Mummascribbles – Working mums – My Mummy Spam – Mummascribbles

I have been a working mum for more than three years now and am currently at the start of my second maternity leave. Some days being at full time work for those three years was extremely difficult while on others it was nice to be able to sit and have a hot cup of tea without having to wipe a nose or change a bum! I know there are a heck of a lot of working mums out there, some who love it, some who hate it and others who are somewhere in the middle. I thought it would be interesting to see exactly how others feel about being a working mum and maybe we can all learn a little something about dealing with that dreaded mummy guilt!

Today we meet the lovely Ami from My Mummy Spam.

Tell me a little bit about who is in your family
My little family is me, my lovely hubby and our bubba who isn’t really a bubba anymore..he’s nearly 2! 

What age were your children when you returned to work?
Bubs was born on the 14th September 2014 and I went back on 5th June 2015 so he was almost 9 months old. 

Did you return to a job away from the home or within the home?
I went out to work in a local office which was only about 15 minutes away from home which isn’t too awful really. 

Did you choose to return or did your circumstances force you back? 
We needed to me to go back to work for us to maintain our lifestyle. We have a mortgage and bills to pay and hubby could have paid for it all but we would have been skint each month and we didn’t want to live like that. I was happy to work for us to still have all the nice things that we do now. 

Did you return to work full or part time? 
Thankfully my work were amazing and gave me exactly what I want so I went back 3 days a week and into a branch that was right round the corner from me. 

What childcare do you have in place and how did you go about choosing it?  
I was very lucky when it came to childcare. My mum is a child minder which meant I was able to send Bubs to him for 2 days and then my mother in law offered to have him for the other day. It’s great as Bubs gets all the social interaction and learning to share etc at my mums and then he gets more time to play on his own and is learning to entertain himself at my mother in laws. The lack of costs is also the other MAJOR bonus. If we had to pay for childcare then I would literally be working to pay for childcare and that is it so it wouldn’t be worth it. We are very fortunate and grateful to have family around us that can help. 

What do you find the most difficult about being a working mum?
The days when bubba has been poorly and I have had to go into work have been the hardest. It’s never easy leaving him (well sometimes it is if he is being a grotbag toddler! 😉) but it is the worst when all he wants is mummy cuddles because he’s feeling rough and I have to leave him 🙁 

How do you deal with the working mummy guilt? 
I don’t get struck with mummy guilt that much to be honest but when it attacks I remind myself why I am going to work. I am going to work so that we can have nice things like holidays and days out and by me going to work I am show bubba that mummy and daddy need to work so that we can have nice things. I think it’s showing him that you have to work for what you have in this life and I am proud of that. I think too many people and children expect things to be handed to them so I am proud my son will grow up knowing you have to work to have nice things. 

How did you feel when it was time to go back to work?
Torn… Part of me was so excited to have non mummy chat and to be Ami again but then again I obviously missed my little baby a huge amount. What we did to make the transition from mat leave to working easier was about 3 weeks before I went back I started taking Bubs to my mums and my mother in laws for an hour or so and leaving him there. I would then go and do the food shop or catch up on blogging etc. It showed me that Bubs was fine without me and the world wasn’t going to end and also helped bubba know that even though mummy left, she would come back. 

Is your work/life balance what you want it to be or would you rather work less or more? 
I’m really happy with my work life balance at the moment. If anything it’s my work work balance that I am finding hard. What I mean by that is that I find it hard to balance my part time work and my blog work at the moment but I’m sure it will die down in a while and I will find a way to juggle. 

What advice would you give to a mummy heading back to work? 
Be brave and don’t ever feel bad about being a role model to your child. Yes you may not be there for every single moment but you will get to enjoy so many together. And saviour a hot coffee 🙂 

Ami, thanks so much for taking part – I absolutely love your outlook. I’ll be facing the return to work in a few months and am hoping to go part time somewhere. It sounds like you have it all worked out brilliantly and is so fab that you have such grea childcare in place. I hope you manage to get the balance between work and blog sorted…I have discovered a similar problem now I have two children! 

Along with her blog www.mymummyspam.co.uk, you can also find Ami over on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

Tags: interview, mummy guilt, mummyhood, Work, working mum, working mummy