With Humble Apologies to Working Motherhood.


Working motherhood, I humbly apologise for my gross underestimation of your complexity.

Never again will I take for granted those perfect starts to a working day.   The ones where everyone wakes up happy after a solid sleep and eats all their breakfast first go.  The ones where everyone leaves the house neatly dressed and laughing all the way to the car.  The ones where day care drop off goes smoothly.

And especially the ones where one sits smugly at a cafe close to work sipping a coffee a good hour before work officially begins.  Sitting there doing actual planning for work before clocking in early and making a good start on the day’s tasks.
Working motherhood, I am guilty of taking your smooth sailing moments as a given.
I know now that things can change in an instant, as early as two hours into the working day.  When that concerned call from daycare comes through.  For first timers, the call is enough for the panic to kick in.  The tense drive to daycare, the racing thoughts about what to do first – GP visit or home for rest and TLC.  And then the guilt about not having noticed anything in the midst of the happy morning and the guilt about leaving work at a loose end.

Thankfully, it wasn’t anything major at daycare.  A minor infection every family seems to pick up in the first few months that they enter care with so many other little ones at close contact with each other.  We’re home safe and resting with ample supplies of whatever it takes to keep fluid and energy intakes in a positive balance.  I’m only on the end of a phone for work and my years of experience on the ground have made me a professional at the work related phone discussion.

Working motherhood.  It’ll all work out in the end, even if you’re sometimes doubtful that it will.


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