What day is better than a snow day to encourage mums with a message of solidarity?! We Got This. Aha. Yup. Kids happy as larry being home with brief encounters in the garden, parents both at home (one working very hard, the other trying not to panic about the work not being done). Slightly nervy that schools will be shut tomorrow too. YOLO though right?! Kind of, but the bills still need to be paid.
Does anyone else see the irony of building a business around your children, so you can be there for them on days like today as ‘it doesn’t really matter, as you don’t work for a boss”. But it does matter, doesn’t it? I devoured all the comments on a post by Frankie @doingitforthekids (who I love a little too much) about how different parents managed the recent half term with alarm and have an impending sense of doom about the longer holidays. I know there are holiday clubs but they are £££, I know we can swap with friends but in all honesty I like not depending on people (but I still love you and want to!), and I know I could just take time off but that depends on work coming in when you need it to. As in term time! Hmm. Are there any freelancers out there who look forward to the holidays? Tell me how!
I haven't been that vocal about the challenges I’m facing having set up a business and working on freelance projects, because, in all honesty I haven’t had the headspace. Today has been quite good - unexpected quality time with my kids, the knowledge that quite possibly not many others are working and the deal I struck with my husband that we can tag team at 5. But I do like honesty and find it reassuring from others so here goes my random thought jumble:
> social media - I love it and then I feel overwhelmed by it. Instagram is my love, and I feel lifted by all the women I follow. It takes me ages to do my own social media though (I love doing it, until it takes too long - hopefully I can pick up some tips from Vickie @INPOlife at next weeks event) and my husband quite understandably doesn’t get the sheer joy of being connecting with likeminded women so easily (he's declining my invitation to join so far)
> family life - I set up a business to flex around the family, to feel less disappointing to a boss in an office when I can’t make it in again, to avoid excessive travelling, to avoid the school holiday dramas yet find my mind never really switches off unless I’ve had a good talking to. And I still have to deliver work in order to earn money, so it’s still stressful. WHY IS IT SO TRICKY to work with more than one child? Reading this back, I need to look at my Supermum Myth Book again I think and find the balance I am happy with but I feel panicked when my childcare time is taken from me!
> money - I can’t get my head round how, as a career driven woman with the skills to work from home, I have had two babies and the logistics, cost and mindspace to earn as I was before seem impossible. I read such a thought-provoking post by @toomuchmotheringinfo about how she left an event and couldn’t decide whether to be inspired by the mums who’d decided to forge their own paths or angry that they had to. Yet in the face of having to, I have, and whilst I feel so so proud of We Got This (sometimes!) and the community it’s building, when it comes down to it, it exists because the options available to working mums are not ideal. Anna @motherpukka is coming to Norwich in April, the tickets will be pre-released next week to the email database and I will be absorbing her campaigning, knowledge and practical tips as much as I can (if you’re on the email database, you will get priority booking but make sure it isn’t in the spam - I send a couple of emails a month so if you're not seeing them you will miss out!)
I think you might be expecting me to be all jovial and 'hurrah we got this mamas’, and we HAVE but the truth is no one person has got the ideal job / balance and we are all muddling along. If you recognise any of these issues, let me know what you’re facing in Norfolk so I can start to work on the interview for Anna :-) Now - back to underthinking everything and cracking on 😉
That's snow from my garden in the pic, by the way :-), pretty!
Emma x
