Mum With
Me
BALANCING MUM LIFE WITH WORKING
FROM HOME
I always thought I’d be completely
fine about returning back to work
after my maternity leave. I really
didn’t expect to be in such a dilemma
but 8 months in and with my final
statutory maternity payment just
around the corner, I found myself
confused, upset and even annoyed at
the thought of having to leave my
baby (for reasons I’ll talk about in this
post). That’s when I started to really
consider the option of freelancing.If you don’t already know, we moved
house last year and the commute to
my previous job just wasn’t feasible,
so I made the decision to leave,
however I was always certain I would
return to work but to something
closer to our new home.In all honesty, I’ve always enjoyed
working and have been happy in most
of my jobs so the prospect of getting
myself back into “work mode” wasn’t
really my concern.My concerns were:
Separation Anxiety
Like most mums, the last 9 months
have been spent with my baby and life
with him feels like how life has always
been. I was worried about how I’d
cope without him.
This was also fuelled by Arlo going
through a bit of separation anxiety at
the time and although I got lots of
advice from mums who had been
through the same thing and who told
me that he’d soon adapt to his new
surroundings- I guess him going to
nursery was still a big worry of mine.Money
This was a huge concern. I bet we’re
all in agreement that to send your
child to nursery isn’t exactly cheap.
After lots of calculations we worked
out that my new job would have had
to be paying me a great deal for it to
even be worth it.It’s funny that some of the jobs I
looked at, after travel and nursery
expenses were deducted, we’d
actually be worse off!Flexibility
Where we have moved to is 1 hour
and a half away from our family, so we
don’t have lots of people on our
doorstep to help with childcare. If we
did I guess that there wouldn’t be
that pressure to have something
flexible.Written by Amelia Mae Cunnigham
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