FULL TIME FEVER

For the past month I have been working full time. It’s been a shock to everyone’s system and I can’t see the point of it at all.

In the past, the words in print and otherwise of working mothers belly aching about the tough old lives they lead have left me cold. I have felt jealous of them skipping out to work leaving the heaps of junk and washing for the cleaner. I was envious of the peace and quiet of an office job and scorning of their opinions of their nannies - who never quite seem to come up to scratch. Basically, I was psychopathically covetous of their salaries and the perceived freedom.

I really couldn’t understand what those moaning Minnies were on about. So what if it is a struggle to get home for bath time? How much nicer, in the eyes of a non-working mum, to arrive home to pristine-fresh children in pyjamas smelling of talc. I loved the idea of replacing dreary hanging-around-at-home wear for a smart uniform of efficiency - fashionable work clothes. To leave the house with sleek hair and new shoes, with a quick wave to the nanny and a kiss for the children, was a heady impossibility.

All that has changed and I find myself to be a working mother. What is strange though, is that I discover I am not the woman that I read about.

I don’t have a nanny. I scrabble around cadging favours, relying on Granny and the Father of the Children.

I don’t have sleek hair. My attempt at a new styling has left me somewhere between Mowgli and Olive from ‘On the Buses’.

I don’t have a cleaner. The junk and washing is waiting for me when I get home.

My dreary hanging-around-the-home wear has merely been upgraded with a quick iron and a bit of jewellery.

My children resent me.

And furthermore at the end of the day I am incapable of speech.

So, to all you working mothers out there – respect. I am sorry you were so misrepresented by so few.

Life in the Slow Lane is written by Clare Kent. She has three children - Max is eleven, Flo is eight and Bobby is nearly seven - and lives in Wiltshire.

NEXT INSTALMENT: 2 APRIL 2003