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Being a working mother back then was to be a double-agent; you lied for a living. A male colleague who announced he was off to his son's rugby match was a hero; a women who did exactly the same was Lacking in Commitment... In the end, what made me quit EMF was the thought that my kids were suffering from the punishingly long - unnecessarily long, stupidly, inhumanely long - hours I spent away from them. They needed me, yes, but it turned out I needed them too. And our family was running on empty and the only person who could fill that emptiness was me.
... Winter. It must have been because all the commuting fathers, who had come straight from the station, were hurrying in with their thick dark coats and their briefcases. Each man stopped to ask me where they might find their child's classroom, They knew the name if their kid - he, credit where it's due! - but generally, that was the limit of their knowledge. They didn't know who the child's teacher was, sometimes didn't know what year group they were in. They had no clue where the little coats and bags were hung up, or what was in those bags. And I stood there in that cold, dark playground thinking, how could this ever possibly be fair? How could a woman compete when men were allowed to be so oblivious? One parent not knowing who the teacher was, not knowing what went in the lunchbox, not knowing which child in the class had the nut allergy, not knowing where the PE bag was, or which stinky little socks needed washing. OK, one parent could be oblivious. But not two. One parent has to carry the puzzle of family life in their head, and mostly, let's face it, it's still the mum. Professionally, back then I was competing with men whose minds were clear of all the stuff that small children bring.
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