Doing it on purpose

Lucy Denyer - 14 Aug 14

I was on holiday last week. France. It was nice. Not, you know, glamorous – no poolside-lounging and floaty kaftans and copious cocktails at three in the afternoon – we were on holiday with four children under three between all of us. But good, solid, family fun – bikes and pedalos and lashings of cheese and wine at 7.30pm once the kids were in bed, with the odd cheeky glass of rose at lunchtime.

Despite the loveliness, however, I found myself caught up in a major confidence crisis. A proper, black dog-ish, tearful, hair-pulling crisis.

The reason? I’m hoping to start working “properly” again in two weeks’ time.

This isn’t anxiety about going back into the office, not having anything to wear, worrying that I’m going to seem out of touch and middle-aged now that I have two children. It’s more of an existential, “what the hell” kind of angst – more of a “what do I really want to do with my life and why?” kind of feeling.

The backstory: I’ve been a freelance journalist since 2006, but for the past eight years, on and off (only off because I spent two years living in America), I’ve had a lovely little regular gig at the Sunday Times: three days a week guaranteed income. I sort of pretended I was actually on staff, while ignoring the fact that I had no actual rights as an employee.

But, you know, budget cuts and the recession and so on means my job was never guaranteed after baby number two arrived last October, so for the past few months I haven’t been exactly sure what I’m going back to, if anything, and have been nervously awaiting missives from my editor ref: available shifts and precisely whom she might have to juggle out of something in order to juggle me in.

So far, so stomach-churning. And possibly even more stomach churning when I realise that I’m not actually sure I want to carry on doing exactly what I was doing, and perhaps this little bit of time off is a good thing, because it means I can think a bit more clearly about where I’m going and why. But, you know, 10 months out of the workplace can knock a girl’s confidence in all sorts of ways, and I haven’t yet managed to become one of those maternity leave Mumpreneurs who starts an uber-successful, multimillion pound business in between changing nappies and rubbing Lansinoh into cracked nipples (who are these people? Does anybody know one of them?).

All of which my husband, bless him, nailed directly when he surmised my ball of anxiety as being all to do with purpose.

Having children, you see, has given me purpose in life (don’t worry, this isn’t a 1950s rant about every woman’s calling being to breed). Of course I had purpose before, but my aims tended to be a bit more short-term – get a good degree, get the right first job, negotiate a pay rise, etc etc. With my children, however, it’s more big picture; I know broadly what I’m aiming for: to aid them on their way to becoming confident beings with their own minds who are polite, kind, resourceful, resilient – all those sorts of things.

And despite the endless monotony of bottom wiping and nappy changing and Wheels on the Bus and referring to myself in the third person all day and wiping up food, and sick, and poo, and reading Hairy Maclay for the 10000000^th time – I feel as if it will all be worth it, in the end, if I can produce confident beings with their own minds, etc etc. It’s about the long-term benefits, which is why I can put up with all the daily crap.

Which suddenly raises all sorts of questions about work, and why I’m doing it (to keep me sane and earn some cash, mostly), and what I’m hoping to achieve in the long term, and whether writing about houses forever and ever is going to give me that same sense of self-worth and purpose, and where I’m going, generally.

I know I want to go back to work, and I know I will, in some form or other. Much as I love my children, the thought of spending every day with them, indefinitely, with no end in sight, fills me with slight horror. But I also know that my children’s small years won’t last forever, and I want to make sure that I’m not just marking time at a desk, being a bit bored and a bit frustrated, just to keep me sane and earn a bit of cash (a girls night out deals with the first – possibly for the second I could turn to buying lottery tickets?). I’m not going to stop working, but I do need to feel that I’m doing something a bit worthwhile while I’m doing it (excuse the convoluted sentence – I told you I’d been off for 10 months).

Maybe that’s just showing my two boys that Mummies work too – for all sorts of reasons. Either way, the future’s a bit of an open book, and I’m a bit nervy about the whole thing. Luckily of course, I’ve still got bottoms to wipe, food to cook and stories to read. Plus checking my email for missives… watch this space.

Lucy Denyer

Lucy Denyer has been a journalist for 10 whole years, during which time she's written for The Sunday Times, The Times, Red, Stylist, Easy Living, She, The London Magazine and The Lady, amongst others. She is mother to Atticus, 3, and Oswald, 10 months, and lives in London.

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