I recently returned from that treasured thing mums and dads crave: alone time.
When I returned home I woke with the sun, did morning stretches, curbed my caffeine intake – all the while wondering how long this ‘putting myself first’ routine was really going to last. It was about three days. Then came school holidays.
I tried to mask my burnout but when I visited my parents my mum gave me a hard stare. “You need help,” she said. “You are both exhausted. You both work. Your husband travels. Your lives are busy. I don’t understand why you don’t get a new nanny.”
We used to have a nanny at least four days a week and she became so beloved she will forever feel like an auntie to our kids. When she moved on, we stepped boldly into 2025 believing now our kids were older we’d manage.
Ever since, I’ve been cutting my workdays to fit the kids’ changing calendars, sicknesses, life. It’s made me a rat on a wheel chasing a calm horizon I was never going to arrive at unless I confronted my shame of admitting I need help.
How proud I am then of my friend Amy, her sister Cecilia and friend Jen of For Parents declaring we all need more support. The trio started petition change.org/ourkids-ourchoice mid-2025 and it’s gathered almost 18,000 signatures (at print) with a goal of 30,000 by year’s end.
They’ve met with federal politicians and appeared on national television pleading with the government to apply the $16 billion taxpayer-funded Child Care Subsidy across a wider scope, to pay for nannies, relatives, au-pair help instead of solely daycare centres.
“Being a mother is the hardest job on earth. Women everywhere must declare it so,” says Oprah Winfrey, and with more parents in the workforce than ever, it’s time mums and dads admit that while we might be able to parent alone, we parent better in a village of our own making.
