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My Family Care asks Mandy: With the increase of flexible working - and the increase in technological advancements - the lines between work and family time can become blurry. Do you successfully keep work inside work hours so you can concentrate on family time, or do you run both in parallel, in successful ways? And if so, how?
Am I balancing or juggling?
With every new term comes a backlash, and that time came for work life balance a year or two ago. People complained that the term suggested there was some nirvana where everything was in perfect harmony, something that seemed a million miles away from the reality that was once referred to as juggling - until that got a bad name because it suggested that only those with circus skills could do it.
Surely there was no clear line between work and the rest of life any more, said critics. With the advent of mobile phones and 24/7 connectivity, work and "life" - read 'family life' since you are clearly still alive when working - could bend around each other rather than being totally separate.
So, along came work life integration, as Fortune magazine claimed "work life balance is dead" back in March 2015. Yet at around the same time, multi-tasking moved from being a 'feminine' skill - something women are apparently innately better at - to something that was problematic. Mainly because it meant that, while you did a lot of things at the same time, you did none of them particularly well.
Horses for courses
What this shows is that, as with all things, there are different horses for different courses and anyone who tries to suggest their way is the only way - as many parents and parenting 'experts' still do - has possibly led a very sheltered life.
I know people who swear by work life balance, who have come close to breakdown by trying to merge or blend everything together, and who find they can't focus on either work or family life if there is no line of separation between the two. I have spoken to women who work long hours and hardly see their families all week but are very strict about switching off at weekends - including women who live away from home during the week so they can focus 100% on work.
I speak to others - mainly the self-employed - who work around their babies' nap times and everything in between. None of these options come without potential drawbacks - the email backlog on a Monday, on the one hand, versus the stress of never being able to switch off entirely on the other.
The secret is working out which suits you better. That means, not just which you prefer, but which is the more sustainable, given your circumstances at the time.
Content > location
Personally, my life is now all about the merge. Freelance journalism is not a 9 to 5 profession. Things happen at weekends and evenings. People can't do interviews during office hours. Maybe 8pm is better for them when their kids are in bed, even if mine are not - with all that that entails.
I have been a press officer too. It's impossible to know when the media will ring. I've had calls:
- in the school disco,
- in the middle of a country park, necessitating a quick sprint to a clearing,
- at 8am while I am getting several kids ready for school...
I've also conducted interviews while being chased by small people and had to barricade myself in the toilet (the interviewee was getting out of a taxi and didn't even notice the small person banging on the door). I did one interview in a cupboard, in the semi darkness. The interviewee said it was the best interview he had ever done. He probably envisaged me at a pristine desk.
I did another interview in the car outside our house with the neighbour's son cycling round and round, slightly menacingly. It is momentarily stressful, but the job gets done - and there is a certain sense of satisfaction from the challenge.
It's not perfect, but it works
I may not be great at multi-tasking - I often burn food - but I am good at focusing on the task at hand. I'm not advocating this as a way of life, but for me - at least for now - it works. I flex my day around the school run (currently a one-hour round trip) and I catch up in the evening. I get to go to most school events, I flex around the holidays and inset days, I manage, more or less.
It's not perfect. For some people it might seem highly stressful and chaotic. Perhaps I thrive on chaos. I certainly prefer this way of life to the stress of getting to the office on time every day after multiple drop-offs, battling an unsupportive manager, train delays, nursery fines, and dumping shy, sobbing children at holiday play schemes where they know nobody, because it was the only one available at the time.
I'm not sure that's what you call success, but it works for now.
Mandy Garner, Web Editor at Workingmums
