Worth

Before I had my girls, I could not cook. I could put things in the oven, of course, and I could put together a salad if all the things were pre-prepared but actual cooking was a no go. J would cook as he worked less hours than me and I would wash up, that was the deal. I would do the housework on my day off during the week, but it was easy then, there wasn’t anyone in the house during the day so it never really got dirty. I did the washing and the ironing I did in front of the telly in the evening. There was loads of time then. Eons of time. I really don’t know what I did with it all.

Now, I can cook. I can cook pasta sauces from scratch, make pies, stir fries, I can use spices and recipes don’t phase me, I own a selection of cook books and use them fairly regularly. I can bake and I do, I bake cookies with the girls and bread sometimes. I’ve made fairly elaborate birthday cakes in the past, cakes that have been talked about since. I can even poach an egg.

I have very little time now. Yes, the girls go to nursery fifteen hours a week but that disappears in the cleaning and the organising and in trying to write. The evenings are spent cooking, ironically, and washing up and doing bits and bobs that didn’t get done during the days. The school holidays are hardest obviously, the fifteen hours isn’t there and there’s even more time to fill with the girls. I love the time woth them, of course, but I really do struggle with sitting in the lounge and seeing dust or clutter or things that need doing.

When I worked, my worth was determined by how much money I earned, how my store did, my own performance, and as long as the house was vaguely clean, it was fine. We spent our days off mooching, breakfast out and long walks, naps in the afternoon and lazy evenings watching films. Can you even imagine?!

Now, my worth, and I appreciate this is my own perception, is determined by how I raise my children and how much I contribute. I am a good mother, my children are polite, happy little girls who have so many people in their lives to adore them. They are bright and funny and they love each other to absolute distraction. I cannot count the amount of times a day when they come to me and say ‘I love you Mummy,’ and every single time, I am glad that I took that chance to be with them.

And how much I contribute. Financially, nothing so I try to keep a nice house. This is doing nothing for feminism, I know, and I do believe fervently in feminism and equality but I find myself slipping into a caricature of a fifties housewife with alarming regularity. J will offer to do something in the evening, something entirely reasonable and I’ll shoot him down, telling him to relax, that he’s had a hard day at work. I’m moments away from offering him a glass of brandy sometimes. I even suggested this week that because we are only having one baby, that he needn’t get up in the night with her, that I’d do it all. To his credit, he looked at me aghast and said that he wanted to get up and do his bit, that she was his daughter too.

Sometimes, when I have moments of utter clarity, I realise that I’m ridiculous. My worth is determined by me. Just me. Yes, of course, it matters what people think of me, of course it does, I think people who say that it doesn’t are deluded at best and liars at worst. But maybe that is the crux of it, maybe that is the problem. Maybe I need to just work on that, this interlinked puzzle of worth and self esteem.

And maybe take a nap occasionally.

Success

I’m loathe to divide my life into pre and post kids but it does sometimes feel like the easiest distinction. It is slightly easier in my case, as I didn’t return to my job after my girls were born, so the division could very easily be before and after work. Not that what I do now isn’t work of course, but the perception of my life is and I think you’ll understand what I mean.

In my work life, I was averagely successful. I made a lifestyle choice when I met J, I could have continued on with my career as a retail manager, running bigger and more successful stores but all of those stores were much further away and, truth be told, I liked finishing work and hopping on the train, knowing that I had a good three or four hours each evening to relax and enjoy my home and my relationship. There were times within my career when I could have really gone places, really developed and there were times when things were really quite ropey, so I think, on the whole, it all balances out.

I loved my last job. I worked for a well known lingerie company that sold other bits and bobs,which I won’t name but you don’t need to be Agatha Christie to work it out. I had a fantastic team of people that I genuinely considered to be friends and it was a challenge. My job was added to and enhanced and I felt supported and excited by my bosses, it was a fun job, not different every day but different enough that I nearly always wanted to go to work. Telling my friends there that I was pregnant and then that there were two babies is genuinely one of the highlights of my life.

I regret often not going back. Not because I have ever regretted being with my girls, not at all, but because there is no barometer to success when you don’t work outside of the house. Nobody cares if your toddler is potty trained or when, there’s no performance related bonus, there’s far too much time and not enough time in equal measure, time spent staring at the walls in silence wondering if your babies are deeply enough asleep to risk turning the telly on, while you’re pushing your children in the pram along the seafront in an attempt to pass even a little time in an interminable day, the days when you realise that it’s two o’clock in the afternoon and you’ve not only missed breakfast, but lunch too.

The idea of talking to a stranger now fills me with dread now. I ramble to strangers if I d find myself needing to talk to someone, yet i crave having a conversation with someone new. I’d love to have just a little of my old self back for a few minutes, I’d like to briefly remember what it feels like to be respected and listened to. I wonder how I’ll feel next year, after the baby is born and old enough to go to my sister and to nursery and I do have to return to work, what will I say in an interview, that for four years, I have loved my children beyond measure, that I am more patient and grounded than I have ever been, that I will bring a level of maturity to a role that I simply did not have before.

Most likely I’ll say the wrong words and get laughed at.

Hey ho!