The Trials and Tribulations of a Working Mum

What do you do? It's all very well having alternative child care arrangements in place but what about the small matter of maternal instinct? Whether your little one is spouting puke as their head spins round or nursing an ear infection it is horrible to have to leave them in the care of someone else.

Your child just wants their parent and you just want them, but you have to go and work in an office, shop, classroom - where-ever, and do an amazing impression of a competent, resourceful worker. The last thing on your mind is sales figures or report writing. You just want to get home to your baby but you can't.

When The Kid has been ill, (which seems to have been more often than not recently) I simply cannot get away from the guilty feeling that I should be with him. The job of offering my baby cuddles and comfort should be mine and mine alone, not that of a childminder, nursery or grandparent, no matter how wonderful they are.

What is your employer like when you have time off? Even the most understanding of bosses' good will can get eroded when you constantly seem to be ducking out to take little Fitz out for dentist, jabs, doctors or because his eyes have started running yellowy stuff and the nursery simply can't keep him for a minute longer.

If it's not coughs or colds it's an infestation of some kind. I was once called out of a very important job interview because there had been an outbreak of nits at The Boy's nursery, and one of the nurses was sure she'd seen him scratching at his noggin. The irritating thing was that they wouldn't check. Rules and regs prevented them from actually looking through his hair to see if any of the offending wee beasties had taken up residence there. I just had to go and pick him up, and not bring him back till the following day when he'd been treated.

Incidentally I didn't get the job. This was of course due to the fact that I was called away and nothing to do with me being under-qualified, inexperienced and competing against a far superior field of candidates.

A friend of mine once got a call to collect her daughter from nursery after it was suspected she had worms. A nursery nurse had witnessed the child scratching her bottom on "at least one occasion". The girl in question was isolated until collected, then had to drink a foul tasting potion of worm medicine before being allowed to return.

Oh yes. The life of a working parent is a trial at the very best of times. Throw in the odd bout of sickness, diarrhoea or bubonic plague and things become nearly impossible to manage.

You SAHPs don't know how easy you've got it!