Month 22: Life as a Working Mother

I’ve now been working for a little over 2 months. The first 2 months were tough, I started work during the quarter close, which was a really hectic period with rigid timelines, during a time when I was new to the role. After quarter close, there was an internal audit for the department and I was the only one available to manage the audit process. Those 3 weeks were really awful, I worked 12 hours in the office, packing lunch and eating in front of the computer, and came home after 9pm for a quick dinner and a shower before working for another 3 hours until 2 am, almost every night. I had to work 2 weekends as well. By the time I reached home most nights, Xuan was already asleep and she would still be sleeping in the morning when I kissed her face and left for work. The longest stretch I went was 3 days without seeing her awake.



Although I was tempted a couple of times to wake her up, just so that I can talk to her and hug her before I go to work, old habits die hard...never wake a sleeping baby, especially a baby like ours, who used to only nap 45 minutes at a stretch in those early months. Furthermore, the short joy the both of us have from seeing each other for a short while, would be replaced by Xuan crying once she realises that I have to leave her and go to work. She would also cling to me and call “Mama....mama” and sometimes says “go, go, go” to tell me that she wants to go with me. It takes alot of resolve to leave her standing at the door, looking at me drive away, with hot tears running down her little face. This must be the guilt that sits like a stone on the heart of every working mother.


I missed her so much, and missed spending time with H. I missed spending time together as a family. I missed the freedom of having time for myself. It was ironic really, and it just proves that you can’t have everything. When I was a stay at home mom, I missed the financial independence, now that I am working and have financial independence, I miss the independence of my own freedom, my own time. Although, I do remember that as a stay at home mom, I did not really have that much time to myself, but I had time for my daughter and my family, without external pressures.


It was also tough at work, the pressure of meeting the internal audit turnaround time of 24 hours to provide information and evidence. Coupled with my morning sickness, there were times when I was thinking “What the hell am I doing?” However, thankfully the internal audit ended...and work became more sane again. Now it is mostly a 9am to 6pm job, sometimes 7pm. I usually go into the office 2 times a week and reach home before 7pm. The other days I work from home. The busy times are during month end and quarter end.


Xuan still cries sometimes when she sees me in the morning and I have to leave for the office. When I work from home, sometimes she will call for me at the top of her lungs “Mama, Mama...come...come!” Most of the time, I try to ignore her, as I do not want her to get used to me appearing whenever she calls me, that would make it difficult to work from home. It is not easy to shut my ears and heart though... Sometimes, I wonder whether my colleagues can hear her calling or crying during our conference calls. But I do know that I am not alone, sometimes I hear my colleagues’ kids in the background too. Once, we heard our manager’s 4 year old daughter calling him, and he was furiously whispering back to her “go out, go out, later...”


Xuan gets on fine with the maid, but she prefers me, H or my mom, to the maid. Sometimes I also worry that the maid will just leave her alone to play by herself, or just lets her watch TV non-stop when my mom or I are not around. I do sneak to the top of the stairs a couple of times during the day, to make sure she doesn’t watch TV more than once a day, and not for too long. I also check to make sure the maid is playing with her, and that she is not alone in the living room.


There are many advantages to having a maid of course. The main thing being that H and I have a lot less housework to do. Although previously we had a part-time maid to clean the house once a week, I do think the house is cleaner now that our maid sweeps and mops twice a week. We also don’t need to spend time washing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen at night, after dinner. That used to take H at least an hour, after dinner. By the time he finished, he only has another hour to spend with Xuan before her bedtime.


Anyway, life is full of changes. Currently, our maid had told us that she only wants to work for 1 year, after which she will return to her home country. I am a bit nervous about hiring a new maid when the baby would only be 4 months old.

Guess we will see how that works out. If motherhood has taught me anything, the first lesson is that things may not turn out the way you expect them to, and you just have to make a decision that is the best for you and your family, at that point in time. Of course, you should plan for the future as well, but you can only plan so much, the future changes. A second valuable lesson I have learned is, to be open to changes and not be so rigid with what you used to think your life would be, because what you used to imagine, was only imagination, and it could be totally different from the real thing / experience. And most of all, motherhood changes you in ways you could never have thought possible.