What is good enough?

jessicachivers — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:41:18 +0000

I’m beavering away on the chapter of Mothers Work that’s devoted to the idea of ditching or delegating domestic tasks to free us up for more interesting things. I’m inviting working mums to tell me how they go for ‘good enough’ on the home front via a short survey (please do it anonymously or leave your name to go in the book) and have been musing on what good enough might mean…

I think the good enough mindset is really about being comfortable with not doing something to the best of your ability but to a sufficient level. What is good enough or sufficient to you may be over the top or not enough to someone else and several of the 30 women I asked said it doesn’t come naturally to them. Sarah says she’s getting there though: “I hate the good enough mind set as I was fastidious about domestic chores before children. I think you have to eventually accept it otherwise you would go mad. I would much rather spend time with my daughter than clean plus with a toddler everything in the house gets messy very quickly.”

I think there are two good ways to develop the good enough habit. One is to draw a time boundary for a specific task, for instance, 15 minutes to give the kitchen a one over at the end of the day. When the oven time beeps you walk away and revel in how good you are at being disciplined (I’ve found through my coaching work that being disciplined in one aspect of life helps with other areas too which is good news if you’re trying to stick to an exercise regime or save money). The second approach is to imagine the domestic task in front of you done to perfection and then do it to 50% of that standard. Not easy to quantify I know, although the mum who told me she only irons the front of things has clearly got it!

The survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7SGLSVP

Louann Brizendine’s “The Female Brain

jessicachivers — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:25:02 +0000

Louann Brizendine’s “The Female Brain” is treasure trove of insight into the influence of children on our behaviour http://ow.ly/1TfGK

Feeling so megatronically pleased about

jessicachivers — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:43:10 +0000

Feeling so megatronically pleased about the book deal I’ve been offered I’m making up new words.

Calling all working mothers to share wha

jessicachivers — Tue, 11 May 2010 09:15:03 +0000

Calling all working mothers to share what you feel guilty about: http://ow.ly/1Jg85

The lengths we go to for childcare

jessicachivers — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:32:54 +0000

I’m sitting in the staffroom of a primary school in West London waiting to talk to a busy Head Teacher about the impact of a parenting programme I’ve been running in his school. I’m thinking about the lady I met on my journey in this morning. She gets on the train behind me and I didn’t notice, until the little voice starts up, that she’s boarded the train with a pushchair and toddler in tow. I get up and offer my seat near the door so she can sit with her son who’s parked in the bit where the doors are. She’s overwhelmingly grateful as though no one’s ever done this for her before. I ask whether this is a one-off and she says yes, people don’t usually lift their heads to notice other people. I say I didn’t mean that – I meant her coming on the train so early with her boy. No she says, I’ve been back at work since January and we do this three times a week. So I ask her about her ‘going back to work’ story and finding childcare. She’s a nurse and she takes her son into London for subsidised childcare at the NHS creche. We talk about this being madness and not what she wants, although it does mean she sees more of her son than if she dropped him at a nursery in her home town. We joke about it hardly been quality time, them both cramped in the commuter coop but accept that you do what you have to and aren’t all us working mothers just muddling through anyway?

I’m wondering why she couldn’t use the NHS staff nursery at the hospital in her home town? It would make more sense and how hard would it be for the powers that be to authorise that change to ’the system’? One NHS, one community, working together and all that? Instead she travels 30 miles with a two-year-old at 7am to get cheaper childcare.

It makes my blood boil that things aren’t easier for working fammilies. Having kids isn’t a lifestyle choice, it’s a necessity to keep our pension system going!

The Head is here, we’re going to talk.

Bitchy Mothers

jessicachivers — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:54:08 +0000

I am supposed to be wrapping up the second chapter on Mothers Work so I can send it off to the publishers on Wednesday (via a very nice friend who’s an author with this particular house and by golly I’m praying they give me a break) but I’ve been distracted by all the posts in response to Lucy Cavendish’s article in yesterday’s Guardian, “Motherhood – Stay at home or back to work.”

I blame anxiety for all the bitchiness that Lucy reports, although I’ve not come across it (bitchiness) myself.

Be a GEM (‘good enough mother’)

jessicachivers — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:53:24 +0000

The Sainsbury’s man brings 8kg carrots as part of your weekly shopping delivery as opposed to the 8 you though you’d ordered. What do you do? It depends what kind of mother you are. As a half reformed perfectionist I firstly went to check who’s mistake it was (mine) and then let go of the idea of making best use of all the carrots (carrot soup, carrot cake, roast carrots, carrot pate). I saw the funny side, went off to twitter about needing to find a ravenous rabbit and then handed out bags of carrots to other parents at nursery whose days were no doubt brightened by the daftness of another frazzled parent. (Talking of frazzled parents I got my G.E.M. message onto p18 of April’s Prima Baby as a way to comabt the ‘fed-up and frazzled’ feelings so may mothers experience on an ongoing basis).

I didn’t get time to fit the carrot story in at The Vitality Show on Friday, although I shared plenty of other stories about what it is to be a G.E.M. because I truly believe that when you work and combine a young family you have to let some stuff slide. We have to go for ‘good enough’ with a lot of stuff and as I said on Friday ‘boll*cks to perfectionism’. I was astounded by the number of women in the audience who said they iron t-towels, bed linen and their kids clothes. Noooooooooooooo! What are you doing? Life’s too short and anyway, our kids trooping off to school in crumpled clothes surely comands respect from other mothers (a salute even?) as they nod away thinking ‘yes, another woman who’s got better things to do than priortise the crsipness of their kids!

Working mothers often overqualified for work they do

jessicachivers — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:36:35 +0000

Ambitious women, overqualified in underpaid jobs

Women are as ambitious as men when it comes to their career. Just as men they find a decent salary and reward opportunities the most important career drivers. Having children does not influence these priorities. Yet working women too often are overqualified for the work they do, whereas men are not. This means that there is a lot of potential on the labour market that remains untapped because women are frustrated in their career ambitions. This picture emerges from an international comparison of the factors influencing women’s decisions to work, involving 43 countries. The picture becomes worse still, since working mothers on the whole are paid less than working women without children. The burden of household and child care in combination with being underpaid for the work they do, puts working mothers in a dead-end street.

These findings are based on a sample of 345,000 data collected by WageIndicator online surveys in 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 in those 43 countries. The data was analyzed by Income Data Services, the British research partner of WageIndicator, on behalf of ITUC, the International Trade Union Confederation. The results are published on March 8, international women’s day.

What domestic support makes a difference?

jessicachivers — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:16:21 +0000

Ask 100 women what domestic ‘thing’ would make the biggest difference to their lives as working mothers and I wonder what the response would be? Cheaper childcare? A husband who thinks about (and does) the cooking? Money for a cleaner? In the Chivers household we’ve recently welcomed an au pair into our lives and it’s made a wonderful difference already.

I’ve been talking to women about what domestic support they have and one lady told me how cathartic it’s been to consider the questions I posed. This from Hayley:

“I hope you can make sense of my thoughts and find them useful. I have actually found it interesting to talk about this and to clear my head a little! I look forward to the book which will perhaps make Mum’s understand how they feel about their work/family life a little better.”

I think Alli is so right with: “I know a lot of mums who feel guilty if they hire a cleaner or feel like they can’t let someone in their home to clean but for £8 an hour it is one of the cheapest and best ways of freeing up your time for the important things in life.”

What practical and emotional support do you get from your partner or wider family? What’s your top domesti tip for working mothers?

Where parents want to work

jessicachivers — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:23:05 +0000

I’ve had an idea to start a log of places where parents want to work. Aurora and The Times started running a poll several years ago about where women want to work and I think something akin to this for parents would be great. There’s no doubt that our lifestage affects how we feel about work not least because of a possible change in priorities. Wouldn’t it be great to gather info together on the places parents say are really supportive of them doing a good job professionally and also recognising they have other aspects of life they want to work at and enjoy too (i.e. families and self development beyond ‘work’)

What do you think? Want to name any organisations – big or small – that are doing a good job? Ideas on where we can take this idea to give it legs? Anyone know anyone at The Guardian or The Independent? maybe The Times would take it on too?

Let’s think BIG. I’ve heard Google have a really cool attitude to kids in the office. Even have a creche. Anyone know anything?

PLEASE START POSTING!