When Bella was 13 months old I went back to work. I was a single parent with no car who worked almost
two hours away (by public transport). We left at 6am so I could walk to daycare
in time for when they opened at 6:30am. At 6:35am I caught a bus/train/bus, got
to work a little after 8am, worked til 4pm and the caught the bus/train/bus
combo back to daycare and then walked home, arriving by about 6pm unless I had
to do some grocery shopping first.
Since having Ashley things are a little different. I have a partner
now, a drivers license, a job much closer to home. But now there’s four of us
to look after instead of two and we still need to be out the door by 7 o’clock
each morning. I don’t know how we do it some days. I definitely don’t know how
I did it with Bella.
Being a working parent can definitely be hard work but adopting
certain habits, routines or attitudes can make it easier. I thought I would
write down a little collection of tips for anyone else looking for advice. I’ll
go into them each in more depth later on.
1. Be sensible with your money
This might seem an odd tip for a double-income household but it is the crux of why we leave our babies to go to work. There is NO point working Mon-Fri to spend it all on Saturday.
