Who was it who said \u201cparent like you don\u2019t have a job and work like you don\u2019t have a child?\u201d Would anyone own up to it now, in 2023? I wonder. The pandemic, for all its horrors, did some good in re-calibrating the work\/life balance expectations of employers and staff. For those with caring responsibilities in particular, I think this was a huge step forward. But it still feels an impossible balance some days, and I only got a few years of parenting in before the pandemic, so I can\u2019t imagine what went before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This week marked the end of the school year, and as we go into the long school summer holiday for the second time, I\u2019ve been thinking about the challenges of caring while working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although nursery may have made our eyeballs bleed at the cost, two huge savings graces were the longer days and the holiday cover. Once you\u2019ve dropped off at school for a 9am start, you might just get back to the desk for 9.15am. But work quickly \u2013 because the clock is ticking. You\u2019ve got to down tools by 2.45pm absolute latest to repeat the journey. You might just about eek out 5.5 hours, but only if you strap yourself to the laptop and don\u2019t allow yourself any breaks. Although if you\u2019re lucky enough to have a breakfast or after school club (and you can convince them to go), you might just be able to buy yourself a longer day. Although in the holidays, some of the holiday clubs don\u2019t even start until 9.30am, with a pick-up of 3pm…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve had the build up to the summer holidays and I\u2019ve started feeling excited for the upcoming break. Until I remembered I don\u2019t get the full 7 weeks off like my son (anyone else still get caught out about summer?!), and instead we\u2019re entering 7 weeks of a crazy jigsaw of family, friends, clubs and a holiday to patch together enough cover. We need a separate calendar just for where the kids are going to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I absolutely love my son\u2019s school. However, I\u2019m starting to feel like I want a life PA just to cover school admin. In just one week, the requests were to wear colours on Monday for world mental health day, wear green on Friday for world tree day, book a parents evening slot, pay \u00a34 towards an animal experience, consent to a flu jab, bring homework in next Monday, bring cardboard boxes in this week for a junk modelling project and don\u2019t forget to use your child\u2019s terrible drawing to order Christmas cards. My husband and I have started to have evening admin sorts at home to try and work out what the hell we need to do and when. I\u2019ve started to dread the school PING app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These last two weeks of school have been peak. Between two national strike days and sports day one week, and an end of year show, a meet the new teacher event and a school picnic, I\u2019ve lost the plot a little on trying to fit work into the daytime. There\u2019s nothing like seeing your child\u2019s face light up when you turn up to a school event and wherever can I really try and shuffle work around to be there, but the constant daytime events are a nightmare to manage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s nothing like the dread of seeing your child\u2019s nursery or school calling \u2013 is it a temperature or worse? This week we had the head bump call from nursery \u2013 their protocol is to call and let you know, keep monitoring and let you know if anything changes. But from then on, you\u2019re on high alert for the second phonecall to come and get them. Everything in your diary suddenly as a question mark against it for whether you\u2019ll be able to make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I feel incredibly lucky that for the most part I can fit my job around the kids. I\u2019ve seen the fallout out when people couldn\u2019t get time off \u2013 the crying child whose parent couldn\u2019t make the event or the one whose parents never can and they’re just used to it. It breaks your heart. I have a lot of friends in professions like teaching and nursing who just can\u2019t get the time, and it makes you realise how all the daytime events are amazing \u2013 for those that can make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The real challenge of working and caring is that neither are ever far away. You\u2019re putting your child to bed thinking about tomorrow\u2019s deadline, or you\u2019re in a meeting worried about whether your child really did settle at nursery after this morning\u2019s wobble. I think it\u2019s less about segmenting off your life and pretending like the other section doesn\u2019t exist, and more about trying to embrace the chaos that comes of trying to do both at the same time. One parent working just isn\u2019t enough for most families with the cost of living these days, so most of us are attempting to thread water, balancing work, kids and the rest of life. There are only so many balls you can keep in the air before one of them drops, and I could really do with winning the lottery, wrapping the kids in actual cotton wool and deleting the PING app. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo by Soheb Zaidi<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Who was it who said \u201cparent like you don\u2019t have a job and work like you don\u2019t have a child?\u201d Would anyone own up to it now, in 2023? I wonder. The pandemic, for all its horrors, did some good in re-calibrating the work\/life balance expectations of employers and staff. For those with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[37],"tags":[13,11,12,21,25,10],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-development","tag-charity","tag-consultant","tag-freelance","tag-non-profit","tag-self-employment","tag-start-up-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t