I quit my job to stay home with Alba for another year. This was not the plan, but I can’t remember the last time something happened according to plan. In March of this year, we signed Alba up at a nursery and I contacted my boss to discuss my return to work. Like all women, I wanted to excel at being a mum, being independent, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, having a clean home, keeping in contact with my family, keeping in contact with my friends, and maintaining my hobbies.
One Thursday night after nursery, Alba got very sick with a fever of 39.3 degrees Celsius. We gave her baby paracetamol, put eucalyptus oil in the diffuser, and I held her on the rocking chair so she could breathe properly. Her fever burned through my t-shirt and she snored with the congestion. By sunrise I had ordered 3 covid test kits on the NHS website and was considering leaving my job.
It was not an easy decision for me to make. I thought about it all weekend. Due to the exorbitant cost of childcare in London, me working and Alba going to nursery from 8am to 6pm five days a week, or me staying home with Alba full time makes little difference to our household finances. But I was proud of my job at a WPP advertising agency. I had worked hard and had started off as an Account Executive on a 3-month contract and would be resigning as a Senior Account Manager.
In advertising 12-hour days are the norm, clients are unreasonable, creative agencies are late, and everyone expects you to perform 10 miracles a day. But I got to use my languages, represented the agency at a conference in Colombia, conducted a 2-week training in Mexico, and managed the LATAM region for a year. I had also graduated in the degree of understanding French advertising regulations as it pertains to pharmaceutical products.
But what do any of these achievements mean when your 11-month-old is too congested to sleep, and the fever keeps coming back, and she is throwing up mucus, and you’re in the middle of a pandemic? Being away from home can feel overwhelming and isolating sometimes. Hasani and I have no family here. On Alba’s nursery forms her emergency contacts were Hasani and me. There is no granny, no grandpa, no aunty, no uncle, no sister, no brother, no cousin to call. Could I live with the guilt of Alba getting Covid at nursery?
On Monday I sent in my resignation letter.
I am now a stay-at-home mum for at least another year. As fulfilling as my new role is, it is unpaid so I spend Alba’s naptimes pitching freelance ideas and applying to part-time work from home jobs online. Was I naïve to think I could have it all? Maybe I still can have it all, just not at the same time.
