The working mother paradox

I have no idea how my mother or Em did it.

If you have been wondering why I have not updated my blog in ages, it lies in one reason and one reason only - the days are getting longer and the nights shorter.

The last month has been a whilrwind of trying to juggle work with being a good mother to Caitlin. Things have been thrown at me from left, right and front at work that I don't even have time to eat lunch or breakfast anymore. Its just some biscuits and then off to class, CCA, remedials, meetings (oh god the meetings) or to prepare for some event that is always taking place in school. It does not help that as middle managers were are expected to be both teachers and inspiring leaders to our teachers and that while we are juggling these many roles, we are still expected to prepare "engaging lessons" that are aligned to the school's strategic plan (which took us 8 days to create in the first place) and mark 7 classes of paper 1 and 2 English! Coupled with the fact that we have a new VP (which makes it 2 VPs), we are all floundering. This is made worse by the massive guilt I feel for leaving Caitlin at home with Leni (even though Leni is great) and just the wish that I could go home earlier to play with her.

After the long meetings, I finally make it home to have just 2 - 3 hours with Caitlin before she is off to bed at 730pm. So its bringing her to the beach or the park, bathing her, playing with her, reading to her. Its a nice tired because she is just so darn cute but by 8pm, I am already falling asleep, only to have to get up at 530 am to start the process again.

I get it that everyone's job is demanding but the amount of multi tasking a teacher, subject head and a mother does is amazing and sometimes overwhelming.

So the working mother paradox lies in my realisation that it is not for the faint hearted.

And the next time someone tells me that teachers have good lives because they can go home early and they have long holidays, I'm going to give one good slap.