Prompt no 3. What do you secretly dream of your children doing?
I don’t know that this is so secret, so I’m going to keep this short and move on to prompt 4. I dream that my children will be able to fit in. That they will not inherit my insecurities, that they will be confident and happy. I dream that they will not be riddled with self doubt, nor second guess their every life decision. That they won’t wonder who they are, they will know. That they will not agonise, just decide. That they will be strong, and will forgive me for my weaknesses and mistakes. But like I say, not so very secret, I suspect most parents harbour those dreams for their children.
Prompt no 4 – Letting go.
Over a decade ago I started a career. I didn’t know at the time that I was starting a career, I thought I was moving into another job, hopefully one that would make me employable anywhere around the world. But it turned out that actually it was something I was really rather good at, and it became a career.
It became a career that was important to me, so important that even when I had the first child I’d longed for, at 14 weeks she was back in nursery and I was back at work. I couldn’t imagine taking more time than that, and even though way back then I intended to home educate, I thought nursery would be fine until she was home education age. (Plus motherhood didn’t come naturally to me. I’d wanted to do it, but hadn’t quite envisaged all the screaming that came with it, or the fact that I really wasn’t very good at it at all.)
So even with a child, I continued with my career. By the time she was 6 months old, I was up to three days at work from the half time that I’d started back. By the time she was a year, I was doing 4 days, and having to remind my boss every week that I didn’t work Fridays. There were jokes about jax-time as I seemed to fit in so much more than most, and it was partly because I dreamed about work, problem solved in my sleep and in the shower, in the car to and from and really short changed my daughter.
Then I had my son. And I didn’t want to rush back to work. I wanted to do some work from home, but they didn’t want to let me, so I asked for voluntary redundancy, not expecting to get it, and very surprised when I did.
But I didn’t let go then. Eventually I had to go out to work again, and for another couple of years I balanced child raising and working, rushing to and from, short changing my kids before I short changed my employer. And it really wasn’t working for any of us.
Then I got offered my dream job, working at the montessori school the children were attending.
So I threw myself into that. I don’t really do balance you see, if I’m working, I have to work 100% and I don’t keep much back for the family. In and amongst the last few years, we tried for more children and lost three and I lost my sister, and somewhere along the way, I lost that working drive.
Did I lose it? Or did I let go? When we moved down here, I thought about having to work again, and I realised I don’t want to. I don’t dream of a career. I don’t miss the person I was at work, except occasionally, when a sarcastic retort springs to mind, and I bite it back. Sarcasm worked in my computer team leading environment – my co-team leader blunt and dry witted, and we sparked well off each other. It doesn’t work so well on children 😉
So I have let go of so much of those parts of myself. Let them go, or they have escaped, I don’t really know which. If I don’t regret the loss, I think they are let go. And I think I am the better person for it. Certainly when I am happy to spend the days with my children, I think that is better than working ridiculous hours to pay for them to spend the days with other ppl!
We may have let go of the financial rewards as well, but time is far more satisfying 🙂
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