28 March 2007

A snapshot of mum's returning to work...

Thought I'd give a snap-shot of the return-to-work situations of my Mum friends and their partners following having a baby. Most women are permanent employees. Paid maternity leave was mostly 6 weeks, with some at zero, some as high as 12-14 weeks, and mine taking the cake at 36 weeks paid. Ah, you win some, you lose some! Here goes :

1) Lawyer: returning to work 3 days/week as negotiated prior to having baby. Is early on in a 5-year contract with her employer. Her partner (lawyer in public service) has negotiated working 4 days/week once Mum goes back to work.

2) Marketer: her partner got a promotion whilst she was on maternity leave, and decided once having her baby, that she'd rather work part time at the end of her Maternity Leave. Employer at first said "yes" to 3 days/week, then changed their mind 3 months later, saying "Full time or nothing". She found part time work at her husband's work place, working in the area of "glorified data entry", which is neither in her previous area of work and is far below her previous salary rate. Previous employer requested to meet with her again, recently - they seem to be changing their mind a lot.

3) Dietitian, public hospital: returning to work 3 days/week. Found someone to job share with, so the only issue was agreeing on who would work which days and organising child care.

4) Worked for international firm: Company has pulled out of Australia. Budgeted and decided that they can survive on one income for about 18 months, and then they have plans to travel. French Canadian, and may do some translation work from home.

5) Cafe Manager (CBD): has decided that her former job doesn't really fit with motherhood. Is retraining, doing accounting certificate at TAFE, and may use this to help out with partners' small business. Works a few evenings a week at a different cafe.

6) Long-haul air hostess: Has loads of leave up her sleeve due to long service with company. Plans to go back to work 3 long weekends out of 8, with possible nanny on weekdays if needed, shared with others from her work who will try to coordinate shifts. Awaiting announcement on industrial agreement/large scale retrenchments to see what happens, and may put her hand up in that case. Partner runs a small business.

7) Professional, multinational telco: Negotiated and granted return to work at 3 days/week after her year maternity leave. Partner (corporate law firm) has negotiated working from home half a day/week.

8) Teacher/administrator, tertiary institution: has negotiated 3 days/week since going on maternity leave. Partner (civil servant) has negotiated working 3 days/week also, starting in a couple of months.

9) Civil servant: still negotiating returning to work 3 days/week, and one of those days is a Sunday.

10) Admin, not for profit org: returned 3 days/week after 6 months leave (as planned to get pregnant again then and wanted to work for a bit).

and finally me,
11) Senior non-academic staff on a fixed term contract, tertiary institution: see previous posts (April, 2006) regarding what happened when I went on maternity leave. I seem to be pushing the frontiers of my Employers maternity leave policy... Having worked on continuously renewed contracts for at least 2 years prior to going on maternity leave, they granted me the same whiz bang paid maternity leave provisions (36 weeks) as a permanent employee who has worked there > 2 years. Was also approved to return to work 3 days a week.
What differs for me compared to permanent employees is my return to work. They have until 11 April to formally notify me of the fate of my position, and haven't done so formally yet, but I'm not holding my breath. Therefore, find myself in the job market for part time work. Partner not in a position to go part time for a couple of years, having just started a new job in a new field.

27 March 2007

Lucky, he's wearing his brown trousers...

Gastro and babies is not a good mix. His poor, little, read, freqently wiped bum! My poor, frequently washed, sore, cracked hands! Poor carpet. By the way, has anyone actually got any experience with using Bicarb of Soda as a carpet cleaner? All the instructions I can get my hands on are a bit vague. I've used it twice (wanting to avoid chemicals), but ended up with a bit of crusting on the carpet. It will break down with time and walking on it, but maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Besides that, we've been busy beavering away. C-chan is getting used to his new job gradually, we're getting used to being home without him, I'm applying for jobs, and E-chan is still thinking about crawling, but not crawling. He's starting to feed himself bits of bread, but every now and then, he hands it over to me as if to say "here, you do it, you're better at it than me!!". He knows his own limitations, it seems!

We moved around furniture on the weekend - not very smartly we chose one of the hottest days in March. It started with us being uneasy with our tall bookshelves in the dining area - we had visions of E-chan crawling and climbing on it, and it falling over on top of him. Although it is heavy and would take some strength to make it move, we still thought he'd have a great time pulling out books from the shelves and probably chewing on them. So we moved them into our bedroom, moved a cupboard out of E-chan's room, and moved the toy/blanket box out of the the living room and into his room, and some crates from out room into the living room. Furniture round robin. The result is better all round. Now we just need to decorate the plastic crates. Somehow, everything looks roomier.

Now we just have to sort through the mountains of clothes E-chan has grown out of, and work out who to send them to, which ones to keep for possible Junior #2 (no immediate plans for this), and where to store them... Babies go through 4 sizes in their first year of life.

Oh, and I have applied for 2 jobs now. Just have to wait to hear if I get an interview... "Think positive vibes!" I can hear my mother reminding me...

17 March 2007

Livin la li vida housewife* (part 2)

Enough of the keeping house angst - time to show you what being a stay at home mum is really like:

Day break: woken by the dulcet tones of E-chan experimenting with his vocal chords - "ba ba ba, da da da, agooo!", more recently "ma ma ma maa ma am muuum!" :D , and any noise that can be made whilst inserting fingers in mouth. Greets us in cot with gorgeous smile, then comes into our bed for a little bit of play and cuddling while we wake up properly.







Breakfast: All 3 of us make and eat our breakfast over about half an hour. Afterwards, it's morning play time for a little while then E-chan has his bottle. Sometimes we go for a walk with Dad to the train station, stopping off to have a swing in the park on the way back.





9am Morning Nap: sometimes this is a morning nap in the pram whilst I go for a walk or make my way somewhere by foot, but most mornings it's nap time in the cot, roughly 3 hours after waking up. Sleep for between 1 and 2 hours. I do the dishes or any urgent housework, prepare a sandwich for lunch, have a shower, or sit down and read/watch something I taped off the telly (ie something that can be interrupted if he wakes up). Most Fridays I go for a swim with some other mums, taking it in turns to mind the babies while we do laps.

10:30-11:30 ish: get dressed and prepare to go out. Every 2 or 3 days we make sure we're at home much of the day, but might nip out for a bit. Activities include attending local playgroup, meeting other mums and in the park for lunch, shopping, visiting, or a special outing. Last week we went to Clovelly Beach. That's right. Beach on a week day. The kids splashed around in the shallows before lunch, then we took it in turns with the snorkel while the rest minded the kids. Next week I am visiting another former-colleague-who's-had-a-baby in Bronte. This is the life.

12:00 - 1:30 ish: lunch time. At home or in a park somewhere, or at someone's house. This has gotten trickier since E-chan learned to shake his head from side to side when he doesn't want to eat something. He can be quite emphatic about it! I usually feed E-chan 2-3 different things... that way he can decide he doesn't like one of them all that much but will at least eat the rest. LOVES grapes, banana, melon, and chicken and corn soup. The rest is OK but may require much pleading, silly faces (from me or him) or coersion. He tends to like trying bits of my lunch, whatever that is. Has a bottle about an hour later.

1:15 - 2 ish: play time to help the food go down, or we go for a quick walk with the seat up (so he won't go to sleep) to buy some groceries or "run errands" as the Americans say.
2:15 - 4 ish: afternoon nap time. I start to think about dinner, what to do this afternoon, relax, ring someone up, catch up with emails, or do a load of washing. Every so often he won't sleep, so after an hour or so of trying to get him to sleep, I put him in the pram (but lying flat) and he zonks almost instantly.
4 - 5 ish: afternoon play/walk/quick duck out to "run errands" or E-chan playing while I do some cooking (this is possible because he's not fully mobile yet).
5:00- 6:30: Dinner time for E-chan. See lunch time, issues are the same,
but I'm not eating my dinner yet so can't feed him my dinner. At this stage he's having a bath every second day, but will bathe him regardless if he has smeared dinner in his hair. Has his bottle sometime between 6 and 6:30, and sometimes his Dad is home in time to do that.






6:30 - 7:30pm wind-down play: This is where we may get to cook or even eat our dinner, while E-chan has some quiet play with one of us. When he show signs of tiredness (usually becomes unco, or flops onto his back to lie down), we scoop him up, brush his 4 little teeth, change his nappy, read him a book (current favourite is Dr Seuss's "Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You?"). Then we say goodnight to his teddy's and soft toys, put him in his little sleeping bag, and kiss him good night! Usually he goes to sleep within 30 minutes, and we don't hear from him again until morning....

Some days are more difficult than others, especially when you really need to get something done, as that is usually the day he WON'T GO TO SLEEP without a walk in the pram, and those days tend to end up with me just a little bit frazzled. But C-chan comes home and helps out, then there is usually time to unwind fully once he's gone to bed, and we're really lucky that those sleep issues we had a few months ago have pretty much gone. I reckon being a full-time parent is a pretty priveleged way to be living, and I'm trying to make the most of it while I can!

* yeah, I know "housewife" isn't the right term for it. Don't like the term either, but can't be bothered thinking about what I'd like it to be called, and don't think it really needs a name.

13 March 2007

Livin la vida housewife*

So here I am living the housewife life. But not very successfully if you go by my experience last Wednesday. Had visit from North Shore friend/ex-colleague and her bub - we met and had lunch, and I spontaneously invited her back to my house afterwards for a bit until she had to catch her train. However, had forgotten that we hadn't vacuumed or tidied for a while (not for want of trying). Nor had we cleaned toilet. Realised with horror how bad the place looked when we arrived there, with a trail of toys and piles of junk everywhere.

Not something I usually care about remotely when other close/mum friends come over, but this friend is the sort of person I feel I need to show that I have everything "under control". It's just like that with some people. You know the type - never leaves the house without looking smart and wearing make-up, and their house is always spotless. Felt like those archetypal television commercial Mums who have panic attacks about their house not being clean. (And I can honestly say this is the first time I have ever felt ashamed about our mess). It was clean and tidier a few days later, just not when she visited! Oh well.

Also, am pretty sure that every time I see this friend, we part ways and have an acute case of lifestyle anti-envy. I leave her North Shore house with 1/4 acre block and think "Well it would be nice to have a garden and house, but thank god my nearest shop isn't 2.5 km away with train station even further away and I'm not reliant on my car to go everywhere, and I have hundreds of mums to run into when out and about, and lots of parks, shops and cafes to visit, and it only takes 30 minutes to commute to the city!". I have almost no doubt that she leaves my place thinking "Well it would be nice to live so close to everything, but thank god I don't live in that cramped little 2 b.r. unit with no garden or dishwasher in a suburb where real estate is really expensive whether you rent or buy!".


* apparently "housewife" is Spanish for housewife!

09 March 2007

Dear Employers,

Please create more part time positions for parents and/or other people who want to work part time for lifestyle reasons. And please don't make them all "Part Time Executive Assistant/ Secretarial/Receptionist" style jobs and salary levels - create them at all levels of work! Not everyone who wants part time work is a secretary. And not everyone who works part time should be on a crap salary level!

In addition, or perhaps as an alternative, could you please warmly consider applications for shared jobs where it is possible, and state that you do this clearly on the Job Ad or workplace website?

Thanks for your consideration. Your compliance in these matters will be setting a new standard of equal opportunity and occupational health!

Kind regards,
Meririsa

08 March 2007

There are two types of people...

Upon finding out that you have family in Tasmania, there are those who ask:

"Oh, whereabouts in Tasmania do they live?"

and those (who think they are terribly witty) who say:

"oh, I thought there was something different about you!" in faux patronising voice, or the even more hilarious "show us your head scar, then!" or the slightly offputting "are your parents related then*?!".



* for the record, they're not