How to be a successful working mother

My new job means I've gone up from 2 days a week to 3, which doesn't sound like a big difference, and I'm sure all you full-timers are sniffing and thinking how pathetic I am. However, it actually feels like quite a big hike to me; it's a 50% increase after all. I have to try harder to get to yoga, I'm not meeting up with friends so much, and we're eating less healthily at home. (It doesn't look too bad, when I see it written down in black and white like that!)

In all honestly, I think fitting any hours of paid employment at all into your life when you have children is quite a lot. I'm glad I've got a job, and in terms of hours and family-friendliness, I think I've got it pretty good. Most of the time it's fine, but when family life is under pressure for any reason, it seems like there's no slack at all. Maybe not everyone feels the need for slack in their life, but I do. So I've come up with some top tips for how to make it work, when you're a working mother.

1. Have your mother living round the corner  I can't tell you the number of times I've felt a pang of jealousy when a colleague tells me her mother does the dinner a couple of days a week, or helps out with the school run, or whatever it is. It's just free, top quality childcare, which can be turned on and off like a tap, with added emotional support from your biggest fan.
2. Have healthy children  Yes, it's fine to take a day off here and there when a child is ill, but don't have the kind of child who picks up every bug going. How will it be when you have a couple of days off this week, and next, and then in a month's time, and then again in another month's time? (This isn't a problem if you have your mother living round the corner, who can morph into a part-time nurse as required.) If you have more than one child, make sure they are all ill on the same day. If one gets a virus, and then passes it on to the other, you can be off for nearly a week as quick as a sneeze. This is, unfortunately, the norm.
3. Be healthy yourself  Because you're going to have used up all your workplace's goodwill for sick leave covering your children's illnesses.
4. Have children near each other in age  It makes it much simpler if you are dropping off at and picking up from the same school. Make them do the same activities, in the same place, at the same time. ("What do you mean, you don't want to do swimming? Of course you want to do swimming. Like your brother.") You won't have time to be a taxi driver AND work.
5. Go to bed really early every night  Otherwise you'll lose your temper when helping with homework or piano practice. After a day at work, who has mental space for that kind of thing? Early bedtimes are the only way.
6. Don't be in a job where you need to dress smartly  It feels nice, but you'll spend your hardly-earned pay-packet on clothes, because it's so easy to justify:"I need this for work, and I can afford it because I work."
7. Be a teacher  Otherwise, what are you going to do with the children in those long school holidays? Your five weeks aren't going to cover it, are they? If you have teenagers, you can leave them at home alone, but they'll be on screens all day, and will eat cereal for breakfast, lunch and early dinner too (and then not be hungry for the healthy meal you've made an effort to shop for in your lunchbreak).

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