Nobody Can Have It All. So There.

"Do not trade your birthright as a Mother for some bauble of passing value....the baby you hold in your arms will grow quickly as the sunrise or the sunset of the rushing days." George H. Hinckley






A Rant at Ranting Mothers


I am oh so fed up with you whinging about how you cannot be mothers and have a career at the same time. About how employers are not understanding or flexible enough to allow you to work part-time/leave early/bunk off for children's illnesses or Sports Days or drama performances. About how your husbands/partners/fathers-of-your-offspring don't help/understand or simply would not succumb to the daily grind which is housework ('like writing a report and having it deleted daily').

Life's just like that. It is what it is.

It's a succession of choices - and presumably you mothers have been making choices all your lives, thus far? Life is the sum total of said choices at any given time.

One of the more pivotal choices is whether to have a child in the first place and when you decided to go ahead, then many sub (sic. consequent)-choices followed; shall I return to work? can I return to work? will I be able to afford a cleaner/nanny/second car?

And whilst I subscribe to the view that the government should recognise life choices, I also support the position that it's not the government's responsibility to assist families either financially or by manipulating employment law. It's a free world and a free market.

It's simple. If you can't afford to raise your children, don't have any. If you're not willing to sacrifice a career/joint income, don't have any.

If it is unacceptable to defer your own personal ambitions, and you perceive child-rearing as monotonous, repetitive drudgery, or, even worse, beneath you, then why have children at all?

Arguably raising a child in its early years is infinitely more important that practising law, medicine or any other profession. Those worlds will continue to revolve without you. Bringing up one's children should never be seen as a waste of an education.

It might be an idea to apply the supposed prodigious intellect to envisioning the sacrifices which might be required before the children are conceived. Admittedly, it's a challenge to imagine the changes that will occur after the birth of a child in detail - there are no manuals, after all - but surely it's not beyond the wit of Woman to recognise that someone is going to have to alter their lifestyle to accommodate the new dependant and that someone is frequently the mother.

Moreover, you not only blame successive governments for not facilitating your childcare, frequently it is your husbands/partners who are in the firing line.

They're variously accused of not understanding, not wanting to do the housework and, more, that they simply wouldn't do it if they were in the position of stay-at-home parents. Well, there's a thing.

But here's the thing. Who actually does want to do the housework? Men can hardly be singled out for their aversion to it. And, secondly, should you, as child-carer, not feel like doing it, then don't. Apart from the unhygienic bits (food on the floor, dirty nappies) and laundry, everything else can wait. Do those 'essentials' when the child is asleep - none of them stay awake forever. How long does it take to clear up the kitchen floor or switch on the washing machine, or both? And the ironing? Sing and clap and recite rhymes. And laugh, for God's sake. Smile.

For someone of your intellectual capacity and success, such multi-tasking should be a doddle.

And while you're giving your husbands/partners a bum-rap, do a stock-take on their lives. No career, no matter how worthy, is without the mundane, the boring bits - the same report with a few bits changed, similar clients with the same old complaints, traffic, pressure, promotion, office politics. They might enjoy what they do but that's no reason to suppose their lives are one long riot, or that you've drawn the short straw.

If you're seeking a ROI, let me tell you, there is none. Zero, zilch, nishto, nada. But if you can't devote your energies to your babies for a few years with no payback then it's a sad thing.