When I first found out that I was pregnant I, like many women before me, had a few unrealistic expectations of my life from here on. I would not gain any weight apart from my bump and people would only know I was pregnant from the front. That fell apart when it appeared that I was carrying foetus’ in my chin, arms, thighs and ankles: I was shocked to only deliver one baby and expected to start secreting children from my pores at some point in the weeks that followed his birth.

During labour I would drug free and stick to deep breathing. This also fell by the wayside and I still hear myself begging for pain relief two years on.

The other major misconception I had was working. I was determined that I wouldn’t go back. My mum was a part time nurse and was there every morning and night. As a result, I’d always felt sorry for those friends growing up whose mum’s worked and were bundled off to child minders or given the key and instructions on how to cook the tea.

The biggest problem for me, aside from leaving the tiny love of my life was that I hated my job. Prior to getting pregnant I was looking for something else. I always expected that before I had children I’d find my perfect job but the fact was that well into my twenties I still wanted to be a hairdresser, a teacher, an astronaut or a nurse, depending on which day you asked and I fell into my job as a legal secretary and spent eight years doing a job I hated.

When my son was born I had Eureka moment: no wonder I’d had such trouble finding my career: I was put on this earth to be a mother and nothing else.

Unfortunately, being a mother doesn’t pay the bills and besides, I actually did feel a desperate need to show my son that women can work, raise children, keep the home and look  fabulous whilst doing it.

The first day back was hell: I remembered on the way there that I was the only person there with young children and I had no allies whatsoever: when I cried on my first day I was told in no uncertain terms that my son didn’t need me anymore but our clients did.

The weeks passed and I continued to be miserable, feeling that everything was a compromise. I hated leaving Billy, I hated my job and I hated the lack of time I had at home. I was split into three parts and all three were failing.

Gaby Hilsliff looks at the problems faced by working parents in her book “Half a Wife” and makes various conclusions and suggestions. Firstly, I should be honest and say that one of my major annoyances with the media is their stubborn refusal to accept that anyone lives outside of London. If there’s a true story in a newspaper it happens to “Victoria, 33 a management consultant from London”. Victoria is always married to Gerald who is also a senior professional and their poor children are being frogmarched from activity to activity in a vain attempt to teach them dual languages, triple somersaults and complex algorithms. This seemed to be the case in the book. All of the cases were women in glittering careers with no mention of anyone in a standard job such as retail, catering or administration. Whilst I appreciate that those with high powered jobs might rely on their income for their lifestyle, I feel that the necessity of the working class mothers who do an eight hour shift on the till at the local supermarket in order to live and buy food is all but forgotten and those who do it in the North rarely have a voice at all – yet they still have the same wrench as they leave their children.

Hinsliff comes up with a number of conclusions, suggesting that families downsize, that employers offer more flexibility when it comes to both parents, not just the mother and that everyday jobs, such as childcare, laundry and household cleaning are more evenly split – for the sake of the marriage or relationship just as much as the child.

The popular myth is that it is only professional women who have to return to work after having their children and in turn that it is only them who might feel like “Half a Wife”. Having been on the other side of the argument, I wonder if Hinsliff has considered the millions of men and women working in low paid jobs who have just as little choice but also have little in the way of negotiation to use any of her suggestions.

You might be wondering how I solved the problem, and how I came to be writing this. About six months into my return to work and having cried for almost every day of it, I decided that enough was enough. I’d always written as a hobby and I decided that for once I was going to be pro-active about it. So I found PeoplePerHour and set up a profile. Within a year of my Google search, I’m now a full time freelance writer, and although we still seem to have little time, Billy still goes to his nursery and the ironing pile is still as huge as ever, I’ve never been happier!

You guessed it…I wouldn’t run out & buy a copy!

Find out more about our book reviewer, Jo Wareham, Freelance Copy Writer. 

Would you like to become a PPH book reviewer, what do you think about a PPH Book Club? Comment below or drop us an email: info@peopleperhour.com.