My First Working Parents Monthly Round-up: Scary!

Forgive me for my overexcited-ness this month; it is my first time after all, and as usual with first times, I am not quite sure where to look, what to do, or how to behave. So bear with me as I settle in. I am pretty sure that soon we will be comfortable in one another’s company. But until then…

It’s a pleasure to be editing this new round-up of working parent posts that have caught the eye. The idea is that we both help and inspire each other with some of the topics we have written about:

• Staying in control (if that’s actually possible) in the madness of working parent-dom
• Business tips that help with some of the more challenging aspects of working at home
• Just a piece of writing that has made us all stop and think.

We’ll look at anything as long as you aren’t trying to sell us a vacuum cleaner or anything.

Mummy vs Work summed up how many of us feel about the summer I am sure with her short, but sweet post on why she actually hates the holidays as a working parent. She feels she misses out on so much of what the kids are enjoying. The Diary of a Frugal Family explains how she is now shattered after working all day and then trying, in her eyes, to make up for not being around by doing something with the kids after 3pm every…single…day.

Reading it is enough to make me want to go and sit down. Perhaps we all need to pop on over to Baby Budgeting as she has some great tips for managing work in the summer holidays. Though tip number one about getting up early might scare the hell out of some people…not sure what my posts would be like if I wrote them before 6am…they are incomprehensible enough anyway….

Guilt is a working parents lot it seems, with many of the posts over the last month touching on it in some way or another. BusinessPlusBaby’s Helen Lindup has written on how we can deal with those feelings of guilt a little bit better; and it yanked on my chains, and no mistake. Helen discusses how women are meant “to have the best of both worlds” if they are running their own business and looking after their kids. The old chestnut of “having it all.”

Mummy Whisperer also very eloquently discusses the Cherie Blair affair last month, where stay at home mums were slammed for giving up their careers. The wonderful Cherie, even said it would have a negative impact on their kids. I am not going to go there on this one…just suffice to say what works for one family doesn’t necessarily work for another. And as Mummy Whisperer sensibly states in her post, perhaps its best to pick YOUR priorities and make decisions based on those.

I am all for more organisation, so Feisty Tapas‘ post on her mail and paperwork organisation is a potential godsend *she says as she sits at a desk surrounded by bills, her plate from breakfast and an empty crisp packet.*

Perhaps we can have a follow-up post on how its working after a few weeks. I am notorious for the initial sense of enthusiasm after a revolutionary purchase like this, only to go back to the old filing habits where everything is in the same pile on the coffee table where the cat can dribble on it….

I don’t do beauty stuff; you can probably see this on the blog. Make-up and me are distant cousins, cousins that rarely see each other, and never go out together. So this post from Birds on the Blog with 10 beauty tips for busy women fascinated me. If only because I have no idea what they are talking about. I am sure that many of you do, so I thought it would be helpful to those of you who do use lipstick for anything other than writing notes on serviettes.

I may know nothing about beauty tips, but I know a fair bit about Twitter. Over at Mummy’s Little Stars this month, I discussed, rather tongue in cheek, where us working parents have been known to tweet from, including the bath, in hospital after giving birth, and just about anywhere…18 shades of anywhere to be precise. Let us know if you have anymore to add; be better for my list if we can get to that 50 then my “mummy porn” link wouldn’t be quite so tenuous.

And finally, some ice-cream. Because its summer and we all love it. A Working Mums Cookbook is for people who are too busy too cook, and is right up your street I am sure. Particularly this recipe as it involves 600mls double cream *sodthediet.*

I hope you have enjoyed this; let me know of your working parent posts in the next month and link them all up below. Then we can all meet here again in September. I look forward to finding some more great new blogs to read.

About Helen Neale

Helen is the editor of the working parents round up, a freelance writer and owner of personalised children's chart business, KiddyCharts. She was a business analyst, and then a tweed-skirted school librarian as she tried to find work that fitted in with the demands of motherhood. Mummy's Little Stars is where you will find her sometimes funny musings about life as a working parent, and mum to some over exuberant small people. She has only been blogging since January 2012, so go gentle with her; she might break. You can find Helen on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn; where she probably hangs out a bit too much.

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