This whole topic of juggling babies with modern day life has resurfaced itself for me.  Obviously it is not a coincidence, it’s all to do with Sherry #3.

And with a new baby I think again about how I can get out and involved with events.  It’s always a tricky one, that is never straightforward and often stressful, at least for the mother involved

With my two previous boys I was never really in the position or mindframe to take them to events with me.  At that stage I wasn’t really participating in events and didn’t have the confidence to take them out with me, but that was 6/7 years ago now.  Things have changed since then where I have been much more active in organising and attending web and software testing related events for the past 5 years or so.

Now that I am juggling young baby-ness again, it has made me think about all the challenges that are involved. And also how much more willing and confident I am to just ask and/or bring a baby or kid along to an event.  This is not something I would have done in the past and probably not something most mothers would do.

I think, as a community, we should be encouraging women/families more.  Of course, this includes men wanting to bring kids along too, women is just a generalisation.  It by no way means that events would get overtaken by children, I think most parents wouldn’t let this happen

The reality is often that event organisers don’t actually mind having kids/babies around, as long as they don’t ruin the event for others, but this is rarely communicated.

I now ask the organisers of events if it is ok to come along with my baby.  No one has said no to me yet, but should I have to ask?

So, I thought why not have a sign showing an event is ‘kid friendly’?  Much like the Disabled sign we are all so familiar with. Or like a more recent ‘Breastfeeding Friendly’ sign that many public locations are promoting?

Would this encourage more women to come along to events?

This has wound me up for a while.

P&G’s campaign this year state that they are the proud sponsors of mums.

Eh, hem. Excuse me. You don’t sponsor me.

And am sure you don’t sponsor millions of other mums, surely you need our permission?  What are you giving them if you are? The privilege to buy your products? So why claim that you do?  What makes you think you can speak for me and all the other mums?

I wouldn’t dare speak for all the mums in the world/UK., like P&G does, but I feel offended and please leave me alone.

There’s no shortage of times where I wished I had more tangible memories from the past.  I barely have any photos of me or my family growing up. Videos are non-existent.  On the very rare occasion I come across an old photo, though now this is more likely to happen when someone tags me on Facebook rather than discovering a hidden stash of photos in one of my family’s houses scattered across the globe.

I grew up living in several different countries. My dad was Irish. My mum is Colombian.  In a non internet age this basically meant along the way our tangible memories were lost.  This makes me sad, especially as I get older it gets more apparent how easy it is to forget.  And of course when people leave us unexpectedly we yearn more for proof of those memories.

The physical objects are so important. Written words. Documents. Photos. Videos… Yet in present day it is easy to dismiss them as irrelevant. Life is too busy to capture, log and organise the now.

5 weeks ago I gave birth to my 3rd son.  It has sent me into a renewed motivation to capture those young family years.  I got quite emotional looking back at the family photo albums I have created online – smiling at the memories I had so easily forgotten about.  Life got in the way of me consistently updating these photos in the past year or so.  I now have regrets about it.  I wish I had done more.

And now that I dwell upon it. I wish I had done more than take photos. Not for my sake, but more for something to leave behind to the kids.

For me, Flickr has been great.  I’ve used it mostly for photos.  I have now started using their video functionality.  My next thing is to write more – this could also be easily incorporated into Flickr.

Flickr is embedded into my lifestyle, a habit that is already there.  It doesn’t feel like work maintaining it (whereas a blog does all too often feel like a chore).  

However, I do often wonder what would be the best thing for my family in the future.  I currently have all content open.  Will my boys hate me for it in the future? Will they *force* me to remove or make it private? Will Flickr even be here in 10, 20, 30 years time?

All important things to think about.

Google play on this topic in their recent TV ad.

We’re going on a long holiday soon.  Not quite sure how long it will last at this stage…however it does mean that we are ‘unschooling‘ our two wonderful boys – currently aged 5 & 6.

Aaron (our 6 year old) is starting to read and write.  Ben still has a way to go, he can write his own name on his own and is happy to write other words with help.

We were really keen to log our experiences of our travel and are very conscious that it is a family experience, so it only makes sense that everyone participates!  Of course, with kids we have to think about their capabilities.

Our Jolly Wicked website is named after a term our boys used to describe things as very cool.  We think our trip will be jolly wicked too.  And all the more wicked with our boys logging their view of the world.

We opted to use Tumblr because it is very user friendly and astonishingly easy for the kids to post content through an iPhone, this is because:

• there is a Tumblr iPhone app
• the iPhone takes pictures and videos
• the Tumblr iPhone app can easily use pictures and videos for sources of content
• nice graphics make it easy for the kids to understand what they are doing
• we have chosen a very visual template to encourage the use of photos and videos (at least initially) for the boys
• our kids say some nice and funny things sometimes, so Tumblr’s quote feature comes in handy and gives our boys the option to write something short

It is experimental.  It is educational.  And in years to come it will be a great resource to look back on.  We’ve all had a go at posting something and it has been successful so far.

In the future, when my boys turn 18, they can tell their future employer/university/clients that they have been blogging for 12/13 years

I’ve long had frustration with how our capitalist system works.  Especially since having kids.  Things get damn expensive.

This post kind of focuses of the children/family angle, but will hopefully show how our society is driven to spend and we increasingly feel tied down because of what we feel we need to commit to.

Perhaps turn away from the following figures if you plan to have kids and want to maintain both parents working.

So if the ‘mother’ plans to go back to work full time then kids have to have full time care.  In the UK families are not as close to each other as other countries, so there is a natural reliance  on child care.  This usually comes in the form of a nursery or childminder.

A quick search on Brighton Nurseries will show a common price of £40 per day per child at a nursery.  Some are a bit less, others easily go up to £50 per day.

So if you have one child and work full time then that’s 5 days per week for 52 weeks per year.  Yes there will be holidays in between, but to keep your childs place often you are pressurised into paying for their attendance even if they are not there.  For calculation purposes and to show I am not trying to be excessive we could calculate this to be based on 48 weeks per year.

So, £200 per week (£40 per day) x 48 weeks = £9600.

£9600 is after tax.  So ‘the mother’ would have to earn around £12,000 per year before they can start paying themselves.

Of course it’s worse if you have two children under the age of 5.  It could be double that figure (£24,000).  Our government does support working families financially with child care, but this is only when the child turns 3 – not quite quick enough – (especially when they encourage mothers to get back to work within a year).

So if you did have 2 kids (like I do) £24,000 is a lot of money to find every year – just to cover the costs of childcare.  Even if it was a few thousand less, it’s still a lot of money!  Many parents obviously opt out, or choose to work part time.  Putting their career on hold and then feeling like they can’t (or don’t want to) get back on the ladder once their kids start school full time.

It’s also very stressful. Getting kids ready early in the morning. Picking them up when they are tired.  The sadness of not spending as much time as you would like with them…it just doesn’t feel right, not to me anyways.

The bigger point is that whilst this example is very much a reflection of my experience and situation – the pressure to keep working and make money is huge.

• If you commute a fair chunk of your wages will go on travel.
• If you don’t commute you probably get paid less or you can achieve the same salary by living in a prime area (and therefore probably having a bigger mortgage to pay).
• If you work you probably spend a lot more on eating out at lunch time (unless you are very organised!)
• If you work full time and have a family you probably don’t spend nearly as much quality time with them as you would like. And many have the need for a second family car. And of course child care costs!
• etc, etc, etc

I could go on, but the point is that it is very expensive to be a ‘full time worker’.

If you didn’t have to work ‘as much’ many of the costs could be significantly reduced. It’s easy to save a bit of money here and there.  The extra time could be used to do those things that you really want to or should do. I’d be very surprised if people’s lives overall would not improve.

There is a report recommending a 21 hour working week by the New Economic Foundation.

I know that I’m not the only one who feels our modern, western, capitalist society needs to change to be more human, social and community focused.

I was chatting to a mum today about life as working mother.  What she use to do, what she’d like to do. What I do, which took a wee while to explain

She described what I do as similar to the child led education approach that our boys experience at Lewes New School.  Which is so true.

I follow my interests. Do projects according to my interests. Have the opportunity to decide how to do it. Educate myself as I go along.

What I’m doing now is completely different to what I was doing 10, 5, 3, 2 and 1 year ago.  But I am where I am because of my experience and desire to learn at every point.  But perhaps more importantly, the past 7 years or so I have been in control of what I want to learn and do. (ie. I don’t have a boss!)

It’s not all a success.  Some things work out better than others.  But the reason I believe I am loving what I am doing is because I get to choose what I want to do.  Once I’m bored I move on or change my approach.

People are no where nearly as effective  or inspiring when they are bored.  Boredom is a form of torture that no one should have to go through.

Of course, not everyone is the same as me.  But modern life appears to pin you down to your past. Getting a new career or changing industry is so difficult.  At every step of the way there are people questioning you and your ability – not trying to be helpful or encouraging change.

Lets see what I will be doing in a couple years time.

Next week my boys start a new year at Lewes New School.

I’m excited because it marks a big change for moi.

My eldest is soon to be a whooping 6 years old.  That means it has been around 6.5 years since I felt the loving yet physically difficult pregnancy that really changes everything.

It’s also been 6.5 years of chaos and child juggling, shedding out way too much money on child care and working too late to only regret it in the morning when it’s just not possible to have a lie in.

The cost of being a parent!

More importantly it has been 6.5 years of figuring out who I am and what I want to do.  I feel I am getting there now, despite the difficulty that family life often brings with trying to balance a business.

However, it all changes next week.  Both my boys will be in full time school.  It leaves me with lots (more)  time to focus on more business-y stuff without feeling guilty.  That extra time is not yet a full working day as most people know it.  It is still just school hours.  But that makes me happy and that’s what I want.

What am I going to do with all the extra time?  Party anyone?

So expect more from Schux. Flash Mob Testing. Software Testing Club. Lewes Werks. (Revamp and re-focus of) Project Brighton. And more…!

(I don’t make it easy for myself, do I?)

There’s:

• mumprenuer
• mumtreprenuer
• mousewife
• indeparent

Any others?

A wee story on discrimination against wannabe working mothers…something close to my heart in recent years and experience.

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away (Brighton) during a time not too distant (<10 years) I was young and eager to get out there into the working world.

I always considered having a family though never quite knew when it would happen.  Though I did think that even if I did that it wouldn’t effect my career prospects because it would be easy (enough) to create some kind of balance.

Turns out I started this journey at the age of 24…

Ahhh, it all seemed so simple back then.  Reality now is somewhat different.

Ever since being pregnant with No 1 I’ve had a hell of a time to finding a job I felt I could have a happy balance.  It seemed that every door I knocked on saw me and my kids and ran a mile.

As time has passed (both boys are now almost at school age) I realise that the more people I talk to, the more similar situations appear.  Many mothers appear to be immediatley excluded as ‘viable candidates’ by recruiters or mothers have somewhat changed their goals and no longer want what they wanted prior to having kids.

The only options many of us mummies have is to go it alone or opt for unchallenging minimum wage work that doesn’t even cover childcare costs…what’s the point in that?  You may as well take it easier and have the opportunity to see your kids grow up.

Some of us desperately try to hide our maternity gaps in our CVs.  Others are blatantly stubborn and proud and mark out these lovely times in bold.

It’s a really shame that it happens.  (And I could go on…) The disappointing part is that no one seems to talk about it. Many people see blatant discrimination happen, but choose to stay quiet.  I’ve been mostly quiet – till now of course!

Here’s a snippet of one story that someone recently told me use to happen at a well known technology & consultancy company which related to mothers who stuck to their contract, but were unable to stay late due to obvious family reasons:

So these working mothers started to get bounced around from project to project. Some PMs refused to take them. Others would take them then insist they were replaced after a few weeks. Inevitably they gravitated towards the least interesting and rewarding work, regardless of their true ability. Everyone felt guilty about what was happening to them, but everyone went along with it because of the pressure we were under.

I love my work. I love doing all the werkshop things as well.  And of course I love my family.

However, I struggle.

I want to be there for my kids, but I also want to work. Kids have (lots of) holidays. Kids get poorly.

It’s often difficult to make it work legistically and quite often people run a mile when I state my terms of working.  I’m sure I’ll get there someday.

However, if I’m in this position.  I’m sure many other working parents are too.  I never stop thinking how I could try to make it work better for myself and then consequently other parents too.  There must be a better way that doesn’t involve setting up a franchise to sell baby stuff to locals or friends.  Yuk.

I’m sure if we looked into it deeply we would find a lot more.  For example, I know that in the past when I applied for work I felt I couldn’t tell people about my personal needs (ie. flexibility, work from home sometimes, etc).  I think recruitment agencies are especially responsible for not putting enough of us working parents forward for opportunities.  Louise Hewitt expressed it as well.  So hopefully it’s not just myself and her.

I know that as I build up my own freelance work and projects I’ll increasingly be in a stronger postion, but ain’t it hard?

The point of this?

Keen to hear from others in similar position, thoughts and stories.  I’m sure things can be improved and am working towards and experimenting with this at Lewes Werks.  It’s sometimes nice to know that I’m not the only one in this position