Their increasing self-sufficiency is great in many regards. However, instead of seeing this as an opportunity to focus more on my career, I’m actually feeling the opposite. I now want to spend more time doing things with them as it seems like they’re starting to need me less.

Work is busier than it used to be and it’s bothering me. I miss not being able to take them here, there and everywhere during half terms, and fear that soon my eldest will be too old to want to come out with her younger sisters and me anyway.

I’m lamenting all those times I’ve been with them, but not properly because I was checking an email on my phone or mentally composing one.

Out of balance

I feel work is taking over and I’ve lost some of my family focus. I’ve dropped the ball on a couple of things lately. For instance, thinking the twins were on school dinners one particular day. They weren’t and I sent them in without a packed lunch. My husband said it was an easy thing to do (they chop and change with their lunch plans) and it was the first time it had ever happened. Precisely, I thought, I’d never let that happen before and now I had.

My mind is always darting from one thing to another and I seem to be constantly cramming everything in.

Crossroads

I’m at a real crossroads.

I have huge imposter syndrome, but in this case it’s actually justified. After falling into PR, I feel I’ve bobbed along without ever having a real aptitude. I wake up with work on my mind, it dominates my thoughts in the evening and I’m working longer hours; that naturally impacts how I am as a parent.

I really enjoy meal planning, shopping for ingredients and cooking when I have time. However, during the week it’s much more of a chore than a pleasure as I try to shoehorn it in amongst work. Similarly, I pine for the weekend and when it comes, we do have great family time together, but I spend a lot of time catching up on the stuff I didn’t get done in the week.

Working – what next?

I really feel like I want to climb off for a bit and take the time to enjoy my family more. If I did stop working, would I then end up with too much time on my hands whilst the children are at school? Could I ever go back to work if I did ‘take a break’? Would I really miss making a significant contribution to the family finances? Could I explore other interests? Yes, no, maybe.

What next? Truth is, I really don’t know. I do know that I need to change something.

The post Working and parenting regrets appeared first on The Parent Social.

I’ve worked part-time from home for the last few years and it’s a great set up whilst the girls are at school and creates a good work/life balance. During the six weeks holiday I take a couple of actual weeks holiday where the out of office goes on, and the other four weeks balance out nicely with a combination of work days and fun days.

Working this year

This year has been rather different. I’ve been working on a large scale project. Such was the scale of the project that in the first instance, two week’s holiday was shaved down to nine days. The holiday was great, we had a brilliant time and I would certainly recommend Menorca as a great destination for a family holiday.

When we got back I felt a weight like I’d never felt before when working during the holidays. I knew my husband was going away for work for over two weeks so this was certainly a contributing factor, but this wasn’t the primary reason.

Over the holidays I’ve been working on a project that’s LA-based so there has been an eight hour time difference to contend with. In some senses that was good, we could do activities in the daytime and then I could work into the night. However, there was a flip side… From 4pm onwards I was a bit on tenterhooks knowing that my working day was about to kick off; I felt like I was too focused on packing the kids off to bed so that I could get on. I was working until late and then going to bed feeling wired and tired. The next morning I’d be checking my phone as soon as I opened my eyes to see what I’d missed whilst I was asleep. Breakfast was often quite delayed as I responded to something that had happened overnight, even though the recipient of the email wouldn’t be seeing it for at least six hours.

We’ve been on plenty of excursions: Hampton Court Palace, Tulleys Farm, Birdworld, Littlehampton, Wisley, Garsons to name a few, but this hasn’t stopped me feeling bad.

I feel like I’ve projected my stress too much and not shielded the kids from it enough. Sofia made me breakfast in bed twice whilst Matt was away and all the girls made me cards, which I feel shows that they thought I needed looking after/cheering up. That makes me feel rather guilty.

I don’t feel like the holidays have been the carefree experience of other years; I’m just hoping that the girls don’t view them the same way.

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