Mother's Day: 11 truths about being a working mum

Good news, fellow mothers! It is only two days until Mother’s Day, which means that this Sunday we can look forward to breakfast in bed, a delicious lunch cooked for us by someone else and, if we’re lucky, a bunch of flowers. Or, more realistically for those of us with young children: getting up at the crack of dawn, managing a toddler tantrum over lunch and buying ourselves a bunch of flowers because everyone’s been too busy to remember it was supposed to be Mother’s Day. Still, if nothing else, we can at least use the day to remind anyone who’ll listen that we occasionally deserve a rest. Personally I’ll settle for a cup of tea in bed and one day of not having to empty the nappy bin.

Why? Because every other day of the year is a chaotic, exhausting, wonderful but sometimes overwhelming test of our strength. Not convinced? Then here, in honour of March 11, are 11 truths about being a working mum of young kids.

1. Work really starts when you get home from the office

Within seconds of walking through the door if your children are still young you’ll be scooping baked beans off the floor with a teaspoon, mopping up a variety of spillages, waging battle on multiple fronts over what you are serving for dinner and removing Play Doh from someone’s mouth. This will be done while surreptitiously checking your work email on your phone because you think you may have forgotten to do something incredibly important in the office but you’re not quite sure what it was.

2. The guilt is incessant

Are you causing your children psychological harm by leaving them in nursery all day? Does the fact that you were late to collect them (again) amount to child neglect? Was last night’s toddler tantrum somehow your fault? Is the fact that your teenager walks out of the room as you walk in because you worked and were never there for school pick up when they were young? Is it wrong to kind of not mind because it means you get some peace and quiet?  These are just a fraction of the guilty questions that plague you all day, every day. You get used to it, of course, and they become a low-level ambient hum in your mind; an incurable tinnitus of the soul, if you will.

3. Keeping up appearances is impossible

There will always be days when you’ll turn up at work with toothpaste, porridge or a bodily fluid on your shirt. Your colleagues will politely pretend not to notice. The first time it happens you’ll feel mortified. After that, you’ll rapidly stop caring.

4. Brain fades

You’ll sometimes struggle to remember a crucial meeting or task you were supposed to do at work, yet try as you might you’ll never forget the names of all the Paw Patrol characters.

5. Your desk is your sanctuary

If you do a desk job, just sitting down in front of your computer will feel like the working mum equivalent of a relaxing spa break. You’ll be able to drink a whole cup of coffee without interruption and go to the bathroom without an audience (this never happens if you have children under 3 years old). You will be asked questions you have a chance of being able to answer, as opposed to questions such as “why can’t the moon come down?” and “Where does that pigeon live? Who is its mummy?” If you are an older mum with teenagers then work becomes the one place where everyone does not think you DON'T KNOW ANYTHING and other people even make you a cup of tea.

6. You forget Life Before Kids

When a childless colleague tells you they’re tired, you feel genuinely confused. Why would they be tired when they didn’t have to crawl around in the dark at 4am searching for a lost dummy last night or answer a 'taxi' call from an older child who apparently forgot their curfew was 11pm.

7. Horrible lunch hacks

You’ve been known to make yourself a workday sandwich containing your child’s leftovers from the night before. Did some of that chicken actually go in their mouth and get spat out before winding up in your lunch? If no-one saw it happen, it basically didn’t happen. If you are a mum of teens you will be lucky to find anything left in the fridge at all. This will also make you feel guilty because you are simply too tired to do a detour via Waitrose on your way home.

8. Nightlife woes

When a colleague tells you they’re going to the theatre or cinema, or out to dinner at a new restaurant that night, it takes you several seconds to work out what they’re talking about. The last time you went to the theatre was in 2012.

9. Photographic memories

Stuck in the coffee bar queue, you find yourself spending seven whole minutes scrolling through pictures of your kids on your phone and hoping everyone thinks you’re doing something work-related.

10. Every minute must be used productively

Your commute is your only me-time. Every minute of it is spent making shopping lists, trying to finish a book you started last year, replying to the 15 people whose messages you’ve forgotten to read, planning a roster of activities for the weekend and organising your whole family’s social life.

11. You wouldn’t change any of it

Ok, you would - if you could afford it, you’d hire a nanny, a housekeeper and probably a cook too. You’d also insert about five extra hours in the day because that’s roughly the amount of time you’d need to get on top of everything. You would approach every minor quotidien crisis with a zen-like calm, as would your children. But apart from that...you’d change nothing at all.