Assumptions.

We all have them. We all make them. There’s some ridiculous saying about how an assumption makes an ass out of you and me, but I don’t really get it – I twig that it’s some kind of cut from the spelling of the word, I just think the saying tries too hard.

I put a lot out here on my site and always have done. I get that it’s a public forum, and to a large extent I agree with the view that a blog is a dialogue between people, be they just two or just two hundred. But to some extent this site also works as my inner monologue, my space where I throw everything on the floor and leave the room to make a sandwich and when I come back in, I can see the way that things lay against the rough floor and the pattern that emerges with them.

On my last post I got some fairly shitty comments from someone who flies in from time to time, leaves some fairly intrusive messages about how I am clearly not prioritizing my life correctly and then flies out again, their view being that procreation should be my main focus and if Alastair isn’t on board, then fuck him. I should apparently be out looking for another chap who’ll like my child-bearing hips and is willing to go through endless rounds of IVF in order to help me satisfy my needs. Since I am not doing this there must therefore be something wrong with me.

And I want to say this: I’m not stupid.

I know that if children were my single greatest focus and creating my own football team of progeny were my highest priority, I could go out and try to find a man who was willing to accommodate. I may even succeed in finding such a man. But if one thing hasn’t become glaringly obvious in my many years of writing, it’s this: I love this guy, the one I’m with. We haven’t always been good, things have historically been not great, but through it all there was history, there was routine, and mostly there was love. I know that if having more kids was my priority there are options to pursuing this. I’m not an idiot.

I get it regularly, this whole working mum/stay-at-home-mum lecture. I got it from the day I announced my pregnancy on this site to two days ago. I get it from extended family and I get it from strangers. I get people telling me that I have two precious miracles, I need to be home from them. I’m told I should find ways to cut corners and stay home with them. I’m told that I should drop everything and raise them, the implication being raise them…properly.

And I want to say this: I’m not stupid.

I know I have options. I know that some women turn left and some turn right. I’ve always known that there are options. But here comes the assumptions again, the presumptions even. That I make so much money we could do without, that Alastair makes so much money we could do without, that we don’t have to live in this house in this area with these cars. And I shouldn’t have to justify myself, I shouldn’t have to say that our cars are bashed-up clangers, I shouldn’t have to say that I think this house is beautiful but that he and I did most of it with our own two hands, scouring the web for the lowest possible prices, and I shouldn’t have to say that we do need to live in this expensive part of this expensive country because it’s where our industry and our families are. Mostly I shouldn’t have to point out that there are four kids in this equation, not two, and saying to Melissa and Jeff “Hey, you know those private bedrooms you two finally got? Yeah, well, you two are important and all that but two precious miracles are about to join this household, I’m packing in my job and we’re moving to a tiny flat where you two will share a futon. Suck it up, kids.” is not ok, not with me and not with them. There are four kids, two of whom don’t live with us all the time and they live with a mother who decided she didn’t want to work anymore and so lives a very, very limited income life and whom is constantly asking Alastair for more money, more money, more more more. How shit of a partner would I be, to say to him “I love you and all and you have a lot of stress paying the Swunt, but I think I’m going to quit my job and stay home with our two so now you’re supporting me, Melissa, Jeff, two babies, and your ex-wife. Hope you don’t mind the massive extra stress, babes.”

That makes me sound like a real peach, doesn’t it?

The bottom line is this: I am a working mother. I am doing it by necessity and also by choice. I want to be clear about this because I think it’s important – I work because I have to. I also work because I want to. My career is not my life. I am not my job – I used to be many years ago, but that person is gone. She disappeared into the ether that came after a suicide attempt and years of counselling. My job is important to me, I want to do it right, but as I told Alastair last night – I realize I am as high up the ladder as I’m ever going to get. I don’t have the temperament or, frankly, the drive to be a senior manager. This may well be my last rung and I am ok with that.

The shitty comment I got snidely remarked that my job is my sum total sense of self and it is not. They remarked that if I won the lottery I wouldn’t even be able to quit. The truth is that I have no defined sense of self – ask me at any point who I am and the words will include “mother”, “partner”, “woman”, “writer”, and any other noun, none of which come out in the same sequence. As for the lottery, well – I won last night. That’s right. I won the EuroMillions. I logged in this morning and was told I was a winner. I’m not sure that I can quit my job and support us on the £9 I won last night although I could float us a family dinner at McDonald’s, but I will tell you this – if I won the jackpot I’d be gleefully flinging my laptop over the wall and quitting my job in a heartbeat to live a life of leisure (ok, that’s a lie – I would handover to a new project team before I left. I’d quit my job absolutely but there’s no reason to be vindictive to a company just because I got lucky.) Women can’t have it all. Men can’t have it all. I’ve said it recently even.

But here’s the thing – if I won the lottery I’d be happy to quit and give a whirl at trying to be what I have wanted to be for as long as I can remember, namely giving it a try at being a real, published author. But I would probably elect to have the twins continue to go to their nursery, at least part time. Some things would change, yes – I’d dump money on the council-run nursery and there would be an overhaul to the garden and play areas, but I think as a family we’d have twins keep going. The reason why is simple – the twins love it. They love the nursery. I love the nursery. The nursery carers love the twins. The staff there are brilliant and have been working there for ages. They dole out imaginative games and cuddles and craft time and singing time and if you go there at some random unexpected time then the staff are as brilliant as they are when they know you’re coming. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and if that’s the case then it’s as though Nick and Nora have a dozen warm and loving aunts who help out. They do not raise our children – we do. But what’s not to like in having a group of women who are as constant and secure as I am with regards to care? Maybe we’re lucky, maybe not all nurseries are like this, but our two (and indeed all the kids in the nursery) love being there.

I realize some may say this makes me a bad mum.

And I want to say this: I’m not stupid.

I’m many things – I’m clumsy. I’m tired. I’m an exercise in defeat and failure. I’m irreverent. I’m forgetful. I’m tall.

And I feel one thing in the very center of my heart, where I hold all things to be true – I’m a good mum. I love our children with something resembling hurricane strength. Call my parenting and my priorities into question and you’re walking into gale force winds.

Shitty comments happen. I know I shouldn’t rise to it, but in this instance I am. I know that people write things because I write things for them to comment on. I know that people get a veil of anonymity that means you get to throw spears and they can’t bounce back onto you. But blogland should be no different to real life – if you wouldn’t tell your friend that they’re a bad mother, then what makes it ok to imply that to me?

If you read here because like me then please know that I am doing what I think is right for our family – what you do may be different but that doesn’t make either of us wrong. If you read here because you don’t like me and read here just to see me fuck up, well, all I can say is that karma is a bitch. I’ve been clear about it again and again that I don’t like being told that I should choose our children over my job – I’m taking a harder line on things now. I love our kids. I love my blog. I’m not going to write about work any more on this site because I don’t want to feel that this site is a place where I have to defend the two little people whose happiness and security is top in my priority book, just as I’m not going to take an easy line on people who feel the need to tell me that I’m not being a good mum to our kids by not quitting my job. We need my job. We need our kids. And we ride the line between the two, sometimes getting it wrong, mostly getting it right.

Just trust me on that one.

-S.