Logging the Hours

There was a lovely article in the newspaper yesterday that probably didn't make the deadline for the Father's Day issue. It was written by a single father to two adpoted sons. One of the things he wrote was that when it comes to babies and very young children, quantity time is what matters. I couldn't help but agree.

Babies develop attachments to those who constantly care for them. As toddlers, separation anxiety develops with the fear of being apart from these people. The writer mentioned that when his son fell and hurt himself, he ran howling straight past him into the arms of his nanny, breaking his father's heart. While he longed to spend more time with his kids, he couldn't because he had to put in long hours at a demanding job as the breadwinner of his family (unmarried, he lives with his mother, siblings, nephews and nieces, his adopted sons and a host of nannies and househelp.)

Now that he is out of work, my husband has been spending much more time at home, and with Little A. After 18 months of hardly seeing his father, Little is used to having his dad around the house now, and looks for him when he is gone. I am the caregiver, his father is the playmate. Their favourite activity involves my son holding on to his father's hands, climbing up to his chest, then pushing with his feet so that his body is hanging upside-down. This game, repeated endlessly in the evenings, is the source of much laughter and muscle pains.

Sooner rather than later, my husband or I must find a more permanent means of income. This will no doubt involve one of us (Big A, more likely) spending more time away from home and our son. He is older now, but still very much in his formative years, and will certainly suffer some emotional trauma from this change. We will all have to make adjustments and find new ways of maximizing our time together. Until that day comes though, we will enjoy spending all the time we can in each other's company.

Stories from Stepford

Lately, I have been feeling every inch the housewife. While my husband claims I am very much a hot mama, these days I've been channeling Cinderella more than woman from Wisteria Lane.

After a few months of rest and relaxation following my husband's layoff, a quick look at our bank balance revealed the sad reality of dwindling finances. In an attempt to bring in a few rashers of bacon (as opposed to the whole roast pig afforded by my previous full-time, pre-baby job), I've been stepping up the writing assignments, following up on a long overdue cheque and cobbling together preliminary studies for another potential project. There are other things in the pipeline as well - a two-part event to organise in June and July, some more writing for a couple of websites and a small business my mum has been trying to set up. There's a teaching opportunity too, as a dance school nearby recently lost its ballet teacher and has been wanting me to take her place.

In addition to these, I've been de-cluttering our little flat. Since condominium living leaves no room for excess, nor does it allow for easy disposal of no longer-need goods via rummage sale, I've been selling my old corporate wardrobe on eBay. It's slow going, particularly since a glitch in the system makes posting items to sell virtually impossible at times and tediously difficult at others. Still, a dozen pieces have found new homes already, earning enough to pay our water bill for a month.

Finally, my domestic goddess longings are beginning to be realized. I purchased a digital kitchen scale for a very good price, and seeing as it has three main uses (weighing eBay items for shipping, books for exchange via international book swap website Bookmooch, and ingredients for baking), it's been worth every penny. In the past week, I've made for the first time Thai hot and sour soup, cream of shiitake mushroom soup, mango pudding with tapioca pearls and three batches of mango- filled crepes (regular and chocolate) because we've had a surfeit of the delicious, sweet and juicy fruit in season.

As for the wife and mother roles, my husband is just recovering from a week-long bout of conjunctivitis, the highly contagious nature of which meant he was sleeping on the couch and hardly coming into contact with Little A and myself the past few days. My son demands my attention as he sees the need, but is generally easy to please. His birthday approaches, which means the terrible twos may soon be upon us. I will relax now while all is still quiet on the home front.

Back in the Saddle

I recently accepted a writing/editing project that covers the first quarter of this year. Income, whoopee! The pay is so low that I may as well be doing the work for free, but hey, every penny counts, and it's a start to what will hopefully become a part-time, if not project-based, career.

Thanks to the new au pair, I have less time on toddler duty and more in front of the laptop. So far my husband and I have gone out twice with groups of friends and attended one children's party where we could actually sit down and talk to fellow parents instead of taking turns entertaining Little A, who still hates loud, crowded places, we discovered.

He spent the entire time we were at the party outside the party room walking, reading, playing and then falling asleep. I can't say I really blamed him as I too have a dislike for loud party hosts who never stop talking, and at this particular event, when the host wasn't chattering incessantly into his microphone, there was music blaring out of the speakers.

Despite the au pair's presence, however, my son still refuses to fall asleep without me by his side, and looks for me immediately upon waking up. My husband and I are working out our strategy for this, so that I can be free during the afternoons instead of limited to before and after naptime as I am now.

This afternoon, I will be entertaining a couple of girlfriends at our flat, and tomorrow my husband, son, myself and my entire family (2 parents, 2 sisters, 2 brothers-in-law and 6 nephews and nieces) fly to Hong Kong for my parents' wedding anniversary, which this year falls on the same day as Chinese New Year. It is our third wedding anniversary as well, so let the good times roll!

Working Girls

In the 80s, there was a film starring Melanie Griffith called Working Girl, which in my opinion tried to be the female equivalent to Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen's Wall Street. Working Girl was about a secretary trying to climb the corporate ladder. In those days, it was all about the high-powered career - making deals, raking in money, living lavishly.

I admire women who have built their corporate careers. While I did join the so-called rat race for close to a decade, all I had was a series of jobs.

The term "career" implies staying power, starting at the bottom and working up to the top, or as close as one can get to it, of a particular industry. People have careers in finance, IT or whatever. My employment history is a hodgepodge of work experience across different industries. I started off in corporate banking (to get business experience, as very few big corporations would hire an Interdisciplinary Studies graduate), moved to financial services, then to retail, while moonlighting in events management and teaching, and then ended my "corporate" life to date with a stint in IT services (mobile communications sector).

Hardly a career-making history. No doubt the Interdisciplinary Studies part of me wanted to try different things and see where I could fit in, and while there was one job I truly loved, the practicalities of daily living meant I needed to go where the money was better.

And yet, it was when I quit the jobs that I seem to have found my career path.

Motherhood and the Working Woman

The whole nature versus nurture argument has many sides to it, but since females are the carriers of children, it seems we are predestined to have a career in motherhood, which itself is a lifetime thing. Whether one has a corporate job or career on the side, the womb has a stronger pull. A sick child means automatically means taking the day off work or staying up all night, or flying home from a business trip. Likewise with parent-teacher conferences, school programs, sports days and the like. Fathers can choose whether or not to take part in these activities, but mothers do not have that luxury.

There is very sad news lately about babies in China developing kidney stones from contaminated milk powder. Most of the mothers of these children are farmers who have no choice but to feed their babies powdered milk because fresh milk may be more expensive or less readily available, and manual labour makes breastfeeding impossible.

Certainly many women need to supplement the family income. In my husband's office, majority of his co-workers are mothers. They earn good wages and can take pride in being recognized as formidable financial figures, but there is no doubt in my mind that when they think of their responsibilities, their children and household running fall above making deals and number crunching.

Motherhood is a career unto itself, as every mother knows, although it doesn't bring the financial benefits of a 9 to 5 job. The compensation for work well done is seeing a child mature into a responsible adult, a person who cares for others and has the right values. This is infinitely more rewarding than a paycheck, as children raised properly become tomorrow's world leaders. Mothers of the world, give yourselves a well-deserved pat on the back.