babesandbriefcase.myfastforum.org

morrisea · Joined: 23 Sep 2008 Posts: 1

Hi everyone, I'm new to this group and was wondering if anyone can help.

I'm a working mum with a 4 yearold and 2 year old. I was so shocked by how much I had changed and the huge loneliness I felt returning to work that I started to research how other people were feeling.

I found that the demands of caring for a child can be radically different to the demands of the workplace. Although I am a pretty organised person, I had anxieties about juggling family and work commitments. And, although in many ways my employer was progressive they had real concerns about the practicalities of flexible working and my commitment.Having worked incredibly hard to get to where I was, I found that a lot of my responsiblities had been moved to other people. I have subsiquently found other colleauges have been told that if they want to work flexibly they need to take a demotion!

Whilst the UK government is trying hard to encourage mums back to work and stop the "brain drain" eg improved maternity benefits and childcare vouchers etc, there is a distinct lack of practical, evidence based, support and guidance for women and employers on how to help a smooth transition back to work. I am so passionate about this are and trying to make a difference I approached 2 of our largest charities about doing a proper research project to gather real evidence and experiences of mums going back to work. They agreed, Working Families and the NCT are supporting me (although not financially!!). We aim to build a set of free tools to help mums make this tricky transition as smooth as possible both in terms of advice eg legal rights and other practical things, and emotional and social tools to help mums understand what they might feel and how to deal with it.

It would be really great if any of you could take part in the survey and share your stories. You can find it at www.mumsgoingbacktowork.com

It does get better, and I learnt that i was the best mum I could be for my children, and this meant providing for them financially as well as emotionally and practically eg clearn clothes, food to eat etc. Also, that I needed to look after myself in order to look after my familiy. One of the best sources of support I found was a group of mums going through exactly the same thing as well as some experts in things like legal rights.

Liz