Work/Life/Baby balance

These days the buzzword (at least amongst headhunters) is "work/ life balance" and how their candidates can achieve that in various places.

The whole point of the "life" part of this balance (at least for most parents) is usually the quality of life of their offspring. It's a huge debate and my cop-out answer whenever asked for my opinion is that everyone will have to make their choices where they can and then adjust accordingly depending on the consequences (whether real or imagined).

To the mummys of Cat and Lae - I do really feel for you guys as you contemplate your next moves. Even though I've already taken the plunge into seeking out this balance, I can assure you that this is a decision that you will regularly review and make anew each day.

You need to have faith in yourself and the abilities of your child to be resilient and adaptable. From experience, I know that Sophie most definitely has proven to be tough, (me much less so!) and Fabien had to motivate me to hang on, each time I thought I'd just quit and stay home to spend my time with her. We are of course still in the adapting phase of my paper chasing career, but I think Sophie has done really well so far, and her parents are of course incredibly proud of her. I guess the support of the Father cannot be under-estimated, and even in the thick of his craziest working schedules, I was always confident of 2 things: First, I knew that if it really was a crises, Fabien would just drop everything to be there. Second, we spoke on the phone almost everyday, and he did try to see us (with one exception) every week, even if just for a few hours. There were times when I was so frustrated that I used to tell him (at the goodbye part) that I wished he would just not bother coming home because it just was much harder each time he went off again, I am (in retrospect) glad that he did make all the effort, because I think it counts for something at some unidentified emotional level.

Luckily that bit is all water under the bridge. It's not perfect, but we've managed to coordinate both our work travel time-tables thus far so that Sophie would always have one parent with her, but we joke that she might not know that we are married!

I am completely in awe of these women.