Professional Mother for Hire

...Is there any place for a mum in our modern working world and can you really create a work-family balance?

Recent discussions regarding career aspirations with our daughters found me in a awkwardly tight spot. My usual joie de vivre was fighting a losing battle with my life experience and my total inability to lie as, either through bitter cynicism or bare faced honesty, I felt a strong urge to tell them that if they were considering having a baby in the future, they needn’t give their career too much thought as all that they do now will be rendered pretty much null and void if they decide to stay home with said child for more than the allocated 182 days; god forbid they decide to expand the family cluster; that’s the "Out Of Office” reply on for the foreseeable.

Sorry….I’m really busy right now

You see, if someone asks me if you can have it all, Im going to have to give that concept zero stars.

Let's break it down. If you do decide to wipe the baby vom off your shoulder and head back into the workplace “early”;post partum as it were, then you would be wise to consider the impact: Women are hard wired to feel guilt. It's in our DNA. Any woman who says she doesn't feel huge amounts of guilt is probably serving life somewhere. Leaving your little bundle of joy with a surrogate mummy leaves most being eaten away by toxic levels of remorse coursing through their veins. In fact, the overall levels of biomarkers associated with chronic stress are 40 per cent higher among women who have two children and are working full-time jobs, compared the her childless counterpart*. Even if my children, while I was at work, were out doing charity work or saving kittens stuck in trees I would feel secretly conscience-stricken that I am failing them in some fundamental maternal way.

If you’re sitting through another growth meeting when you know you’re missing the school nativity, well that is borderline neglect in the mind of a mum - you will be reporting yourself to social services within the hour. Palming fellow commuters in the face in an attempt to get home for bath time is still not good enough despite the admiral intention. It will send cortisol levels stratospheric.

If you want the kids and the career, you have to pay the price. The work-life balance would be so off kilter that you would need ninja qualities to balance them - in my opinion, you simply can't have them both.

If you do decide to become a full time “Home Maker” (love that spin...it sounds like actual paid employment. Thanks USA), waiting till your children have made it as far as high school before returning to the workplace then how relevant will that first class honours degree and decade of experience you gained prior to having your children actually be?

The modern working world is moving at a dazzlingly high speed and, in the last decade, the landscape of the job market has become totally unrecognisable. I'm talking, full on, surface of Mars type unrecognisable.

Now my children are older, I thought I would look for a new career. I thought I would share my sunny vibes and vast life experience with the world (well, within a mile radius of the homestead) and start job hunting....I have stumbled upon 2 hurdles. The first one is that, despite my can-do approach, when you have more years behind you that in front of you, your average hiring manager will give your cv a left swipe and secondly I have no clue as to what the roles are and less clue as to what is required of the applicant with business idioms that, despite my own loquaciousness, leave me befuddled.

Know your JavaScript from your C++? No, me neither.

I don’t actually know if I’m qualified to be an SAP ABAP Developer, but I doubt it.

I’m pretty sure I am not fluent in SaaS/Apache Spark/Hadoop and last time I checked, Python was a large nonvenomous snake.

The job market is screaming out apparently, for UX Managers, Back End bods, Full Stackers, AI Specialists and, if you have swatted up on your Robotics whilst you have been trying to reinforce your kids’ pencil grip then you, my friend, are ahead of the game, a real trailblazer.

Is there such a thing as a training scheme for the middle-aged go-getter? I am so behind the curve that rear side cameras would not see me.

Men earn, on average, 15% more than women. The gender pay gap, though, has got less to do with people getting paid less/more for the same job role but more to do with the jobs that are chosen. Many women, like I did, chose jobs that simply work for them around having a family and, despite the fact that women actually earn more university degrees than men, after having a child, 70% of women will scale back their career to accommodate their family… leaving them, when the children have flown, where exactly?

C.V. Where do I start? I am already the CEO round here…

In my efforts to launch myself back into the working world, I thought I would try a few of those online “career checkers” and, taking into account my work experience and qualifications, my short list was … well, short. Really short.

Curt, in fact.

The algorithms were in no doubt: Receptionist, Retail Worker, Call Centre Operative, Driver (you name it: school bus/delivery/taxi – nothing was off limits for this go getter), Cleaner, and Carer came out repeatedly as my firm favourites.

There is nothing wrong with these jobs. I just want more because I know I have so much more to give.

I sound bitter. I’m not. As this is just real life. I have already spent 26 years working in the aforementioned jobs; done those, got the staff T-shirt and I wouldn’t change my T-shirt for the world. Like any good mum; I'm not angry, I’m just disappointed.

I can do more.

I thought that perhaps my resume could do with a tweak but, hell no, on closer inspection, quite frankly, mums, worldwide, should be head hunted by Fortune 500 companies first thing in the AM. We are a bit epic.

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RESUME OF A SUPERMUM

I have a proven track record as an excellent team player as well as being able to work independently to a very high standard. I have excellent communication skills with proficiencies in both teenage mumblings, back chat and mind reading. Adept at flexible working, I am able to work mornings, afternoons, evenings, weekends and all nighters and I usually work between all 5 of these shifts patterns simultaneously.

A committed employee, I have held my current position for 26 years but with no hopes of promotion, I am now looking to transfer my skills elsewhere.

Present Role - Personal Assistant

Main Responsibilities:

• Overseeing a team of 5, I maintain and co-ordinate daily, weekly monthly and annual schedules including holiday planning and diary coordination.

• Head of The People Team.

• Chief Revenue Officer, Domestic Auditor and Head of Comms.

• Counsellor/Advisor - This includes my own patent pending multi layered mentoring program for the 6 month - 85 year old group*. *Prior to and after this age group I find patients are not always committed to change.

• First Aid administrator and Chief Medical Researcher, using, mainly, Google programming.

• Logistics Expert - Providing real time transport solutions as well as booking outside specialists (namely Uber).

• Culinary Artiste (level 1) and Domestic Engineer.

• Animal Behaviour Specialist - Catch/release (spiders) is a speciality alongside dog training and exercising. I am also CEO* (Disposal). *Chief Excrement Officer (in charge of disposals).

• Head Teacher, Teaching Assistant and Additional Support Assistant.

• Site Reliability Engineer - specialist in Delete/Reinstall, Ctrl/Alt/Delete and TOWTBO*

• *Turn Off, Wait, Turn Back On (Hons).

Current Salary

Am current on a take home of £0.00 inclusive of pensions and annual bonus. Sick pay is at current hourly rate providing I am bed ridden.

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* Researchers from the University of Manchester and the University of Essex analysed data from more than 6,000 individuals collated by The UK Household Longitudinal Study. The nationwide study, published in the British Sociological Association journal, Sociology, gathers various information from households across the country including the working life of the inhabitants, their hormone levels, blood pressure and experiences with stress – this raw date excludes other factors that could influence the results, such as age, ethnicity, education, occupation and income, allowing them to focus solely on working hours and family conditions

#careerotionsforwomen #mumcv #Emptynesters #aremumsunderrated #mumjobs #careerchoicesformums #supermumsnd