There will come a time after you have introduced a baby into your life where you will HAVE to plug back into the ‘real world’ beyond other parents. Impossible as this thought is when you are in the state of feeding, changing nappies, surviving and giving the best start your precious bundle. You will be bombarded with appointments with maternal health nurses, joined up to a ‘mothers group’ and supported/compared/charted like you have never been in this new judgmental world of being a mother.
There will be a time when you will welcome the change of focus to business, where the centre of every conversation is not your baby, its feeding and pooing habits or your post birth recovery!
But it won’t be easy – it will be hard to stay focused on conversations, your foggy-sleep deprived head won’t be able to take too much, you will be constantly thinking of your cherub and if you are still feeding then your boobs are going to be crying out for release!
There may be times when you can take your bundle with you – and you will find that you will start being attracted to the networking and people who are accepting of you having a ‘baby attachment’ and those who are not supportive won’t be in your life for very long (unless they are paying you $$).
While this sounds easy to have your bundle with you – it has its own challenges……
The biggest is that you can not control the mood they will be in and therefore how easy they will be. Other people will either hate that you have a baby/child with you, tolerate it or totally steal them (I had it happen in a board meeting, it was awesome!)
As they move through age brackets it gets both easier and harder. You learn to take paper and pencils, colouring in books and off course tablets!
As your bundle of joy gets older you will start to look for caregivers – grandparents (if you are lucky), baby sitters, family day care or child care centres. Yet there is always the things that you just can’t plan for like last minute changes of plans in your business, illness and public holidays to name a few.
As your child/ren get older you also need to work around school holidays, pupil free days, 3.30(ish) pick-ups plus being involved in their school – attending assemblies, sports days and so on. The juggle doesn’t stop. Yet at some point it has to get easier.
At this time, like no other in history, women are encouraged to plug back into work and their community. Infact the pressure to do so is probably also the greatest that it has ever been. Women are leaving the traditional workforce in droves after they have children and creating micro and small business – some that are growing into International exporters – right from their lounge room! They are creating social business that aim to make a difference in their area of expertise. Women are driving the boom of small business.
The flipside of this is that we are seeing less women taking on board positions or senior management roles but more women are starting small home based businesses.
It is an incredible time for women at the moment, they are seeking empowerment to make decisions and to put their families first – and if the traditional workplace is not allowing for that they are creating an environment that is supportive of that.
My wants and desires for both myself and my business totally changed after the birth of my daughter – shame it has taken me almost 4 years to totally understand and recreate that phenomenon.
What about you – what is your story about returning to the real world? Any tips?
