The 2013 working year is almost over and personally I couldn’t be happier. Not because I’m sick of work but because I am ready to close the door on this calendar year. Like many others I am eagerly awaiting a new year because 2013 has been testing. Private Media’s chief executive Marina Go tells me that it’s the year of the snake which are notorious for presenting tricky times.
About a month ago I was speaking to one of my closest friends, who helpfully happens to be a psychologist, and explained that I felt bad for finding this year difficult. I explained to her that in macro terms I haven’t had a tough year; I have two healthy daughters, a job I love, my health, a husband I adore, lovely friends and a close family. I haven’t been touched by tragedy or illness or bankruptcy or divorce. I haven’t had any major crises and I am grateful for that.
But it’s also true that I have never lived through a year as hard as this. How is that possible, I asked my friend? I don’t feel worthy of having a brutal year when the big picture looks so fine.
She said something that made me feel a lot better. Perhaps she said it just because she is a loyal and lovely friend and wanted to make me feel better but I think there is truth in it. She said: “At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what triggers it – whether it’s a big picture crisis or a combination of small things – when you’re having a tough time, it’s tough.”
My friend knows that in micro terms – the little details that flesh out the days – this year has been long and hellish for me. (It’s worth adding that as the mother of 18-month old twins and an almost 4 year old she is intimately familiar with the intensity of life when you are outnumbered by small children.) My husband’s job means I carry the overwhelming majority of the parenting and household workload. With a baby and a toddler this is intense, particularly because usually by 6.15am my husband is out the door. The difference between two sets of parents on hand for the peak periods with little kids – mornings and evenings – is often the difference between enjoyment and insanity. This year, in my house, insanity has prevailed at least 85 % of the time.
There is very little respite from this on the weekends, or out of hours, because neither the responsibility for our children, nor the demands of my husband’s job, is limited to office hours. Both serve as round-the-clock propositions and on many, many occasions this year both have exercised the right to access services throughout the night.
Like many parents with a baby at home I have been sleep deprived for the large majority of the year and the cumulative toll is taxing. Six months of broken sleep is doable but ten is pretty trying. We live in a small apartment which has been particularly stressful because our upstairs neighbours have made it clear they don’t enjoy the noise our baby makes when she cries. I understand this, because I don’t particularly enjoy it either, but I am helpless to silence her entirely. Where there is a baby it is inevitable that there will be a certain amount of crying, particularly if the adult to infant ratio is inverse. A scratchy baby in a confined space is stressful enough without the fear of someone knocking at the door asking what you are doing wrong.
Other factors have compounded the stress that has accompanied my daily life this year. Not having immediate family on hand, limited income because of maternity leave and then the exorbitant cost of childcare, being obligated to live in a very expensive and busy city for the foreseeable future and the unpredictability of the factors which determine the ease of my days. Whether I get sleep, whether our weekend plans will be derailed by work, whether there are tantrums or whether everyone is on an even keel and sanity prevails.
Writing this I am conscious that I seem ungrateful for the blessings in my life. I am not ungrateful. I count my blessings every single day. I know I am extraordinarily lucky to have the life I do. But I am also being honest. I am lucky but being lucky hasn’t precluded me from finding things less than easy. I am being honest about it – not because I want sympathy – but because I take heart every time I hear or read another parent tell me they found the early years of parenting hard. I take heart because it reminds me that I am not the only one who finds it hard. So maybe hearing me tell you that this year has been tough you will know you’re not alone if you have also found things tough. (If you don’t find raising small children hard please tell me your secrets!)
I am hoping – however naively – that 2014 will be a tiny bit better because both of our girls will, obviously be, a year older than they were at the start of 2013. My fingers are also crossed that this year’s Christmas holiday won’t involve any emergency trips to the hospital. Those two things alone are making me excited for 2014.
How has your year been? Be honest.