Freddy's blog: Supporting the move back to work

In the 13 months since my daughter joined the family I feel like we’ve been through more than 13 new, different phases of our lifestyle. None of them last long, but such is the warped experience of time that you take on as a parent that each has felt permanent.

Phase 1: I’d leave the hospital about 9pm, buy a couple of beers, drive home watch TV for a few hours and go back in the morning. Only two nights but it felt like two weeks. Maybe because Grandma brought me two weeks worth of sandwiches when she visited the hospital.

Phase 4: home from work at 6.30pm, I’d walk up and down the lounge with my daughter until 9.30pm making helicopter noises and pretending we were in ‘Nam. It was the only way to stop her crying. Not sure how long it lasted. How long was ‘Nam?

Phase 15 or whatever we’re in now is more significant, a genuine change in (weekday) lifestyle. My wife went back to work two weeks ago after stretching her maternity leave out beyond a year. We hired a lovely nanny to look after our daughter most of the time, Grandma does two days a fortnight, and I’m off every other Friday – known at home and in the office as Fridad™.

But having such a great childcare team in place didn’t really make the transition back to work any easier. Everybody said that after a year that my wife would be bored and want to go back, but after 14 months she was having the time of her life and didn’t want to go back at all.

The dread set in – will our daughter’s wonderful, happy character change without her mum at home; will my wife spend the whole day pining for her; will our daughter have the right meals (I know this is a really big deal because my mum cried when my parents dropped me off at uni and she realised she’d forgotten the pasta sauce she made me). I guess the other thing everybody told my wife did turn out to be true: the longer you leave it, the harder it is to go back.

There were some very tough days for my wife as she struggled with guilt about going back and anxiety about returning to a place that hadn’t been too happy when she left it.

It was some comfort when I said that the work she does will help give our daughter a good life and some great opportunities (can’t carry that on my own sadly – my wife is the higher earner). It was slightly less comfort when I said she would find a new identity as a working mum, a Citymother. But eventually I was anxious too: repeated reassurances start to sound as hollow as a promise made by Boris. 

But the reality? Of course, it’s fine. It’s better than fine.

It’s a joy to see our daughter sharing her happiness with someone new, my wife barely has time to miss her while at work and we have a detailed meal plan on the fridge that makes sure she gets a full mix of her favourite foods (she’s a huge carnivore, which surprises me for someone so young).

This new phase seems more concrete and more permanent than any other, and it’s one of a few I don’t want to end at some point. I’m proud of my wife for settling back into work so quickly and proud of my daughter for getting used to a new arrangement with nothing but the same big smile she always has.

And my wife and I are now looking at the possibility of meeting after work for a drink and dinner, which hasn’t happened since early last year. It’s worth going through any pain for that.

Freddy has a one-year-old daughter and he works a nine-day fortnight as a kind of deluxe jack-of-all-trades for a trade association in the City.