By Angela Garwood
A fellow mother asked me this morning whether I was working at the moment.
“I am actually, yes, I’m a freelance copywriter…” I replied, as if surprised by my own answer despite knowing it to be the truth.
Because although I’ve been working for a few months now, something hasn’t quite sunken in yet. I’ve built a website, attended networking events, met with clients, carried out the actual work, sent proposals and invoices, scrutinised the finer points of emails late at night, and yet, when asked whether I work, I still hesitate. This is most likely a case of imposter syndrome, coupled with the disbelief that I’m actually doing what I set out to do: Earn money writing.
Hesitations aside, I am now officially a “working mother”. (Though I loathe this term nearly as much as “stay at home mother”. Could we coin new terms please? Some mothers have paid work, others don’t, but all mothers work, and neither of those options are easy. There is no such thing as a mother who doesn’t work.)
This shift in my schedule has been both welcomed and feared. I’ve longed to “use my brain more”, earn some money and seek work that fits around the children, yet I’ve also wondered how exactly I’m meant to fit the work in around managing the household generally. I quietly remind myself this is a quandary shared by millions of women, and crack on with the laundry. (To be clear, Joel and I very much share the household duties.)
Of course the trouble with freelancing (and often paid work generally) is it seeps into other parts of your day, when you’re not officially “working”. I’ve noticed myself brainstorming content ideas during bath time and thinking about work whilst I’m literally mid-conversation with my daughter.
“You’ll get better at compartmentalising”, friends say. I hope so.
Then there is the constant hum of infinite household tasks just waiting to be entertained, when Leo is at nursery and I am meant to be working.
“Oh I’ll just hang that bit of laundry…” I think, and before I know it I’ve dusted 25 photo frames, folded two loads of laundry and cleaned the bathroom sink. They call it “productive procrastination” or simply “getting distracted and quite enjoying it”. Which of course has its benefits; you could eat off those frames, but I can’t invoice for any of those activities.
Sometimes, in an effort to ensure that my child-free time is spent solely working, I ban myself from any household tasks, including “the big food shop”. (Resisting the urge to put a load of laundry on was depressingly hard, it’s as though it’s programmed into my DNA now.)
In hindsight, choosing to take the children to Aldi, at 4pm when they were both tired, when I could have gone alone during my “work time”, was pure madness, but that’s what hindsight is for.
We walked in and the children dispersed in different directions, Leo dodging trolleys from all angles (or rather trolleys dodging him). A short-lived pandemonium ensued as he decided he no longer wanted to walk.
After the fastest food-shop known to man, we promptly headed for the checkout where Leo began playing with another person’s shopping.
I felt a disproportionate sense of satisfaction as I got the children and our food into the car. Like I’d achieved some great feat.
I realised I could take on any writing work thrown at me and banish those lingering imposter-syndrome type thoughts, because few things are more testing to the average human being than taking young children food shopping.
Angela blogs at The Colourful Kind
