The Motherload is all the thinking and all the doing of all the things that seem to come with motherhood. The Motherload is none of those things you read about in your baby book or you Prima Baby Magazine (anyone else?), it’s nothing you could have especially been prepared for, and it’s not something that magically vanishes as your children grow up – if anything, it accelerates and becomes even more weighty.
Juggling work and family is complex. A new survey by national education provider, Open Study College, has revealed that a third (33%) of women changed careers after having children.
It’s no secret that children can accumulate a lot of stuff, and there’s no mystery as to why it happens. Some of it might be necessary and some of it might not be, but it can all start to pile up and take over your home. At some point, you need to sort through it all and decide what can stay and what needs to go – but when you have your children looking over your shoulder and your own feelings to deal with, it’s not always so easy to clear out their old things.
Teen skin can be challenging to deal with for young people and their parents/carers. There are so many products out there, that it can be really hard to know which ones are worth a go. You can end up spending a fortune trying things that either turn out not to work very well, or, things that make the situation worse.
My oldest two children both went to nursey full time. My youngest two just did one day a week as I had changed my work arrangements by the time they arrived to try and balance the needs of my family and the need to work. However, at some point they have all been to a day nursery, so I have summarised my top tips here for choosing a nursery. I hope they will be helpful if this is a stage you find yourself at.
With the new school term in full swing, many parents are thinking about how to keep costs down when it comes to feeding their children during the busy school day. Here are a few thoughts.
Taking in a new foster child is an enormous change for any family, whether you have children of your own or not, it will impact on the current dynamic of your home. Having worked on both the operational and strategic side of fostering services in the past I’m very aware what a challenge this can be.
Much of the time we are told that we are lucky to have the ‘choice’ and that we can have it all, but for so many women (in particular) it rarely feels like a choice, and more like a series of tough trade offs.