.

When I don't work my house is usually a mess. My room you can barely walk into, my laundry is over flowing & my dishes don't get done til I'm about to cook dinner. i feel like crap about myself, so I treat myself like crap. If I'm not happy, I'm not happy & you can tell where I'm at with the state of my house. (ATM its spotless!! inside...)

I am on my own, so living on centrelink alone isn't fun (no child support either). If I can just earn an extra $100 a week on top of my payments, thats a camping trip to the beach on a long weekend. Thats an online order for winter PJ's for all the kids. Being able to afford friends birthdays & canteen once a week! Just being able to do those little things for my kids is all I need.

One day I will own a house, but its not going to be for a while. I'm not going to work my butt off to own a house now. I'll spend the next 10 years spending time doing things with my babies every chance i get, then worry about that. We never had this freedom before, so I'm running with it

There are plenty of days/weekends, even weeks during holidays that I do nothing with my kids. But there are times when we do amazing things, like weekend getaways to the beach, to make up for it.

There's no perfect way to do it, you just have to do what's best for you

[wysiwyg]

Having my first taste of working and being home alone this week - mum left last week and DH is in NZ for a few days. Is going ok, just had to leave work half an hour early to make sure I made the 6:00pm pick up - being late is far too expensive - as it was the trains all ran in my favor and I had loads of time to spare - might try leaving just 15 mins early tomorrow instead. Not sure I would enjoy it if DH had to do more travel (is a possibility more in 2014 I think) - he normally does all the washing and ironing and does majority of cooking of our lunches etc. DS is still a pain in the backside at going to sleep, and at least with two of us can take in turns to sit in dark with him - last night I just ended up falling asleep with him till 21:00 then woke in a panic thinking had missed online shopping delivery but luckily I hadn't.

I am with you Astrid about the super - it is scary when you read how much women are down on their contributions compared to men - for us DH has very little super/pension compared to me, because he moved from job to job and did teaching in Spain to move around with me when he was younger, and has had spells out of of work over here too, as well as starting at very low paying jobs when we first came over. Super is one of the reasons I feel so strongly about how a reform is required into women working and childcare etc - and I did manage to find something on web (make care fair) about it which gives more info and facts and does summarize to some extent what different political parties are doing or not doing. That is the other thing work is giving me - time on public transport to read and think about various issues which is probably time I didn't get before. I think I am also finding that working is switching on parts of my brain that have been more switched off or on go slow for a while at least as find am thinking about all sorts of things more, and in a different way - I 'think' is a good thing :-)

[peanutter]

Hugs. That's a bit adjustment.

[wysiwyg]

Having my first taste of working and being home alone this week - mum left last week and DH is in NZ for a few days. Is going ok, just had to leave work half an hour early to make sure I made the 6:00pm pick up - being late is far too expensive - as it was the trains all ran in my favor and I had loads of time to spare - might try leaving just 15 mins early tomorrow instead. Not sure I would enjoy it if DH had to do more travel (is a possibility more in 2014 I think) - he normally does all the washing and ironing and does majority of cooking of our lunches etc. DS is still a pain in the backside at going to sleep, and at least with two of us can take in turns to sit in dark with him - last night I just ended up falling asleep with him till 21:00 then woke in a panic thinking had missed online shopping delivery but luckily I hadn't.

I am with you Astrid about the super - it is scary when you read how much women are down on their contributions compared to men - for us DH has very little super/pension compared to me, because he moved from job to job and did teaching in Spain to move around with me when he was younger, and has had spells out of of work over here too, as well as starting at very low paying jobs when we first came over. Super is one of the reasons I feel so strongly about how a reform is required into women working and childcare etc - and I did manage to find something on web (make care fair) about it which gives more info and facts and does summarize to some extent what different political parties are doing or not doing. That is the other thing work is giving me - time on public transport to read and think about various issues which is probably time I didn't get before. I think I am also finding that working is switching on parts of my brain that have been more switched off or on go slow for a while at least as find am thinking about all sorts of things more, and in a different way - I 'think' is a good thing :-)

[Astrid]

I am with you Astrid about the super - it is scary when you read how much women are down on their contributions compared to men - for us DH has very little super/pension compared to me, because he moved from job to job and did teaching in Spain to move around with me when he was younger, and has had spells out of of work over here too, as well as starting at very low paying jobs when we first came over. Super is one of the reasons I feel so strongly about how a reform is required into women working and childcare etc - and I did manage to find something on web (make care fair) about it which gives more info and facts and does summarize to some extent what different political parties are doing or not doing. That is the other thing work is giving me - time on public transport to read and think about various issues which is probably time I didn't get before. I think I am also finding that working is switching on parts of my brain that have been more switched off or on go slow for a while at least as find am thinking about all sorts of things more, and in a different way - I 'think' is a good thing :-)

I have been feeling similar. Getting quite passionate about how life all fits together with working parents. Childcare really is quite fantastic for parents working, studying and/or volunteering, in comparison to school and kinder. The Kinder system down my way is so antiquated and incredibly difficult to work around. It actually has me quite angry. I am in the dilemma of do I fight for other families to have system that works better, or do I just calm down, get through the year and save my energy for the school years.

[wysiwyg]

I have been feeling similar. Getting quite passionate about how life all fits together with working parents. Childcare really is quite fantastic for parents working, studying and/or volunteering, in comparison to school and kinder. The Kinder system down my way is so antiquated and incredibly difficult to work around. It actually has me quite angry. I am in the dilemma of do I fight for other families to have system that works better, or do I just calm down, get through the year and save my energy for the school years.

I am only just really grasping the issues with schools, because not quite there yet, and kinder well I took one look at the hours offered round here and they will just do kinder program at daycare (which a lot of people round here seem to be a bit sniffy about but is perfectly fine - even DD at 3.5 has picked up on if she when people ask her if she is in kinder she says she is at daycare they switch off and are uninterested so she just says yes now). A couple of kinder places are offering two long days 7.5 hours for 4 year old but you have to sign up for 3 year old there (which are still ridiculous hours for working parents) to stand any chance of a place - but at least they are moving in the right direction. I was at the park this arvo chatting to a Chinese guy who was there with his daughter - he has been here three months - he was of the opinion that Australian kinder system was the most complicated in the world! and his view was that Australian government can't think that education starts until you are in school.

[Astrid]

I argued for the 2 x 7 1/2 hour days. Kinder teachers did not want it, some first time kinder parents did not want it. Frankly how is it any different to Long Day Care? They do have after kinder care and thankfully (For future parents) some of the kinder teachers have come around to the long days. Some are now arguing for 2 quality days, rather than 3 mish mash days with after kinder care.

Kinder here (SW Vic) is still back in the era of mums not working. Does not help down here, that many mums don't work (even though that is now changing) and there is a vocal few who are smug about having flexible work and think that every other parent "should just find flexible work" If only the world worked liked that.

There is a problem when parents do not look forward to it, but cringe about it, even parents who's kids went years ago talk about the "hell of kinder year". Which shows the format does not work. Shouldn't it be a year we look forward to, the one the helps prepare our children for school?? It is wasteful in resources, whole departments, buildings, committees, fundraisers that revolve around 1 year. You go through a stressful, complicated application process, then have to deal with new rules, procedures, hours. All for one year, then you start it all again when they start primary school. That is just me being stressed, let alone what it is doing to DD2 dealing with moving from childcare to kinder and after kinder care (she still has some childcare). Poor kid is so confused. Kinder either needs to become part of the school system (like Tassie) or become a proper part of childcare.

[wysiwyg]

I hadn't realized system was different in Tasmania - just looking at it quickly - that is what I thought kinder was here before I looked into it - and that seems to me a good way of doing things if kinder is about preparing to go to school becoming part of the school system seems a good fit (oh and I love the straightforwardness of the age system there 4 by first of Jan for kinder and 5 by first of Jan for school).

[peanutter]

Both times I returned to work after only a couple of months (9 weeks the first time, 8 weeks the second) and both my boys fed exclusively until 6 months, and comp fed until 10 months, so there was a lot of expressing!!

I work shocking hours, but it was just part and parcel of the arrangement.

I didn't find two any harder than one, but I always knew that I'd be going back to work - I never thought I'd be staying at home, so it wasn't upsetting the way it could have been otherwise ITMS.

I've been at my place of employment for 7.5 years, so I can take long service leave any time now, which is good to know. At my job, I'm allowed to take it in chunks of no less than one month, so I can have (in addition to my 4 weeks annual leave) a month long holiday every year for the next three years if I want.

Realistically, I'll probably wait until DS2 is a little older and then we'll go on two long trips.

When the boys are older, at school, and DH is working full time again I will probably try to work more family hours, to be regularly home for dinner and homework and special sports events and all those things

But for now, I'm focusing on quality as quantity isn't a readily available option.