Changing Priorities

Tags

decisions, Family, Identity, Motherhood, Mothering, Parenting, priorities, Work

I had two job offers last week.  One was for a fairly senior position, managing a couple of heritage sites and all the associated staff.  It’s a role I applied for twice prior to the arrival of Chublet and just missed out on each time.  It’s a high paced, full of interesting challenges job that is just the sort of thing I’ve been working towards since I started my career.  The other job was almost the complete opposite.  It’s an admin / front of house position with a local art gallery.  It’s two days a week, has very little responsibility, no management and is the sort of thing I was doing 10 years ago when I first started in the cultural sector.

Much to my surprise, when I really sat down and thought about the jobs and the requirements of them, I came to the realisation that I actually wanted to take the lower graded position.  My deeply held desires to prove myself at that management level, to feel alive with the buzz of a fast paced, high demand role have disappeared for the moment.  I was still very excited about the possibilities of the job, of the changes I might have been able to make, of the innovations I could have work-shopped with an amazing team; but the idea of doing the hours required to achieve that, of bringing work stresses home most nights, of logging in to my email over the weekend to try and catch up on work, of always being on call, made me worry.  It made me realise that I didn’t want to be that mother, and that at this moment, my time with Chublet is too precious.  I want to be able to focus on her on my days at home, and I want more than just the weekends with her.

I’ve read a couple of articles recently that look at stay at home parenting with some interesting conculsions.  Sam de Brito suggests that he loves being a SAHD as he lacks ambition that irked me, and I think this response from Andie Fox is closer to where I am at.  Right now, due to the decisions I had to make over this last weekend, I’ve realised my priorities have changed.  For now, I want to be able to split my time between working and mothering fairly equally.  I want to be able to spend the days with Chublet without worrying about work.  I want the enjoyment of work and feeling like I am achieving against measurable, known targets, but I also want to be able to walk out the door after the day and leave all my work things behind that door.  So that when I come home to Chublet I can focus on her and on my family.  However I still dream of one day achieving great things in my career.  I do still want to get to that senior management position, I want to be able to work in a way that I can influence the shape of the organisation in some way, I want to know that I can make a difference.  But as it turns out, I don’t want that at any cost.  As it turns out, I want a stable, happy family life more; and for this family, right now, that means I take a part-time job at a much lower level.

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Questions of identity

Tags

Identity, Mothering, Parenting, Toddler, Work

Things have been a bit rough in the not so organised household of late.  B lost his job a while back, so we lost our main income.  However, the good news was that his job loss occurred the day after I started a casual contract at my old work helping to update and redo position descriptions in line with state government policy.  As the project needs to be finished ASAP I’m now doing close to full time hours while B stays home and looks after Chublet.

This rather sudden change in status from full time SAHM, to working almost 30 hours a week has given me a bit of a jolt, and as a result I’ve been mulling over how my sense of identity has changed since becoming a mother.

Identity and how we construct a personal narrative around our sense of identity has been something that has fascinated me professionally for a while.  One of the texts I regularly referred to in my former job was a book all about how people’s sense of identity influenced their leisure time choices and how as an arts organisation you could attract different audiences.  (That’s a very basic summary, if you’re interested Nina Simon did a fabulous review of Falk’s text here)

Being back at work, albeit in a very different role, and having the daily commute where I have time and space to have a good debate with myself (all in my head of course), has meant that I’ve reflected quite a lot on the difference between being part of the corporate mob, and being a Mum.  One of the main things I’ve noticed is how people do (or don’t) connect with you, and how much I’m missing having a small person by my side who almost forces others to stop and say hello, and who forces me to go a bit slower and smile at people as we make eye contact.

In my daily commute I arrive in the city by bus, charge up a major pedestrian thoroughfare, side stepping my way around and through the 1000s of other office workers making a similar journey and don’t speak to anyone until I arrive at the office, close to an hour after leaving home.  I rarely make eye contact with others on the same journey, and if we do speak it is nothing more than a quick apology for a socially awkward situation.  Each person is focused on their final destination.  There is nothing that singles me out from anyone else on that commute, nothing to signal a shared experience, nothing to suggest that my identity is anything other than yet another corporate worker.

On the reverse, days spent with Chublet give me a very clear identity that is vastly different from the commute and my interactions there.  Chublet is a highly sociable little girl who’s current favourite word is ‘Hello’.  Our trips to shopping centres, parks and local walks are punctuated by a chubby hand waving at anyone who looks at us and a little voice piping up with a mispronounced ‘hello’.  Many people pause and say hello back, others smile and wave as they walk past, and a few stop and chat to her and me, remarking on how happy she is.  Here I have such a strong identity, I am a Mother, and so many other parents, old and young, pause to share the experiences of that identity.  A wry smile, a wave and a chuckle, a short conversation or a helping hand – this identity is far more social than my work one, and one that now feels closer to me.

In many ways, on my work days I miss the sociability of my Mother identity.  The anonminity can be a blessing, but I am a highly sociable soul.  My choice of work is one that allows me to engage with visitors, to provide opportunities for people to be sociable and enjoy themselves, and to be part of the social setting.  Being in an office all day, keeping to my own space during the commute, having little connection with those around me leaves me feeling like i’m missing a part of me.  The way that Chublet barges through social barriers, in her typical toddler fashion, makes the small-town, sociable side of my identity sing for joy.  She forces me and others to be just that little bit more open, to converse with strangers and to share our experiences, and I like it.