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My Family Care asks Paula: We all have identities that change as we get older and life happens. As your family changes, your identy does too. How do you juggle your work/home personality, especially as your family changes?
A fluid identity
Identity is a funny thing. We possess it without meaning to; guard it fiercely; assume it is a fixed notion and believe it is something that makes you - quite frankly - you.
Of course it makes you you but it is, I think, something that is not fixed and, more importantly, something that is at the mercy of numerous changing factors. The biggest one being age.
The need to stand out
Before children, working as a full time English teacher - and desperate to work in fashion journalism, design writing or some other fancy endeavor (read "involving work parties and nice clothes") - my identity was nebulous.
Honestly, I thought it was all rather fetching, and very concrete. I stood out in the way you try to while in your mid-twenties. It was a materialistic identity allowed to be real because I earned decent money, lived in London and had zero commitments.
At length I was just me. Aspiring to better things. Sure! Following dreams and all the rest, but I was just little old me desperate to prove I was different. My identity was two dimensional and easy, but I hoped it represented the fact I was different, at least, a little anyway.
Over time, that drive to be a little different hasn't changed, but the way it is realised certainly has. Progressing through a teaching career, getting pregnant, having a small human to keep alive, and deciding a career change was needed, have all given a small nod to my desire to go against the expected. Really, though, I am no different to an ever increasing majority who realise, post children, that a career they previously loved wasn't quite hitting the spot.
Changing the status quo
Suddenly, those clear-cut identities become drastically altered. Work and having a career you truly adore is something we all should enjoy, but many of us don't.
For me, I couldn't justify spiraling childcare costs and the workload of an English teacher. And on top of all that, I really, really wanted to be around for my son as much as was humanly possible. This meant I was stuck in a sort of work limbo. A career I loved became something silly to want, but, simultaneously, a career that paid money and meant I could spend a considerable amount of time with my son seemed to be equivalent to perfection.
And with that, a new identity was born
The identity we all know and, perhaps, dislike: the one where we do the right thing because of necessity. Necessity, I hear you say, is akin to a dirty word and in our current consumerist society where we can and should have it all, it truly is a word that conjures a plethora of uneasy and unhappy images. With necessity comes another interaction with another identity and one that is both honourable and frustrating.
An attack on 'you'?
That's just it though, identities, even the most concrete ones, are always vulnerable and subject to attack. We have children and our focus changes. We have older children and are focus alters yet again as we get drawn into schools, more schools and university fees.
Money becomes our primary concern and work life balance takes a bit of a nosedive as we trawl through each week, earning decent salaries and allowing ourselves snippets of enjoyment.
It doesn't have to be like this and, in many ways, it shouldn't be. We need to view the growth of a family or a career in terms of eras and apply a thought process that allows us to be ever changing, rather than indefinitely stuck in something.
Time allows many changes and we often view change as a bad thing. But, with each new era comes a new freedom or challenge and with that comes a satisfaction and a happiness that a transient identity allows and one we should welcome with open arms.
Paula Hughes, Community Engagement Officer, Contributing Writer and Mother of Frey
