To need a kick to get me to embrace the full-time working mum thing again

[clemetteattlee]

Brief history, after having both children I returned to my career full-time and was happy to do so (I struggled with being at home with small children and found lots of fulfilment in my work). I then decided to make a career change which meant i had to go back to university. I did the first year and found it very streessful and overwhelming so I took a year out. During that year out I had periods of not working and of working shifts. I have now gone back to university and spend too much emotional energy hand-wringing about how I wish I could work part-time. I have one at school and one just about to start and part-time seems suddenly very appealing - head space, space to do the stuff I am interested in outside of work/studying, time to do the school run occasionally. BUT there is no chance of doing my training part-time so I am asking for someone to tell me to pull myself together (and tell me how you carve time for you out of the conflicting demands).
Self-indulgent post I know but I am in danger of jacking it all in in the short-term aim of getting a rest and pottering around the house (I know that that is not the reality for most, but it is what is appealing to me!!)

PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!

Does that help? And I have no me-time (sorry!)

Oh gosh yes I engage in fantasies of not working and being one of the better groomed mothers at the school gate who have time to discuss the state of their herbacious gardens and join the PTA. I am not one as a) I have no interest in gardening and b) If I am going to spend time jostling with bitchy competitive types I'd rather earn money doing it, I am however p/t though so have the best/worst of both worlds, sometimes want to jack it in but the fact that my pension will be enough to give us a reasonable standard of living inretirement along with DH's is enough to keep me going.

Do you enjoy your university course, if so then focus on that - are you working as well as at uni its hard to tell from your post? If you are purely at uni then it sounds as if you are using up time stressing so perhaps get very strict with yourself and put in shorter time blocks for studying and really focus during these which might give you a bit more time.

How much longer do you have to train for? From your post, it sounds like you gave up a fulfilling career to make the career change so it must be something that you are (or were) burning to do so it must be worthwhile seeing it through. Sounds like you're just hitting a wall stamina-wise, which is totally understandable with the stress of uni and kids. But if you want and or need to finish this training to have a secure career in future (and the possibility of working full-time) then hang in there and try to find other ways to de-stress. Would just a day or two off help? Or a week when you could do the schoolrun (and remember how utterly vile and unenviable it can be!)? Or just have a massage or two then flake out at Christmas? I think lots of people are running out of steam at the mo, me included!

possibility of working part-time I meant. obviously

Thanks for the replies. I know it is all self-indulgent nonsense...

The problem is that I have 2.5 yearsd left of my course. The bit at the minute is hellish but it should all get more enjoyable once my placements start in February. I am doing a few hours of part-time paid work a week which is work I really enjoy but would never offer more than a couple of hours a week.
Perhaps I am just hitting the wall. The choice is full-time of give it all up. In the short-term the latter seems appealing, but I know that I will get two or three years down the line when both children are well settled in school and wonder why I gave up my own opportunities.
Is there anyone out there who just got their head down, got through the doubt and are now happy to have done so??
(I think a great deal of the problem stems from socialising with the school mums - before DD started school I only really knew mums that worked full or almost full-time, now I am in a minoirty of two in her class and am surrounded by mums who don't work at all or who work few hours. When the children were little I knew I couldn't have COPED with being at home all the time - now it suddenly seems appealing - especially so this morning when I had to get up at 6 to decorate spotty biscuits in a scene reminiscent to "I don't know how she does it"!)

Clement school is tricky there is no doubt about it, particularly as the DCs are so much more aware of who goes to afterschool and who doesn't. There are probably more working mums than you realise you just don't see them because they are,well, working so children at afterschool or grandparents picking up or other arrangement.

I do hate all the blinkin requests though - do you think there has ever been a father in the world who got out of bed a minute early to decorate a bloomin biscuit ( save for divorcees and widowers)

Indeed - DH seems to imagine that the fairies do all that sort of stuff.

There probably are more working mums as the children get older aren't there (I know that there are only two of us in her year because the parents have a facebook group!) but I wonder what they did with their careers when the children were younger.

Tears tonight as her outfit for Children in Need was not hand-sewn(!)
But I'm probably kidding myself that if I had more time at home I would be sewing spots onto dungarees...

YOu need to toughen up a bit I think if you are going to go back to full-time work with demanding placements, or get a bit clever, and convince your children that shop-bought biscuits or costumes are indeed the way to go. I don't make costumes, and I don't bake biscuits, but I do have a fulfilling career and with another 25 odd years to go I am grateful. It's not easy being full-time, and I think it must be immensely frustrating if you are doing it to work for the minimum wage, but for a fulfillling and interesting job, I personally find it worth it (and you will find many many part-time mums with not very interesting jobs who are quite envious, the grass is always greener).

I think that is what I need, someone around me to say "wow, your new career sounds great" rather than a whole load of other mums telling me how wonderful it is not to work/work a couple of days, and looking at me pityingly as if they can't imagine how anyone copes working full-time. I seem to have bought into that mindset, despite having happily worked full-time when the children were very little.
Toughening up required...

Only required if you need or want that new career. If you don't, you can choose, but personally, I would find working as many of my friends do, in part-time jobs which are very poorly paid and not fitting of their many skills or qualifications, very frustrating. Perhaps the ideal is a part-time job in your new career, but you may be 20 years of being a consultant in that area :)

There is the opportunity to do the new job part-time but not the training and I still have two and a half years of that to go. It will be well-paid and rewarding but I am struggling to keep my eyes on the end goal (especially given that the training is unpaid and very tricky!). Essentially I am moaning, despite being given an excellent opportunity because I have no real "role-models" of full-time worki motherhood in myers group to inspire me. All the career women are childless and all the mums (bar one) work less than full-time.