More than half of working mums have less than five hours a week to spend on themselves, according to a poll by Workingmums.co.uk.
The poll of over 770 working mothers, found that 52% spend less than five hours on themselves, 22% spend between 5 and 10 hours a week on themselves and 26% had more than 10 hours to themselves.
One mother who has less than five hours a week to herself commented: “It goes with the territory of being a working mum.” Another who has very little time for herself simply says “Oh well, maybe in another life!”.
One mother of two describes how she gets up at 5.30am, cooks, gets the kids ready, drops them at the childminder, works, reaches home by 7pm, cooks and feeds the children and goes to sleep. “It feels like I am missing out on the most important part of my kids' life,” she says. “Every day morning I ask myself why am I working, but don't we all know the answer?”
Scared
One mum who has two children aged eight months and two and has not yet returned to work, says she spends around two minutes a day to shower, comb her hair and prepare for the day ahead. She eats last, dresses last and is last in the bath. She says she is “so scared of returning to work, purely for the fact that if I have no time now, what will it be like when I am working too”.
However, several mums who are currently at home with young children also say they have no time for themselves and are keen to get back to work to recover a bit of themselves. One says she really neesd to work part-time “for my own sanity”. “I
need some adult conversations and some other interest in my life besides
entertaining a two year old and a one year old all day every day. They are my
world, but I do need a small tiny piece of me back again,” she comments.
Mothers who work seem to agree, with one outlining a day of non-stop activity – school, work, pick-ups, tea, waking her husband up [he works nights], tidying, washing and then working for two hours “or until my eyes give up then making sure everything is locked up, having a mini nervous breakdown and falling into bed”. She is then up two or three times in the night as the children are having nightmares because their dad is not in the house. But she says: “Work is by far the easiest part of the day - at least there I get 5 minutes alone to pop to the
toilet!”
need some adult conversations and some other interest in my life besides
entertaining a two year old and a one year old all day every day. They are my
world, but I do need a small tiny piece of me back again,” she comments.
Mothers who work seem to agree, with one outlining a day of non-stop activity – school, work, pick-ups, tea, waking her husband up [he works nights], tidying, washing and then working for two hours “or until my eyes give up then making sure everything is locked up, having a mini nervous breakdown and falling into bed”. She is then up two or three times in the night as the children are having nightmares because their dad is not in the house. But she says: “Work is by far the easiest part of the day - at least there I get 5 minutes alone to pop to the
toilet!”
Balance
The issue of time is not over working or not working, but over finding some sort of balance where they can be there for their children when they are needed.
One mother of twins describes how she became very depressed after returning part-time to a job which required a two-hour commute each way. “I would wake up, give them their food, kiss them goodbye and then face a long journey into work. When I got to work, no one understood that my children were now a big part of my life and I soon realised that working part-time was not good enough for my managers.” She has since retrained and freelances from home.
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