The Mother of All Jobs by Christine Armstrong

Author:Christine Armstrong
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472956231
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

What happened next?

One day Jane just couldn’t go in to work. She called in sick and, persuaded by her husband, went to the doctor who said she was burnt out and who wrote her off for two weeks. She used her first Out Of Office ever to tell people she was not answering emails or calls. Her doctor told her to read magazines and watch TV and do nothing else, so she did. Her doctor then extended her sick leave in small chunks for four months. Her feelings at this time reminded her of when she had postnatal depression – something she hadn’t thought about in years.

She took the time during this break to sit down with Simon a few times to hammer out what they both need/want from life. Not just in terms of money, but what’s going to make the rest of their lives rewarding. What’s going to make them look back on their family life and say they did what they wanted, they passed on good values to their kids. During one of these conversations they realised that their kids are part of the same performance culture that is crushing them. They wanted to change for themselves and their children.

Also, while she was off, Jane was recommended a cognitive behavioural therapist (CBT) who helped her work out how to recreate happiness without work validation. She learned techniques to manage her stress triggers in different ways. She realised that she became very anxious if anyone questioned her work so she learned to be assertive rather than aggressive in response. She was taught to only focus on doing three things every day and to give herself time to think rather than just do.

She allowed herself to be connected by friends to other women in same situation. Initially she found it shameful, because she thought she was admitting she had failed, but the other women helped her to see that the organisations they worked in drove these unsustainable and damaging behaviours.

After four months, she went back full time but works at home on average half of every week and manages her time very carefully. She has taken up a gym membership and either swims or works out every day to train for a triathlon. Now she says the pie-chart balance of her life looks like half work and an even split of the other half between her kids, husband, herself and her health and pleasure and doing things for others. She says she is calmer, more patient and far more engaged with the kids. The kids appreciate that she doesn’t fly off the handle any more, and she now knows not just when GCSE exams start and finish but every exam, whether it’s Maths A or Maths B today, what book each child is studying and who their friends are. She says that the only person who misses the old Jane is her husband, who’s taken to teasing her about spending too much time with her personal trainer.

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