Me: Sorry I had to go to work before you woke up this morning. I missed seeing you in the morning.
Daniel: That’s ok, Mummy. It’s good that I get to see you before I go to bed anyway.
Work
Losing My Mind
Last Friday, my sister was in Dublin and very kindly gave me a lift home from work. On Saturday, Mr. Waffle was due to take Daniel to GAA training. He went out to put the gear into the car and then rushed back into the house. “Where’s the car?” he asked. It came flooding back to me. I had [unusually] driven the car into work but, alas forgotten to drive it home again. Worse, I have form in this regard.
Confidence Boosting
Strike 1
I was recounting to Mr. Waffle in the car how I dreamt that when I arrived at my office it was occupied by a young whipper-snapper and I was confined to a desk in a dark windowless cubbyhole. “And I didn’t even protest,” I said mournfully.
Strike 2
Herself pipes up from the back, “That was a dream? But it sounds like exactly the kind of thing that would happen to you in real life!”
Strike 3
I was telling a friend in work about this and she said, “Gosh your daughter knows you really well, doesn’t she?”
Intermission
We interrupt this endless detailing of summer holidays to point out that the children went back to school today. They seemed happy to be back. The boys have the same teacher as last year. I am delighted as she is lovely. Daniel was very keen to go back but Michael much less so. However, once they got their feet under the desks, they seemed very pleased with themselves. They are in second class and this is the year they make their first confession and first communion. Michael foresees much attendance at mass with deep gloom and is angling to be excused. I am trying very hard to underline the importance of the sacrament and not to resort to saying that he won’t get any money, if he doesn’t make his first communion. As he and Daniel have begun saving for an x-box (total so far, 70 cents), I can’t help feeling that it would be a significant incentive.
Due to numbers, fourth class, home to the Princess, has been divided in half (alphabetically)- she is in the fourth/fifth class end as are most of her friends. She looks very big in her school uniform now. She announced this morning that she no longer has to jump to get her uniform down from its shelf.
And tomorrow, I’m going to go back to work myself. I have slightly mixed feelings about this. I note that I have not had a migraine all summer. But I miss my work which is really interesting and my colleagues who are lovely. I may not be so enthusiastic by Friday.
I Wouldn’t Say the Battle is Won but it isn’t Lost Either
This article by Anne-Marie Slaughter has been doing the rounds on the internet and I’m sure you’ve already seen it somewhere else.
It’s an interesting article. The author is clearly surprised that she wasn’t able to juggle teenage children and working at a very demanding job in another city. This was because she had always been able to manage children and a demanding job before. Personally, I think it was really the commute and time away that killed her. She’s clearly very clever and ambitious. I think her thesis is, if it can’t work for me, then it can’t work for anyone. But, ironically, it is working for her. She has an important, influential job as an academic. Yes, she gave up an even better and more influential job and she is annoyed that she couldn’t make it work. I think it is true that she would have been less likely to give up, if she were a man but I still think that feminism has brought us a long, long way. So, I wouldn’t exactly call it a good news story but it isn’t quite the disaster for feminism that that she’s painting.
While my own work-life balance isn’t perfect, I can see it is far better than my mother’s was. I enjoyed paid maternity leave after my babies were born. I don’t work in a world where children only get sick on weekends or one where only their mothers can take them to the surgery. I have a job that is interesting and that I enjoy. I am also going to take July and August off work in a combination of unpaid parental leave and holidays so that I will be with my children for a very long summer break. Also, today my boss of bosses summoned me to his office and said, “You do a great job. We don’t say that enough here. You deserve your break. Enjoy yourself.” Hurrah for work. Hurrah for feminism. Hurrah for my summer holidays also.
Obsession
A colleague of mine likes to cycle. This is a much more expensive hobby than the uninitiated might expect. 600 quid for a set of bicycle wheels. And that’s a bargain. He would come in from lunch with a bicycle saddle under his arm having done a deal with someone on the internet. Anyhow, he made his bike. He brought it into the office one day. Literally, as he felt it wasn’t safe in the garage. I lifted up his super-light, titanium, immensely expensive, fairy-dust sprinkled bike. “It’s not that light,” said I. “Ah,” he said, “you need to take off the water bottle.”