Full-Time Me, and Mama too...

Dada has been running a residential at work this week so we’ve been like ships that pass. Last night he stayed overnight at work and at around 4pm today Zack lost the plot and started wailing I WANT MY DADDY RIGHT NOW. He was inconsolable. Dada had already suggested that we gatecrash tea-time at work tonight so I negotiated with the boys that they could go up there for tea AS LONG AS THEY NAPPED THIS AFTERNOON. After 40 minutes of the most impressive nap resistance ever, we all gave up the pretence and went downstairs to behave like hysterical over-tired children. It turned out to be much more fun than napping, anyway.

I know I sometimes sound full of it, and it must make you gag a bit to read, but MAN are my boys ever making me proud to be their Mama. I can’t explain why or how but we seem to have lots of moments every day where I’m suddenly aware of the wonder of their company. They are SUCH good fun and I totally get the joy of sharing this part of their lives with them. If I had the time or the energy I’d try to write a bit more meaningfully about it but it’s a bit like falling in love, and one of those times where all you seem to have to express yourself are clichés.

They were the life and soul at Dada’s workplace, flirting with the American students and making playmates out of anyone who gave them a second glance. Which was pretty much everyone. They LOVE that place and I feel so glad that they have it in their lives, being there and meeting the constant stream of interesting people from all over the world does something special for them and I imagine them growing up with it as being a core part of their childhood memories. I think we’ve just about settled on staying in town and moving The Boy to the integrated school in September. We were considering a move but the more I consider it, the more attached I feel to this town. It’s not the easiest place to live, for a hundred different reasons but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s where were led at a time when we couldn’t see the wood for the trees. And while it’s the case that being here feels more like a stepping stone rather than the be-all and end-all, I don’t get the feeling that it’s the right moment to jump into the unknown. I’m totally surprised at this turn of events – I pictured us moving, so it gives me a big sense of security to feel like we’re choosing to delve deeper into being here, to invest even more than we have thus far, and I’m excited about what that might yield.

I suppose the thing with the boys, and the way it feels as though I’ve connected with them in a new way – it’s partly about being a ‘full-time’ Mum. This is a half-formed thought so bear with me. I never particularly wanted nor expected to be a ‘stay at home Mum.’ I’m not saying I passionately wanted NOT to stay at home with my kids, more that that’s just not how life was configured for us at the time of starting a family; pragmatically it made the most sense for me to carry on working, while Dada could have feasibly fitted his working life around a baby. Right until a few weeks before The Boy’s birth I was planning to be back at work within 6 months, a year if I bowed to the unspoken pressures. I often wonder what might have happened if I hadn’t been made redundant then. Would I be flying high in a corporate PR job, wishing like mad for the chance to be at home, or grateful for the daily diversion of lattes and heels? Whatever, I’m glad now that I didn’t get the chance to determine how things worked. I ended up at home with no need to work for a year, and when the year was up I was with child again and so virtually unemployable, and I don’t even recall making any grand plans. I think our life was configured very differently by then so it seemed to make sense for me to carry on being at home full-time. But I feel as though I’ve kicked against that for the best part of 2 years. It’s not specifically that I’ve wanted to ‘work’ – although there are times when that has seemed like an attractive diversion from the challenges I found in full-time parenting. It’s more that I’ve been disappointed by my own capacity as a full-time Mum. In my heart I believed the best thing for my boys was to be looked after full-time by me or Dada, but in practice I found it the most difficult thing I’ve ever tried to do. And after a while that dichotomy can start to cause you problems. I was always to proud to throw in the towel and return to work, because my guts told me I could be a happy and fulfilled full-time parent, and one who was half decent at it too, but the evidence of that was not often very forthcoming. (I should add that I’m not making any sort of commentary on whether parents should work or not. There is no ‘should’ about it in my opinion. Your family = your rules. I’m just saying that for ME on a personal level, being at home-full time became the thing I felt I should do. And sometimes that felt like more of an obligation than anything else, certainly not always or even often a pleasure.)

Anyway, I suppose I’m trying to say that being a full-time Mum was what I WANTED to want. But often didn’t actually want. And because of the conviction that it was the best / right choice for our family, the not-wanting-to-do-it thing sometimes drove me a bit nuts. So it’s refreshing beyond words; intoxicating even, to reach a point where it’s suddenly the thing I want, and which most satisfies me out of all the other things I could be doing. It doesn’t surprise me that I’ve hit this point at the same time that I’m reaching for freelance writing. And looking back over the things that have made print in the last year, no matter how obscure the publication,  I’m beginning to appreciate the upwards-lift that I’m on with that particular journey. The opportunities and feedback I’ve had have been awesome. I’ve taken them with a pinch of salt and continued to doubt myself, but squaring up to the evidence and letting it speak for itself makes my heart sing, and persuades me more than I ever that I’m on the right path. There are times when sticking to that path and parenting small children seem like totally incompatible pursuits, and other times when I feel like the tug of war that exists in my soul between Words and Boys only serves to heighten my deep appreciation of each end of the rope.

Incidentally this feels like some of the most incoherent writing ever but never mind, it’s more to clear the mental air than to make sense of anything to anyone.

I have to say the writing and freelance ‘work’ deserves a whole post of its own. It’s the strangest, most arbitrary experience, and while on the one hand I feel poised to burst into a flurry of exciting activity, it’s actually all so flimsy. I’m promised / offered work several times a day and yet I can’t control the workload, or reel in the words in order to actually earn a crust or have anything to occupy my time. I’m just trying to say that technically I’m earning nothing right now and if I’d given up my dayjob to do this I’d probably be panicking by now – so it’s not all plain sailing or like taking candy from a baby. But there’s a satisfaction in the sense that things are somehow falling into place; I have enough in my inbox to make it possible to imagine too much work to handle, and yet nothing of any concrete value, and I try daily to live with that incongruity without it making me despondent.

Lately I feel as though I’m bearing witness to a kind of magic. The moments spent with my boys, mostly in conversation, feel truly like an investment. I can almost see synapses firing, personalities flourishing and experiences giving way to expectations that are loft in the extreme. It’s as clichéd as you can get, but it feels like an honour and a privilege to parent kids like this. And that means more to me than I can really say because while my head has believed that to be what parenting is all about, I haven’t often felt that that was what was taking place.

I’ve often wondered what it must be like to be one of those women who just thrive on being Mama. I’ve tasted envy so distinct when looking sidelong at the lot of others, assuming them to be so content. And finally, for reasons that I cannot really fathom, I feel like I’ve become the one I envied. It’s not a flawless picture but I love it all the more for that. (And I was foolish in my envy, nothing ever quite lives up to the veneer that envy paints, it’s unrealistic.) I still shout, there’s still the element of drudgery, some things haven’t changed at all. But something in the pieces of me have been reassembled and I feel elated to have reached the place I’ve wondered about for so long; a place of being who I want to be, of having boundary lines drawn in pleasant places, and of being simply happy with my lot.