"Work"
Chatting to a friend who is currently underemployed the other week, she said that she couldn't do what I did in being at home all day - she needs to work to keep herself sane.
While I totally understand her point of view, I was a little bemused by the comment. I've been unemployed, sitting at home jobhunting and doing the laundry - it sucks. It made me a bit nuts too. But being at home with my baby is totally different. (OK, apart from doing the laundry.) Although I was never really into babies before Bridie, she's my baby, and she's endlessly fascinating. I get intellectual stimulation from her, from reading about cognitive development and what's going on in her little head, from thinking about the best ways to feed her/structure her day/help her learn/etc.
I expected I'd be bored of being at home with a non-verbal creature by six months in. I'm not at all. I do kindof enjoy being back at work, and when I'm there it seems important and something I'm filled with enthusiasm for. But when I'm home, I would so much rather be playing with Bridie than writing papers!
This week I was talking to another friend, also a mum who (paid)works part-time, about the home shift. She said that when she had her baby (relatively young) she was itching to get back to her job. She loved being with her baby, but she'd spent so much time training for her career and it was this large part of her identity that she suddenly wasn't doing, wasn't being, any more.
I wonder if part of my being comfortable at home with B, not really missing work at all, is that it hasn't changed my identity. Not that my chosen career isn't part of my identity - it is - but it's not something I really had to give up. I've still been regularly accessing the Cochrane Library of Systematic Reviews, and reading cool new things people have found out.
I'm still a researcher: I just gained a new area of research :)
While I totally understand her point of view, I was a little bemused by the comment. I've been unemployed, sitting at home jobhunting and doing the laundry - it sucks. It made me a bit nuts too. But being at home with my baby is totally different. (OK, apart from doing the laundry.) Although I was never really into babies before Bridie, she's my baby, and she's endlessly fascinating. I get intellectual stimulation from her, from reading about cognitive development and what's going on in her little head, from thinking about the best ways to feed her/structure her day/help her learn/etc.
I expected I'd be bored of being at home with a non-verbal creature by six months in. I'm not at all. I do kindof enjoy being back at work, and when I'm there it seems important and something I'm filled with enthusiasm for. But when I'm home, I would so much rather be playing with Bridie than writing papers!
This week I was talking to another friend, also a mum who (paid)works part-time, about the home shift. She said that when she had her baby (relatively young) she was itching to get back to her job. She loved being with her baby, but she'd spent so much time training for her career and it was this large part of her identity that she suddenly wasn't doing, wasn't being, any more.
I wonder if part of my being comfortable at home with B, not really missing work at all, is that it hasn't changed my identity. Not that my chosen career isn't part of my identity - it is - but it's not something I really had to give up. I've still been regularly accessing the Cochrane Library of Systematic Reviews, and reading cool new things people have found out.
I'm still a researcher: I just gained a new area of research :)