A Day in the Life of a Working Mum

A Day in the Life of a Working Mum

By Kelly Duggan (Brightlink’s Administrator)

My daily routine has changed quite dramatically over the last few months. I was a stay at home mum whilst my partner worked full time – often working away, so my days consisted of looking after my children, keeping my house tidy (as far as possible) with the amount of them and each one determined to ransack it. I did this all on my own which was often quite lonely. I worked from home for Brightlink as the Content Quality Associate and mainly my work consisted of proofreading units before they were ready to be uploaded. This gave me a lot of freedom, as often I could spend quality time with my children and then work after they were in bed so their routine wasn’t disrupted.

This year that has changed and my partner now stays at home and looks after our daughter while the others are in school. I was offered a new role with Brightlink which means actually leaving the house and going to work and this has been great for me in so many ways. This has been a good change for us both because my partner is experiencing the joys of our baby’s firsts which he missed with the others, he enjoys his time spent with her and I feel more human because I’m not just talking to children all day. The dynamics might have changed but I think it has made us more appreciative of the other now we’ve switched roles.

So here is my one-day diary:

6.00am

I purposely wake up before my children and head downstairs for my morning cuppa in peace. This is the calm before the storm and my much needed ‘me’ time before the day begins. Once that has woken me up fully, I make my children’s packed lunches, warm a bottle for my baby girl, and get their uniforms ready.

7.00am

I wake up my teenager who is currently doing her exams, then my boys, and force them all downstairs where I then make them breakfast. After this, rushing around is commonplace, getting them ready for school because they have no urgency. It always blows my mind that I’m first up and last to get ready. This part of the morning is always spent looking for things that my children can’t possibly find, such as socks, the hairbrush, straighteners and my marbles.

7.30am

I can hear my baby girl is awake talking her gobbledegook so I get her from her cot, bring her down and give her a bottle, change her nappy and get her dressed. My partner then wakes up (or, gets woken up by me) and I get myself ready for work, make the beds and remind my boys they need to brush their teeth.

8.40 am

We leave to do the school run, the boys start at 8.55am and then I rush to work, arriving between 9 and 9.10 depending on traffic.

9.30am

I have a meeting with the boss this morning. She tasked me with creating brochures for our CPD courses and I’m slightly nervous. Design is not my forte but there was no way I was going to admit that. I look over my first drafts which are ready to show and bite my fingernails until our meeting at 10.30.

10.30am

Meeting time. Big boss is happy with the first draft of our Brightlink Flyer, suggested some minor changes to font etc and tasked me with creating another bigger version in Word.

I spend the rest of the day answering emails, phone calls, designing brochures, scheduling social media posts, scanning, filing and filling Lorna in on my idea for these ‘A day in the life of’ diaries.

As always, she is super supportive, likes the idea and sends me away to do as I like because her trust is off the charts (which is lovely but scares me).

2.00pm

Finish time for me. I leave work, go home and spend an hour with my baby girl before setting off to pick my boys up from school.

3.00pm

School run time, we get home at 3.30 and it is chaos. The children for some reason are always starved which seems to make them feral.

The rest of the day is spent playing games, watching films, being a counsellor and playing referee. As well as feeding and watering them. By this point trying to keep the house relatively tidy is last on my agenda and I chalk this up as one for their dad.

8.00pm

Hurray – bedtime for baby girl quickly followed by my boys.

Hear that? Peace and quiet! Lovely.

9.00pm

Bedtime for me, which really means sitting in bed on my kindle for another two hours reading and recording any big ideas that come at me as they always do when I’m winding down – thank goodness for the docs on kindle! Mine are filled with much gibberish

12.00am

I go for a little sleepwalk because apparently I just don’t need to rest and it keeps my partner on his toes!