That Guilty Feeling: Take a Stop Day
As a working mum, you feel the guilt of not being around your children. Certainly, when I had my eldest and returned to work after 5 months, I got the guilt mum thrown at me from colleagues; both male and female. ‘How can you leave your baby at 5 months?’, ‘How can you breastfeed whilst working?’, ‘Don’t you miss your baby?’ and I didn’t interact with it. I just stopped talking about my little one completely until I was working with a colleague for a year and he said ‘I didn’t even know you had a child, you don’t spend all hours talking about her like the other mums do’. Wow, you can’t win right?
I was fortunate that work was kind and gave me access to a breastfeeding facility, and I could work remotely when I needed to and I could work flexitime to fit in with my daughter. It was how I wanted, actually, how I needed it to be as the work gave me drive to stop obsessing over every little thing my little one did. I had a meaty project and inspiring coaches to help me feel challenged, and I thrived!
Back to today, the 6th day of being at home with the children. Yes, tired because we have done so many things in this past 6 days! However, we have had a stop day today as I’m feeling the guilt of not working, not heading to my desk and logging on in the morning, not joining the conference calls and contributing to professional life. I’m glad I took a stop day and think the girls needed it too.
I’ve cleaned up the kitchen, tidied the toys up in the garden and switched on my laptop. Aptly, my eldest has just said ‘Can I have a kitkat?’ Actually, surprisingly, at 18:00 of an evening, I have said Yes! Thank God for Stop days! I think allowing yourself to have these both at home and in the workplace is vital to pause, reflect, work on the strategy and be true to your purpose.
Skills Repeat 