Next up, following on from my earlier post about work life merge, we’ve now got Nickie O’Hara’s (that doesn’t look right, but I think it is, grammatically?) thoughts on the article and how her life relates to it… She’s answering the following:
How her work and life is merged, whether she’s happy with it, and if not, what she is doing to address it. And also, whether she thinks the merge is worse for women or men, or if it’s equally split?
I am very lucky that my work/home life can be kept very separate due to the nature of my work. I deal with a lot of confidential information that cannot be discussed outside of the work environment although I can (and do) conduct research outside of the workplace. It’s very satisfying to know that I can close the office door at 5pm and leave it all there until 8.30am the next day.
I also think that our home situation is fairly unique as my husband and I role-swapped 8 years ago due to personal circumstances and he is now a full-time homemaker. However, he still rings me to let me know about what post has arrived, to discuss what to make for tea and to ask whether our youngest has an after-school club that night. It’s a bit of a standing joke at work and I’m sure he does it just so he has some sort of conversation during the day.
I find that having older children means that my undivided attention isn’t required any more and apart from a quick holler up the stairs to remind about homework or showers is all that is needed. Because my husband prepares evening meals we do make sure that we spend at least four evening meal times per week around the table. I think that if we were both working the housework/meal prep would be equal but maybe that is wishful thinking. Had I been the main breadwinner when the children were younger, I know that it would have been difficult to find a good balance between bringing home the bacon and twanging the maternal heartstrings because very occasionally myself and my husband disagree with parenting methods.
However, I do find that the nature of my work and experiences in and out of the office can give me interesting “blog fodder” (blogging is a hobby for me, not a money earner) and this can be a great source of frustration because I have to be discreet and, very often, leave my opinion aside rather than blog about it.
Well, I’ve learnt all sorts of things about Nickie through that blog post – that we’re both the breadwinners and have SAH Husbands for a start! And I also didn’t know that she worked full time – I’d assumed that her blogging work played a role in her family’s finances! But anyway, for me, the fact that she’s able do so much must in part, be due to her children being a bit older – so that gives me hope for the future.
Do you fervently hope that it will feel like less of a juggle as your children get older? And then feel guilty for wishing some time away?
You can find Nickie at the following places online :))
www.iamtypecast.com / www.geekalicious.co.uk
@nickie72 / http://goo.gl/Zg01V (Google +)
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