What Christmas means for working mothers

I'm finally getting into the Christmas spirit. The tree is up. My little girl has broken up from nursery (sounds terrifyingly grown up!). The stress is starting and the bank account is fucked to put it bluntly. And I've yet to sort a pub for our 'stress and cooking free' Christmas dinner. Once again it's money and pressure that has prompted me to post this. Although I'm excited about time off and my family being together, I'm terrified at the prospect of not earning for a few days - it always seems to leave a huge dent in the monthly pay cheque. I yearn for the days when you took 5 days paid holiday and got 2 weeks out of the office - care and stress free. One of my companies is being very generous in doing a special festive Christmas payment run so that we get paid before the 25th. I'm hugely grateful to them for it. It's a shame the other firms I work for didn't want to jump on the joyous bandwagon, but I can understand why. I feel the pressure to earn and keep earning is constantly on my back. If I don't, I always fall short the next month - I get stung for bank charges and find myself in the same situation only worse and more peeved the next month. January is a notoriously long and hard and desperate month... I'm just hoping that I've done, and I'm doing enough to ensure that we'll get through Christmas and have a decent cheque in 2009. Sorry to sound so negative but it's reality... I can see why some people dread Christmas. It is in some ways such a happy and giving time; and in others a worry and a necessary evil. I should look at the true meaning of Christmas and be thankful, and I am, I really am. But in modern times it's hard to see it as something other than a money guzzling nightmare.

All I want for Christmas....

Boo hiss. This credit crunch lark is really starting to bite. I don't think I would have noticed it if I was still a working girl in London (not that kind of working girl!)... gloriously single, selfish, affluent, well groomed, didn't know the meaning of the word tired... but now with kids, a husband and extended family to think about buying presents for, you really start to notice the pinch. Not to mention mortgages, credit cards - and bank charges. My fucking bank took £300 in charges last month... it left me skint, crying, depressed, anxious and seriously pissed off for weeks - I still haven't got over it in case you are wondering. When you work all the precious hours you can muster, in and around being a full time mother of a toddler, and being a full time housewife, and then half of what you earned goes up in smoke, into some Lloyds effing Bank fat cat's bonus pocket, it really grates. That money was set aside to pay for an old loan payment and also finish off my Christmas shopping... Which is now still waiting, sat on a wish list on amazon.co.uk. This month isn't much better, although one good thing is our mortgage which thankfully has come down considerably. But no matter how much money you make or save, you hardly notice it - you just notice that it always goes straight back out of your bank account. Who actually manages to save any money at the moment?

So it's got me thinking about what is important this Christmas. And actually it's not the presents, although I want to treat my daughter to a few Peppa Pig bits and pieces. It's about my family, my immediate family being together. It's about good will, fun, sharing and caring. It's about watching The Snowman and the Christmas Eastenders. And then it's about looking to 2009, how I can improve our situation financially. I think I will apply for more work and really knuckle down and get more coming in. That will be my New Years resolution... So it's all about positivity, checking reality and hoping that things will get better. But for now everything is fine. Gone are the gluttonous Christmases of late, which is no bad thing.

Easy targets?

I was lying in bed at 4.15am this morning seething... my daughter was wide awake next to me telling me she wanted milk and to watch Peppa Pig. My husband had hot footed it to the sofa to avoid being kicked in the back by aforementioned wide awake daughter... In the process of the stress of being woken so early, I had tipped a glass of water over the bedside table nearly electrocuting myself and my family with the baby monitor. What a way to start the sabbath.... I haven't slept since. My eyes are squinting and it's only 10am. I lay in bed procrastinating and analysing my life, my role as a mother, my struggles and my victories. It's a regular discussion I have with myself and to be honest I do enjoy them, but not at such an ungodly hour.

I used to look at motherhood through rose tinted spectacles... I imagined life would remain pretty much the same as it always had been. Having a nice Sunday lunch out in a pub or restaurant, breastfeeding under a pashmina, shopping for myself and baby at our leisure.. It's not like that though is it? And the more I thought about it, the more I felt sort of, taken advantage of as a mother... Suddenly I am expected to be 100% domesticated, 100% dependent, 100% grateful for anything else that I get out of the ordinary, 100% thankful that my life now is dominated by a baby... and don't get me wrong - I am SO grateful and I love my daughter, my husband, my life... But I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. There are still things I want to achieve. My brain hasn't packed up yet (debatable). Not to mention the credit crunch - how mothers can depend 100% on their husbands and partners for financial support in times like this, I cannot fathom - the pressure must be immense.

Recently I have started a new job working from home which I am passionate about and really enjoy. All the employees in my position are mothers and we all work from home - although we are in constant touch on social networking sites, Skype and email. The terms of our employment has recently come under scrutiny and it transpires that the position will not be an employed one... This has shocked us all since we have shown loyalty, commitment and devotion to this new venture. It has changed everything. We now feel somewhat abused and taken advantage of as mothers... we feel as though they (the company) deem us as a desperate workforce who would be grateful for any morsels of work we would be lucky enough to find. Apparently they cannot afford to take us on as employed with the associated costs involved, but it feels as though our commitment to them is not reciprocated and we feel hideously let down.

Personally I feel as though I'm in a catch 22 situation - I am not prepared to go out to work and pay extortionate childcare costs in order to bring home a pittance; but I also respect myself enough to want to challenge myself and I want to have a proper job which I can do at home. With modern technology I'm surprised more people don't work from home. So I feel a bit as though this company has got me where they want me - too scared to turn my back on the potential of a good job and good prospects and half decent money (for a part time, stay at home mother.. ha ha); too scared to confront them about it and fight my corner to be employed in case they get pissed off and tell me to do just that.

So I suppose I revert to form, and probably the form of most mothers - I will put up, and shut up!

Pah! PA?

I've just read an astonishing article - well I found it astonishing. I think most every day mothers would feel the same. Admittedly the article was in The Times, which probably appeals to a higher form of human being to me, but even if it had been in the News of the World I would still have been open-mouthed.

Apparently mothers now have the option to employ a PA to do the jobs they can't fit into their busy lives. From Christmas shopping, to organising childrens' parties, these PAs can seemingly do anything, and work any hours you instruct them. Well wouldn't that be lovely, if you can afford one! How many mothers in this day and age, particularly with the credit cruch, can afford to pay for this 'extra pair of hands'? Not me. I am my husband's PA, my daughter's PA, my own PA for that matter, and still I have to find time for my own work and ordinary day to day housewifing and mothering duties. You have to be organised and find the time - even if that means staying up til' Midnight (and looking rough in the mornings). I can only imagine that these mothers who can afford a PA are out enjoying champagne lunches while the tasks they consider too mundane are undertaken by a perfect stranger. Or am I a cynic? Tell me if you think so.

Do they consider themselves above the normal, run of the mill parenting duties? Or are they so disorganised, or over-achieving that they simply need the added help? Either way it proves that there is far too much pressure on mothers to look gorgeous, have gorgeous, well behaved children, hold down a job, look after a household, have a perfect marriage, and fit in time for a social life too.