After lunch, a friend came by to drop her kid for play date with my boys. Since returning from our travels, my boys have been in Lego LaLa Land, playing hours non-stop, almost making me feel obsolete. So the idea of a play date while feeling unwell is not really dreadful, as their little friend is as much of a Lego passionate as them. And my dear Empregada is watching.
Yet I was enjoying my decaf when the mom and son pair came in, and used this as an excuse to get some company to my sipping. We nicely chatted about mundane things. Then she eventually opened up, talking about her own difficulties to be an efficient, productive, home-based contractual working mom. And self-estime issues related to performing such role.
In this life, where simple errants require logistics and planning (ever gone to the bank for 2 hours? or twice a week? or driven 10 km for it?), it is not difficult for me to equally feel incompetent at performing the regular stuff. In a way, since I arrived here, I have been mostly absorbed with mundane things in the morning, and kids care for the rest of the day.
It brings me back to two elements: self-confidence and work. Since I started my expatriate life, I have met many types of expat wives (the trailing spouses, as we are often labeled). Those who try to keep a professional life, and adapt their career and occupation to their new surroundings, despite the odds. And those who, for various reasons, decide to just make the best of their situation, without a professional take on their occupation - either by painting, golfing, charity work, coffees and chats, language learning, sewing, shopping, hosting, knitting, writing, you name it. In Beijing I even met a group of women, self-labelled "snitch and bitch", meeting around a yarn in a coffee shop. These women who give up their careers are not always doing it by choice, but they seems to enjoy much better time during their posting. I guess I have a guilt factor that hinder fully enjoying these activities as full time ones.
As women who studied for a long time, and worked hard to get (close to have) a career, we give a great value to what we do, and it is always a little difficult to be reduced to be "the wife of" and to really only be remarkable for the quality of your housekeeping skills.
So many of us will try really hard to keep at it, sometimes working remotely, sometimes creating a new career path, sometimes accepting work conditions we would usually rebuke, sometimes creating our own business. Sometimes it is easier, as we have a comparative advantage - maybe our language skills, maybe our own international experience. But most time it won't be easy.
My friend's pain certainly comes from working in isolation, on tight deadlines, in a very competitive environment where she is somewhat disadvantaged, by working remotely and intermittently. I share her pain. I have experienced this in China, and now, although I am not officially working, I am somewhat feeling this, the disadvantage and the loneliness of writing articles on my own. The feeling of not really being able to realize oneself fully, professionally and/or personally, and to feel lost or forgotten behind the action.
But in fact this post will probably need to be expanded later, as there is so much to be said about being a working mother, a home-based working mom (there is a contradiction just in this label), and a mutant-always-reinventing-yourself-professional due to our constant rotation of postings linked to our expatriate status. Have you ever imagine how much energy it takes? Maybe that is why today I just laid low in the morning. That felt better.
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