The Problem With The 9-5 For Parents

I’ve gone from a crazy hour job to more of a mainstream job and I’ve noticed how tuff it can be on new parents trying to do everything that books, social media, other parents & your own parents are telling you "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS WAY!".

The lead up to the arrival of your little one can be amazing but you have the influences of your life coming to you going this is how I did it or you should do it this way. So before life even begins there’s a huge expectation that you have to be "perfect" from day 1. Let be real, that’s not going to happen.

Your jumping into a world where you have no real idea of what you’re doing until your doing it and you are going to make mistakes. It’s OK TO MAKE MISTAKES! you will learn from them and only get better.

but after a while sometimes 6 months or a year sometimes a few years if your super lucky, you will have to go back to work. With what you thought was normal and starting to get a hang of things everything changes and you’re stuck at the same point of where you were at the beginning relearning how to do everything.

Sarah ended up having 11 months off work and started back at 4 days a week(Tuesday to Friday 9-5) while I was at the time finishing up at a cafe I was working at doing 7 am till 3-6 pm Wednesday to Sunday. We also do cloth nappies(yep there fun....) so just that little change of Sarah going back to work we had to learn to juggle.

I was going through a bad round of depression, Sarah was just getting into the swing of working again and Quinn learning daycare routine.

ended up getting through the first 4 months alright, few hiccups but pretty much smooth sailing until the cafe I was working at closed down unexpectedly and I was jobless.

Lucky I had a friend looking for a sous chef for the summer season down at henley beach. which to this day has been one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.

But the hours changed and I when from the 7-3 to 930am till 11 pm with an hour break(on a good day) I was back in real chef hours. That’s when I notice everything we had going on stopped and Sarah was starting to struggle with getting everything done.

Sarah when from being in a relationship to a single mum pretty much overnight, and that’s hard on any person.

I helped where I could but it was hard when I was pretty much home to eat, shower and sleep. But I did notice Sarah was changing trying to still do everything she had been told by all those influences, to keep everyone happy and try and keep her mind calm.

We got through the next 6 months of me working those stupid hours for covid-19 to hit and hospo to shut down completely but I already had a job line up cooking at a daycare working normal hours with normal breaks and no crazy service stress.

Covid-19 hit everyone pretty hard and eventually, Sarah got stood down then later made redundant and going from her 4 days a week to nothing then getting a job again but working full time now instead of her 4 day week.

This is where I realised even more that the 40-hour workweek isn’t designed for both parents to be working, when it first started it was designed for 1 parent to stay at home to cook, clean, laundry, do everything the house needed. Well, that’s just not doable with 2 parents working full time.

That’s where those influences(especially social media ones) get you into a false sense of hopelessness where you are doing a bad job because you have polished the floors, cooked a feast for 10 people each night and washed the laundry every 5 seconds.

Then you start taking short cuts and usually the first thing that gets shorted is your own family meals because your just so tired you start buying crap for your self and your little one.

That tray frozen meal at the supermarket makes life easier short term but is it really doing you any good?

Same with the pouches for the little one you can buy, what’s actually in them? 

A lot, not all of the "ready to eat" meals are but how many for the adults and little humans have a lot of nasties in them and you are just taking in crap that makes it taste nice now but what is it doing long term?

 That’s what I started to realise when we were walking down the aisle of the supermarket. From when I started at the daycare I made it my mission to work towards creating better for the little ones and the parents don’t have to worry about all the nasties that come with supermarket brands.

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