GUEST BLOG
By Tabitha Ronson According to a new report, women can have it all.
Yes, it's official. Woman can go to work, do all the housework, raise a family, enjoy regular nights out with the girls, look like Amal Clooney (alright that may be pushing it) - all without damaging their offspring.
What a relief! I can now dump the angst and guilt in the knowledge that it will have no impact on the long term wellbeing of Master A.
Teenagers with working mums are no less likely to smoke, suffer with depression or have low self- esteem, quit school early according to a recent study by Silvia Mendolia, an economics professor at Australia's University of Wollongong.
In fact, the survey found children of women who work are more likely to continue their studies into higher education.
I will take comfort from these findings every time I drop off Master A at pre-school breakfast club, where he is one of the first to arrive, and collect him from after school club, where he is always the last to leave.
I will no longer express any concern when he pleads "why can't you be like the other mummies?" after I say I can't take him to the park or to swimming after school because I am work. I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing my actions will have no impact on him.
What about me? Where are the studies that say I'll be fine that my long-term wellbeing won't suffer or be damaged because I not spending time with Master A - because I have a sneaky suspicion that it is and will be.
I'm mindful of Time and that he is no friend of mine. He is taking my baby away. Each hour not spent with Master A is another lost, never to be reclaimed.
Before long he will be that teenager who is not affected by having a working mum because he is so conditioned, so used to not having her there. He'll stay on at school because that's where he's spent most of his days - it's a second home.
Yes, we can have it all - but always with a price.
Working Mum, both welcoming and dreading the moment when the pleading stops.
