I was tagged by the lovely Mummy VS Work to share with you what job I would have if I could have any in the world. Well this is a subject that is quite prominent on my mind at the moment as I am currently on Maternity leave and due to return to work in just two months. To be honest I am dreading it! It's not that I don't enjoy my job, I do! I work in a nice office with lovely people and get to experience a variety of things on any given day. However I don't want to leave my little ones! I have so enjoyed spending the last 10 months with my children and experiencing every milestone they have reached first hand.
I find it quite shocking when I realise that if I was only taking the nine months 'paid' (if you can call SMP pay!) Maternity leave like I took after Ben was born I would have been back in work for nearly a month now! It was very different that time around, I knew I would dread going back as I didn't enjoy the job I had at the time, there was too much office politics, overtime was mandatory and unattainable targets hung over my head, it was not a pleasant place to work. However within six months of returning I had handed my notice in and was starting work for my current employer, a job I thoroughly enjoyed for the two years until I left on Maternity leave last year.
This time around I really wanted to take the full year off to spend not just with my new baby but also with my 3 year old son. He starts School next week just 6 days after his 4th Birthday and I was determined that it would be me and not a childminder watching him walk through the classroom door in his school uniform for the first time and hearing about his adventures when picking him up each day for those first few vital weeks.
Money was a real issue as my Salary is actually the higher one in our household and if I'm honest, realistically we really shouldn't have been able to afford for me to not have any income for three months, but I scrimped and saved even more than usual throughout the year and when the time came to make the decision I was able to show my husband that although we would be living on a very tight budget we could just about afford for me to stay off until November. In fact all the penny pinching was what inspired me to start this blog!
So although I am happy that I will have had a year off with my children I really can't imagine leaving them again to return to work, which I will have to do very soon...
All this rambling leads me to my answer to the original question! At this time in my life if I could have any job in the world... it would be a SAHM.
To be able to afford to devote all my time to my children and not have to worry about bringing in an income would be my dream! I would still write about my life on here and would still run the madeformums local site for my area which is a voluntary role, that allows me to be closely involved in my local parenting community, attend lots of family activities and events and meet some lovely Mummies!
Now this answer would be different if asked in a few years time when my children are older and have both started school. I would get restless during the day without them, I am certainly NOT the housewife type! If asked in 3 years time my dream job would probably be the same as it was when I was growing up, and that is a journalist, writing about the world around me. I would want to be able to fit it around my family life so I would be 'mummy' before and after school but would have a career that fulfilled me while my children are at school.
I have always loved writing from a very young age and studied History and Politics at University with the intention of going into this field but life leads you to cross roads and I chose the path that led me to meeting my amazing husband and having my beautiful children, a route I am very happy I took.
So maybe in the future this is a dream I can still achieve but for the time being I will continue to share my writing with you lovely readers on this blog and keep buying that weekly lottery ticket with my fingers crossed, hoping it will give me the numbers that could allow me to stay at home with my children and continue to experience every special moment first hand!
Thank you to Mummy vs Work for asking me to write this and I am tagging the lovely Busymumof3, Mummy Wants and Loved by Lexi to share what job they would have if they could have any in the world and link back to Ramblings of a Suburban Mummy...
I find it quite shocking when I realise that if I was only taking the nine months 'paid' (if you can call SMP pay!) Maternity leave like I took after Ben was born I would have been back in work for nearly a month now! It was very different that time around, I knew I would dread going back as I didn't enjoy the job I had at the time, there was too much office politics, overtime was mandatory and unattainable targets hung over my head, it was not a pleasant place to work. However within six months of returning I had handed my notice in and was starting work for my current employer, a job I thoroughly enjoyed for the two years until I left on Maternity leave last year.
This time around I really wanted to take the full year off to spend not just with my new baby but also with my 3 year old son. He starts School next week just 6 days after his 4th Birthday and I was determined that it would be me and not a childminder watching him walk through the classroom door in his school uniform for the first time and hearing about his adventures when picking him up each day for those first few vital weeks.
Money was a real issue as my Salary is actually the higher one in our household and if I'm honest, realistically we really shouldn't have been able to afford for me to not have any income for three months, but I scrimped and saved even more than usual throughout the year and when the time came to make the decision I was able to show my husband that although we would be living on a very tight budget we could just about afford for me to stay off until November. In fact all the penny pinching was what inspired me to start this blog!
So although I am happy that I will have had a year off with my children I really can't imagine leaving them again to return to work, which I will have to do very soon...
All this rambling leads me to my answer to the original question! At this time in my life if I could have any job in the world... it would be a SAHM.
To be able to afford to devote all my time to my children and not have to worry about bringing in an income would be my dream! I would still write about my life on here and would still run the madeformums local site for my area which is a voluntary role, that allows me to be closely involved in my local parenting community, attend lots of family activities and events and meet some lovely Mummies!
Now this answer would be different if asked in a few years time when my children are older and have both started school. I would get restless during the day without them, I am certainly NOT the housewife type! If asked in 3 years time my dream job would probably be the same as it was when I was growing up, and that is a journalist, writing about the world around me. I would want to be able to fit it around my family life so I would be 'mummy' before and after school but would have a career that fulfilled me while my children are at school.
I have always loved writing from a very young age and studied History and Politics at University with the intention of going into this field but life leads you to cross roads and I chose the path that led me to meeting my amazing husband and having my beautiful children, a route I am very happy I took.
So maybe in the future this is a dream I can still achieve but for the time being I will continue to share my writing with you lovely readers on this blog and keep buying that weekly lottery ticket with my fingers crossed, hoping it will give me the numbers that could allow me to stay at home with my children and continue to experience every special moment first hand!
Thank you to Mummy vs Work for asking me to write this and I am tagging the lovely Busymumof3, Mummy Wants and Loved by Lexi to share what job they would have if they could have any in the world and link back to Ramblings of a Suburban Mummy...
