"You're so lucky!"
The oft repeated response whenever someone at work asks me about Hannah's childcare arrangements. Indeed I am fortunate to have such wonderful family support, knowing that Hannah is always being looked after by people who love her, almost unconditionally!
Oh, of course, this is the little monster we are talking about (happily chomping the unsuspecting Mr. Rabbit)...
Having compared notes with my colleagues, here are some of the common childcare arrangements of our local working mommies:
- Send the baby to a local babysitter
- Send the baby to grandparents / relatives staying nearby
- Send the baby, with a hired maid, to grandparents / relatives staying nearby
- Live with grandparents
- Send the baby to grandparents for the week, only collecting her back at the weekends!
The first three options involve early mornings and late evenings, given the state of traffic jams in this city, ferrying the little baby to and fro her carer's house each day. The 4th option is what we have naturally settled into, since our new apartment is not ready for occupation. To many, this seems the most favourable arrangement. However, having the extended family all under the roof of a crowded apartment is not without its drawbacks.
Surprisingly, not a few resort to option five. A significant number will travel home to the East Coast (erm... at least 6-8 hours away?) for their confinement / maternity leave, leaving the husband alone in the city to continue working. Afterwards, many leave their babies behind with the extended family, choosing to come back to KL to work, only visiting their babies occasionally! This continues till the baby is a little older - until he can be placed in the hands of a trusted babysitter.
Well, we have to remember that maternity leave is a mere two months, and there are no creche services in most places of work. So, I suppose leaving the baby behind is safer than taking a risk with an unknown babysitter. After all, we are familiar with stories of child abuse and neglect under the care of hired maids and supposedly trusted babysitters.
So, having considered all options, I should be happy I have the best of all worlds, but am I?
Many years ago, I remember attending a seminar on "Balancing work and family" as a medical student. The speaker was a Consultant Pathologist who had deliberately taken twice as long to complete her training, just so that she could spend time with her children. Obviously, at that time I could not have possibly understood the difficulties of juggling so many roles. The only take-home message I remember is this: you will have to compromise.
That translates to: you will not be the best mommy you strive to be, or be as aggressive as you wish to be in your career aspirations. Spending more time in one area will inevitably result in compromise in the other.
What roles are we talking about? Well, I am first a Christian, a wife, a mother, a doctor, a daughter, a student ... or have I already got it wrong?
It's a little like those chemistry equations with funny arrows pointing both ways - eventually everything settles and the components involved reach an equilibirum. I guess I just haven't found that equilibrium yet.
The truth is, I wish I could be more of a mommy.
It is so difficult to reconcile the fact that my baby spends more waking hours with her carers than with me. Who is her parent?
Parenting choices such as using the dummy(or not), structuring feeding and sleeping times, having supervised tummy time etc., are all out of my reach, simply because I am not there. Trying to force the little baby into "my" routine at the weekends seems cruel, since she already has another routine. Hannah now wakes up irregularly at night, searching for her dummy, simply because she can't do without it now. Trying to break the habit during the weekend seems pointless, since she gets her way during the week!
The utter heartbreak would be if Hannah says "Po Po" as her first words instead of "Ma Ma". I'll blog about it if that happens, and all the working Mommies can then try to console me.
Experts say that babies instinctively know who their mothers are. But I really wouldn't blame Hannah if she gets a little confused. Everybody wants to have a piece of her (remember the market lady?), and Mommy just can't seem to get enough of her!
Working Mommies out there, any words of advice for this anguished Mommy?
7 comments:
You could quit your job and rely on your husband's new found salary?
Be a stay at home mom and find a new job so you can work from home?
Take a sabbatical? (Would you have to start as a houseman again?)
I think you said it all yourself really - it's impossible to do everything. Choose something and go along with it, knowing that was the best decision you made at that point in time. Have no regrets.
Oh and kids know who their mommy and daddy are. Don't worry about what they say - the younger one didn't say 'ma ma' for a long time but she sure says it now.
Or is she just asking for food?
hmmmmm.
i guess Hannah is very lucky.
at the moment i am not in the position to see your point of view - in fact far from it.
at the moment i find myself struggling to wake up at a quarter to six to prepare Ben's breakfast and lunch box, get both of us ready so that he doesn't miss the bus and rush myself to work so that i can finish my rounds by half eight.. then try not to get too depressed at work being screamed at by my perpetually pms-ing boss;... get home by half six ( if i make it home at all...); have a quick shower, pick up my kids, try to have dinner while one kid keeps trying to stand up on the high chair and throw utensils on the floor and the other simply refuses to eat;....then prepare for the next day - homework etc, tehn try to coax them to bed... before collapsing to bed myself. And i can't even get leave because they are too short of m.os....
jeez.... i was tired.... and all this ventilation has now made me depressed.
A house with kids just can't help being chaotic to some degree, can it?
We always want more than our share in life, looking for what more we can have rather than thanking God for the blessings we already enjoy.
Guess I need to learn to be less greedy and be contented with my lot.
By the way, heading your way (Penang) early February. See you soon!
You might wanna consider one more factor - that of time. Are there parts of your equation that will change with time and how reversible is that? In an ideal world, clearly we all want to have everything right now. Unfortunately, time is a huge limiting factor, and trade-offs have to be made. The question is: are there trade-offs that you make now that may not matter as much later on (in which case it might be a good consideration to lower its priority)?
I think this is a dilemma only because you want to be good in everything that you do. It's not a bad thing. But we can't be the best of everything that we want to be, so the key is making a conscious choice of the trade-offs that you have to make (e.g. i'm happy not progressing as fast as a doctor because i've decided to be supermom, or vice versa).
I struggle too with my current choice to pursue singing. It's taken a long time to finally reconcile the fact that I cannot pursue a singing career and a marketing career and expect both to progress at the same pace a somebody that's singularly pursuing either career. I don't know that my choice is the best one, but it feels most right at this point.
Good luck - my thoughts are with you.
hey, a sort of working mums thoughts on the subject.
When I had Ruby and was working, I found I could not bear leaving her with the nursary I resented work continually so I cut my hours then I cut my hours again and now after Coralie wheny they have made it impossible for me to work for them I am not dissapointd at all (I am angry them after all).
Being at home all the time is Hard, very hard but I am on the whole happy with the decission and am joining the agency and finding work that i can do in the evenings/ weekends when it suits me. Nothing
is perfect I am constantly aware that according to socielty I am not econmoically uefull and that my children do have to go without stuff at present as we cant afford it. And that i am making it very hard for me to have a rewarding carrear when they go to school as i get more and more deskilled. Open university here I come
It is for a season, things always change.
oh and I find Grandparents are very hard to work with in terms of child care even if it is only for ten minuites while i am in the room. Always she is trying to do it her way,she seems to enjoy ganging up with ruby to do forbiden things, like some kind of comrade game againt silly mummy. At least with a nursary or childminder they have to do it your way and you dont have the problem of causeing friction in the relationship with your mam (thats how i find it.
sory grammar is ahrd to do with two sreamis hand pulling rescles.
Prioritisation is the key word.
I think I have already made a decision (conscious or unconscious) to put my family before career. It's not easy seeing younger colleagues getting through specialist training and moving on while I languish in my current position.
The most courageous step for any working mom, is to give up working and be a housewife. It's two very different worlds altogether. Not only do we lose a source of income, we also seem to "lose" a part of ourselves. Inevitably, our work gives us a sense of identity.
Things will certainly change with time. Many have advised pouring more energy into work in these early years, as children will require more and more parental attention later on. Yet, i'm reluctant to miss out on any stage of Hannah's development!
Mel really nailed it with her comments. Eventually I will have to make trade-offs that I will hopefully not regret later on. Otherwise, I'll just risk burning out when it matter most.
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