When I went back to work after maternity – both times, I was genuinely scared. Of having to think and sustain adult thoughts*, of forgetting what I’d done with my children, of just generally f*cking everything up.

*thoughts requiring mature conversation, not thoughts of a sexual nature.

What I wish I’d known is that being a working mum is really ok, in fact, it’s a lot of fun, if a little manic, hysterical and surreal and it makes home time even more special. But there are things that are different now. Any of these ring true for you?

Since being a back-to-work Mum

1. You’ve developed a more than irrational hatred of all young people with massive headphones and the latest statement trainers that push to get to the only free seat on public transport before you. No, you’re no longer pregnant, and you’re not yet technically elderly, despite feeling like Madge from the Dame Edna Everage Show most days – You are just VERY tired. And you almost certainly have yet to drink you first cup of coffee of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. You regularly Google the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. You’re similarly, just as irrationally jealous of the young people with the massive headphones and the silly trainers, because they smugly sip from their own,  searing hot, caffeine-packed cup of Joe-mocha-chocca-latte while you secretly foam at the mouth waiting impatiently for your first of the day, like a teenage boy circa 1988 watching Pamela Anderson’s debut in Baywatch. Also because you’ve never felt  cool enough to get away with massive headphones or the latest statement trainers.

4. You leave the house without makeup, apply it en-route and end up doing something unforgivable with eyeliner.

5. You suck your stomach in until you’re in a state of negative oxygen, in an effort to try to look younger, hotter, fitter. And to convince yourself you can still rock a pencil skirt.

6. You have a day off from sucking your stomach in and wear a pair of Spanx dupes instead.

7. You swear off wearing Spanx dupes (too tight!) and go back to sucking in your stomach.

8. You wash your hands so thoroughly, the people you work with start to suspect you have OCD.

9. You regularly wrack your brain for an amazing, ground-breaking business idea that requires very little time and energy, can be done from home in pyjamas, and will set you up for life.

10. In the meantime, you play the lottery.

11. you think you’ve stumbled upon one of those amazing, ground breaking business ideas –for example, a place where people can pay to just sleep for a bit. Then you remember that that concept, i.e THE HOTEL, has, in fact, existed for centuries.

12. People buy you hand cream because of the hand washing and its toll on your digits.

13. You listen to teenage conversations on the tram whenever possible to keep ‘up’ with what goes ‘down’ these days and what might go ‘down’ when your child is that age.

14. You pray to God that some of the things going ‘down’ with the teenagers are never favoured or referred to by your own child.

15. You look at well-behaved teenagers as if they are Elvis, born again. You try to work out how they’ve been brought up and wonder whether to ask them for their parents’ number.

16. You work myself up to sport trousers with a funkier cut than you’d ever normally wear, to try and be ‘cool’.

17. You put the trousers back in the wardrobe and never take them out again because they make you feel like an 80 year old in a Velour tracksuit.

 

 

 

 

 

18. You blame stains on your clothes on your youngest child. Even if they have nothing to do with him or her.

19. If you drive to work you think about how it must be illegal to operate machinery this tired. Then you remind myself that just having that thought is energy that could be better and safer expended concentrating on actual driving.

20. You sometimes imagine yourself as a sexy, caped crusader SuperMum/lady. You dance mentally round the house in celebration of this.

21. Seconds later you feel like absolute crap because you dropped the ball on something, or you sprained you ankle on some lego.

22. You pretty much skip into work after a bad night/morning with your little person.

23. You pretty much skip home after a rubbish day at work.

24. You go into work after a 4 night strike of ‘they slept throughs’ and are mad, bad and dangerous to know at organising

25. You have a bad night,  followed by too many coffees and are just as mad, bad and dangerous, only to crash spectacularly around 2pm

26. You get midway through a sentence and totally forget what your point was

27. You run practically all the way to nursery at home time like a woman possessed.

28. You run all the way to nursery then slow down for just 2 more minutes peace and quiet.

29. You have a G and T on a school night. At home in your pyjamas

30. You  leave nursery in a morning in such a blur you can’t remember leaving the child(ren) there. You think about knocking the school night G and T on the head.

What’s else has changed in your life since being a Mum that works?

*Original Dame Edna Madge image rom YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUFWjtWEb7g

**Original Betty White picture (LEGEND!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAmTDVZX8m8