My Working Mother was the Best Thing for my Family (Working Mothers in General)

Member Name: Brooke3

Product:	Working Mothers in General
Date:	19/12/08 (197 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: we never relied on benefits, she was a good role model to me

Disadvantages: she was often tired, I liked being at home

I've been reading the articles in this section with great interest. I studied early childhood and it's something that I'm very interested in. I noticed that, as you would expect, most of the articles are by working mothers and I thought it might be useful to give the view of the child.

My mother has had to work for most of my life. When I was a child we didn't have much money, even before my parents divorced, and for most of my childhood my mum was a single mother. Fortunately for me and my sister my mum is a very hard worker and was always prepared to work as many hours as she had to to be able to provide for us.
Sometimes we would have to go to work with her, other times we would stay with family or friends and when we were in a slightly better position financially we had a childminder.
In the early days she worked that hard just to keep a roof over our heads and food on our plates, as we got older and finances improved she worked hard to provide us with opportunities and allow us to do all of the nice things that our friends had been doing for years, like holidays etc.

There were of course downsides to my mum working full time (and often over time on top of that). It's the usual things really, in the holidays I didn't want to get up every morning to go to my childminders and after school I wanted to go home and play with my toys. Really these things are very trivial and aren't real issue's at all, they're just things that I would have preferred. I didn't get a lot of the things I wanted as a child, I never got to go to universal studios (although I have been as an adult) and Peter Pan never came to take me away to never never land...the fact is that as a child you cant' have everything that you want for whatever reasons and the only things that I suffered with my mum working was that there were a few more things that I wanted and couldn't have.

I am and always have been close to my mum. Her working did not change that. When she wasn't working she was with me and my sister and the time we spent together really was quality time. We never had much money, even with her working all the hours that she could, but as long as we were together we could always have fun and sometimes she would save up for months for us to have a day trip somewhere. She saved up for years for us to go on holiday.
Her working enabled us to do so much more with our childhood than had she not worked. She always wanted me and my sister to have every opportunity that we could so she did spend her money on things that weren't necessities...things like dance classes, school trips and drama classes and even to this day I am still grateful that she did that. She could have worked less hours and I could have had less but I would have missed out on so much.

I would have liked to spend more time with her and ideally I wish, for her and for me and my sister, that she hadn't had to work so hard and so many hours to give us everything we had. I would never suggest that this was an ideal situation, but like with so many people she did what she had to.

As an adult I feel that I have gained so much from my mum working.

She is an excellent role model. A strong woman who was able to balance a career and raise her children. What better role model could a girl want? For me there was never any question of me growing up and being unemployed, my mother always worked so I always knew that I would work. At school I had so many female friends with stay at home mothers and they all left school, got mediocre jobs or went on benefits and settled down early to have children. Which of course is fine if that's all you want from your life but I'm happy that I always knew that I could have more from life if I wanted it and if I worked hard for it.

My mum could have easily given up and gone on benefits. It would have been so much easier for her. I remember as a chld that she was often tired and even when she was sick she had to work (she was self employed, if she didn't work she didn't get paid) but when we needed her she was always there, even if that meant cancelling work to pick us up from school because we sick. Looking back I think how much easier she would have had it if she had given up work, got herself a council house and unemployment benefit.
But she didn't do that. She wanted better for her children and as a result we grew up in a house that was ours, not the governments, knowing that everything we had my mum had to work really hard for. The result of this is that as an adult going on any kind of government benefits would always be a last resort for me.

For those of you who like a happy ending...my mum remarried when I was a teenager to a man who is just as hard working as she is and as a result my family are very comfortable now financially (amazing the difference that another salary can make). They have also had a child and fortunately she doesn't have to go without anything like we had to and both of my parents spend a lot of time with her, although they both work full time.
Both me and my sister were able to go to university and both of us have well paying jobs.
When I was a child people would say that because my mum was a single parent and because she worked so much we would grow up unbalanced and would pretty much be failures. This clearly isn't what's happened and every negative word that people have said about my mum having to work has only encouraged me to make more of my life.

I don't think being a working mother is right for every family. Soem women just aren't cut out to be a mother and have a job, other women wouldn't be happy staying at home and some women unfortunately don't have the choice. My mum working was right for my family and we benefited from it and I hope that all mothers out there make the right decision when it comes to this difficult choice and don't just do what everyone else tells them is the right thing.

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