Socialising vs life and work
I’m now back working full time. My old job was an hour’s commute so to do nursery runs, I had to reduce my hours.
Unless you’re very lucky, it’s hard to find a job that’s shorter hours. Then there’s the toss up between reduced salary, spending time with children, part time by reducing days or just a few hours. Not many people can afford to or want to work proper part time hours even if they can find a job that offers them.
So I’m back full time (but not as many hours as some industry seem to have (automotive…2 jobs I applied for were 40 and 44 hours a week!), which means N’s in full time childcare.
He still manages to have a great opportunity to socialise, because he’s at nursery with friends. But it severely curtails my social life. And in fact, not just social life, but merely those informal catch ups seeing friends (mostly those with kids).
Before, I didn’t work Friday afternoons, so we swam then meaning we still had full weekends free. But now we’ve moved swimming to a Saturday afternoon, and that means Saturdays are purely for getting things done leaving no time for socialising. Our old swimming class was really friendly as well, so being there was quite a social occasion whereas the new class is very serious, with no one really chatting in the changing rooms.
It means I’m going to have to work really hard trying to keep in touch with people. I like to know what’s going on as well, so with several of my NCT friends having had baby number 2, they’re more able to get together so it’s definitely a challenge with limited days in the week, especially with weekends being family time for most.
Embarrassingly, I’m due to be godmother to my best friend’s son – born November, and not yet managed to meet him. It’s going to have to be a few days off on holiday, or missing swimming sessions as it would really need at least a couple of days to get a decent visit in as well as the travelling. I’m hoping that by the time N’s at school, he’ll be able to have clubs and swimming after or during school which will leave weekends free…but that’s a long wait, and unlikely to happen.
If anyone’s got any tips for managing to keep in touch with people (apart from stalking on social media!) – not only local but those further away too, it would be great to hear them. How do you manage?