Careers, kids and having it all

“I have never met a woman, or man, who stated emphatically, "Yes, I have it all.'" Because no matter what any of us has—and how grateful we are for what we have—no one has it all.” Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook CEO

If Sheryl Sandberg’s book had come out two years ago I might be in a different place by now. It’s the story I’ve been searching for since I had my first child. It doesn’t have the answers but it reassures me that other people are asking the same questions.

A year ago today I left my middle-management, nicely pensioned, bloody hard work but very inspiring local government job. I’d worked for someone else since I graduated at 21 and I was giving it all up to go it alone.

When I handed in my notice three months and one week earlier, everyone had seen the signs and guessed it was coming. They knew I was struggling to juggle work, two young children and a husband whose own career was taking off. The tears gave me away.

We’d had a tough few months with two small children timing their chicken pox and childhood bugs perfectly with our peaks in workload. So after pulling too many all-nighters working (and even more all-nighters awake with a young child), I knew that something had to give.

He’d support whatever decision I made (for me or him), but knew I could be the only one to make it.

For the first time in my life I decided my career would take a back seat, I had to focus on family. It’s the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I'm lucky to have had a choice, even if it wasn't the choice I wanted to make.

When I resigned I got lots of “I hear you’re leaving to spend more time with your children, oh that’s lovely.” No! That’s not why I left. This is why;

• Because I value my career, I loved my job and I wanted to be the best I could be
• Because having children made it impossible to live up to my own expectations of what I could achieve in work

• Because I was failing. My career was on hold. Being a mother was holding me back

I would rather stop doing the job, than just do it to a satisfactory level. I no longer had the energy to be the person I wanted to be. Because you can’t have it all.

So I resigned from my proper job and went freelance. I spent the first three months with a huge hole in my heart (that's no exaggeration). Missing my colleagues, the work, even missing the commute – that valuable two hours a day alone with just a radio or book for company.

But as the work picked up I started opening my eyes and living again. One year on I’m back to working almost the same hours I did before  - but now I can bill for it! If I want a day off, I take it and more often than not I’m doing the school run.

It isn’t perfect. I’m suited to working in big teams, in big organisations and I miss my team, local government and all the challenges it brings. But I’ve stopped trying to have it all and I’m happier for it. I can’t have the career I want and be a mother at the same time.

But I do have one regret. That I wasn’t strong enough to believe that I could continue in my job and be a mother at the same time. That I didn’t have the confidence to say "right, off on the school run” with all the attitude and self-assurance of a man in my position.

I still wonder why it's so hard for many people to understand that women can love their jobs as much as they love their children. Working makes me happy and being happy makes me a better mother. I shouldn't be afraid to say that. But this is still a tough blog post to write.

And that’s where women like Sheryl Sandberg come in.

“Our culture needs to find a robust image of female success that is first, not male, and second, not a white woman on the phone, holding a crying baby,” 

what success looks like to me

 

 

 

We need more men in childcare

Gender imbalance in the home, in the workplace, in life, largely focuses on how to make things better for women. Lately I've been thinking about childcare and how important it is for children to be cared for by both.

Early years education is dominated by women for many reasons I don't need to go into here - negatively perceived ones such as pay, hours, status. But also for positive reasons like experience, expertise, empathy (and our ability to multi-task!)

But we're not going to change stereotypes or teach children to view men and women equally unless we do something about the care they receive in those very early years.

That means changing the way we behave at home (if we can) and encouraging more men to follow a career in child care.

Sexism isn't exclusively part of the male  psyche (oh how we all love to blame them). A quick poll of some of my mum friends reveals a suspicion of men who work in childcare. What are they doing that job for? They must be weird/sexually motivated? Couldn't they get a proper job?

This reaction offends me in oh so many ways.

It is a decent job and one of the most important anyone can do, a child's life is shaped in those first five years. It's well paid in the right setting, with excellent training and opportunities to study and progress. Looking after children is fun and rewarding so why shouldn't men enjoy it? Guess what - men like kids too!

We also know that children without fathers benefit from having strong male role models in their life. 

My children have been cared for by men and women in daycare and I'm hugely grateful for that.

So let's encourage more men into childcare, reduce the ridiculous stigma attached to doing a 'female' job and start giving all those who work with children the respect they deserve.

They taught me, my husband and my children everything we know.

This time last year

I'm watching the snow fall and it's blowing a gale.

This time last year my son had chicken pox and I had a couple of enforced days off work.

Here are the pictures.

What a difference a year makes *reaches for the cake, grabs a beer*.

Hope, opportunity and adoption

 “I saw this chubby little boy. He looked nice, but it was weird thinking he was going to be my son. We felt protective towards him very quickly. He’s just adorable. We wouldn’t be without him.” Adoptive parent, Gloucestershire.

One of my biggest regrets in life is not adopting a child.

I have two beautiful homemade children with their lives ahead of them but I still regret not taking the plunge. I feel that by not adopting I’ve taken the easy way out.

Weirdly, it was Barack Obama's thank you speech to his campaign team that got me thinking about this again today. (see it here)

He talked about making a difference to people's lives and opportunity and hope. And my mind wandered back to adoption.  

But  all I ever do is think about it (and I know my big sister does too). I don’t pick up the phone and make the one call that could have changed my life, but much more importantly, somebody else’s.

Adoption isn’t just for people who can’t have kids. It isn’t and should never be a last resort. It’s a decision to give someone the opportunities and the life they deserve.

There are 484 children in care in Gloucestershire alone. This year the number of young children and babies coming into care has increased. Many have been abused and neglected and what they really need is a forever family.

It's National Adoption Week so if you’re thinking about it, take the bull by the horns and at the very least get an information pack. There's no harm in just looking http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/adoption

Listen to Paul Coxon's story, the view from an adopted child http://audioboo.fm/boos/342246-my-story-part-1-about-my-adoption

Autumn - The Gallery

Autumn. Equal first best season (along with Spring, Summer and Winter). It's been one of the most colourful I've seen for years.

For me it's the season of puddle-jumping.

Morning mists

And crazy tree colours.   Lush.

Barack Obama Fashion

In honour of the US election, today I am mostly wearing my Barack Obama kanga. This is it laid flat.

The words roughly translate as CONGRATULATIONS BARACK OBAMA.   

Love and peace have been given us by God.

It was a gift from my Kenyan brother-in-law after Obama became President and the whole of Africa celebrated. Great isnt it?

Kangas are traditional in Swahili culture, brightly coloured with a border and usually carrying a message.  

They look great when you’re wandering around a hot African village, but I’m not sure how it’ll go down in Sainsbury’s. So for today I’m just wearing it around the house.

Good Luck Obama!

My Shadow - National Poetry Day

It's National Poetry Day today.

I'm a bit late posting this, but here's the poem that reminds me most of my childhood. It has to be read in a North Wales accent, because my Dad always read this to me.

My 4 year old son loves it too. It's from the book A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. Dated but still beautiful. (I tend to replace 'nursie' with mummy!)

My Shadow 

 

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

 

When Granny met Bevan

I've grown up looking at this photo but never used to appreciate what it meant to my Great Grandmother, or why my Nan was so proud of her mother shaking hands with this man.

This is a picture of my Granny Jones meeting Welsh Labour politician Aneurin Bevan and it takes pride of place in my Nan's living room.

She's not sure exactly when it was taken, somewhere around 1950. The Dee Park estate had just opened, a brand new collection of perfectly formed council houses. Nye Bevan was to visit and my Granny Jones was chosen, because she was 'very clean' and had a big family - or so the story goes. She had 12 children.

My Great Grandmother shaking hands with the founder of the NHS.

Proud.

A river runs through it

In many places a border is marked by armed guards, in some it’s marked by sea, often you don’t see a border at all.

I grew up on a border marked by a river.

Our border was the most invisible border you will ever see. Flanked by two villages coming together to make one community. You did your business in both. Bought your groceries on one side and went to the doctors on the other. Went to church in either, depending on your preference, and to the pub in both.  (8 in total).

Yet the presence of the border carried great significance in the minds of the people who lived there. It was a place to meet and a place to stop and go no further. “Only go as far as the bridge” mum would say, so we’d cross it. “Don’t go near the River”, so we’d swim in it.

As teenage girls we couldn’t meet boys from the other side of the bridge, the boys from our side wouldn’t allow it. So we did it anyway, under the cover of darkness, sneaking out of bedroom windows in the middle of the night.

We’d hide under the bridge, like trolls, waiting for the cars to pass so we could run across, unseen.

Yet they were close, these communities, and still are. We all knew each other and although we went to very different schools, when it came down to it we got along. The villages needed each other, the people relied on each other, it was a happy place to be.

I grew up in Wales and on the other side of the river was England. We were poor, they were posh – at least that’s what we thought. Being Welsh we were second class citizens, yet we were full of pride – despite our English accents.

I loved growing up on the border.

Two villages together, miles from anywhere and split right down the middle. Two countries but one community, with a river running through it.

The Gallery - A Family Story

I don't have enough pictures of the Davies clan. So on a rare holiday together last year to celebrate my Dad's retirement, we set one up.

But it was hot, I was in a rush and I didn't pay attention to detail as I usually would.

The boys wanted to be in the pool, the baby wanted to be out of the sun, everyone else wanted a cold beer. I forced them all to grab a child and STAND STILL just for a minute.

Ready? Set the timer, run to camera, press button, run back into position. Done.

This is the result.

My perfect family photo isn't quite so perfect because:

• It's mainly floor
• I was wearing my skirt hitched up to my neck as a dress
• None of us have the right child
• The baby can't see
• One boy has a pair of shorts on his head
• My poor boy has nothing on his bottom (modesty protected with yellow paint *ahem*)
• My brother appears to be busking

On the plus side, we're all in it, we're all smiling and it was a bloody good holiday. And this photo really makes me laugh.

Join in The Gallery at the wonderfully varied Sticky Fingers blog.

Epilepsy rollercoaster ride

My sister’s son has epilepsy.  My first nephew, the crazy cute one who says wacky things, draws great pictures and has a style sense to rival Gok Wan. The boy who I pretended was my son before I had my own kids. Yep I really did that, people would stop and say how much he looked like me and I would just smile and nod, never admitting he wasn’t actually mine. Big Sis didn’t mind, she secretly liked it.

I didn’t know much about epilepsy and I still don’t know enough. He was diagnosed last year and every week he displays new symptoms, fights new battles, has more challenges to overcome.  And because we don’t live near, I only get to hear about it. My sister and her husband get to live it, day and night. They're on an epilepsy rollercoaster ride and they'll never be allowed to get off.

Epilepsy isn’t just about fits – or seizures to give them their proper name. He suffers from ‘drops’ which are temporary blackouts, causing him to trip, drop things on the floor, even fall in his own food. Not a good look when you’re surrounded by 5 year olds and your dinner is now all over your face. But he sits up, wipes his face clean and gets on with it. 

He also has long periods of being in a trance-like state. He doesn’t hear you call his name (ok most 5 yr olds don’t hear that!), but he doesn’t hear you offer him chocolate or a ride on his bike either. He wants to sit in the corner in silence and retreat into his own world. Big Sis tells me this is the hardest state to deal with. Her lively, never-sit-still child hides out in dark corners and stares blankly into space. Drifting from place to place, not hearing you, not really seeing you and not reacting to the world around him.

You have to carry on as normal. You could wrap him up in cotton wool but he’s 5 and the last thing he wants is to be different. So unless things are really bad, he gets dressed and goes to school. Often falling on the way, sometimes arriving and not really knowing he’s there. On these days my sister tells me she cries silent tears. You know the ones you cry when you’re trying to hold it together but the tears keep coming anyway? Sometimes the mums at the school gate share the pain, sometimes the teacher’s look says it all.

His epilepsy is evolving and they’re still trying to find the perfect combination of drugs to help manage his illness. Children in school are starting to notice and they’re old enough to be told what’s going on. If they understand what’s happening to him they’re less likely to make fun of him. Bullying is an extra stress he really doesn’t need.

But he’s an incredibly brave little boy and he keeps on smiling. He’s always been slightly eccentric and I think this eccentricity will get him through it. It hasn’t stopped his obsession with super heroes or taken away his daredevil spirit. It seems an odd thing to say, but epilepsy couldn’t have happened to a better kid – he’s so well-equipped to deal with it.

I can’t begin to imagine what my sister and her husband are going through. I hope this post helps more people to understand. But the best way we can help is to learn more about epilepsy, not be afraid of asking questions and most importantly, don’t treat him as if he’s different.

And next time you see a child who’s behaving a little bit strange, think twice before you judge him. Next time you see a parent who looks slightly on the edge, think twice before you judge them too. You just never know what’s going on in people’s lives.

http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/

http://www.epilepsy-parents.org.uk/index.html

Dedicated to my Big Sister, who is so much stronger than she realises and my Nephew, the next big thing.