Friday with Amendi - Life of a new (working) mum

Gonna sneak in a post while BbQ is taking a nap.

It is not easy being a new mum. It's even harder adjusting to being a new working mum. Gone are the days where mothers were full time housewives who took care of home matters while fathers brought home the income. Roles were more clear-cut in that sense. Since returning to work, I often find myself in conflict. From a time perspective, I'm only half a mother and half a social worker - ie. during my wakeful hours I spent half the time caring for BbQ and half the time at work. But rightfully I should be 100% a mother right. It is quite sucky to even think of BbQ when I'm at work knowing that he is in the arms of someone else. And then the other roles I have to play - that of a daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, auntie etc. Of course, given the standard of living now, I can only dream about being a stay home mum, although timbre has kindly promised that I can stay home when our 2nd kid comes along. Hehe. But then again I wouldn't know how it'll turn out for me since I love social work so much. Oh well, grass is always greener on the other side ain't it?

And then there is the issue of breastfeeding. I'm thankful that my office is pretty pro-family and expressing milk at work is not much of an issue. Haha but it's funny the reaction of the youths when I emerge from the storeroom with 2 bottles of milk. As most of you know, in my line of work, I'm out of office pretty regularly for meetings, trainings and seminars. Along the way, I've learnt that Singapore's culture towards breastfeeding needs to be improved! I recently attended a seminar at Cantonment Police Complex and had to express milk before the seminar in a toilet! And it's not the first time I've done so! It generally takes me 20min to express milk but because the environment was not as conducive that day, it took me longer. Lo and behold! The cleaning lady knocked on the door and said something in Malay. I assumed it must have been along the lines of "what the€*^&$@%#+ are you doing inside!?!?!?" And guess what, I've expressed milk in hotel and shopping mall toilets before as well. Of course there are nursing rooms in some shopping malls but they are few and far between, which makes me think twice about choosing which shopping mall to go or courses to attend.

Not only are there physical constraints with regards to expressing milk, I've come across a few awkward situations. Like once, I went into a nursing room to want to express milk after a course.

Cleaning lady: 妳要什么? (What do you want?)
Me: 我要挤奶。(I want to squeeze milk)
Dots.

And this awkward situation when I was at the court entrance security screening. Of course I was stopped with a black coolent bag of breastmilk and a funny looking piece of machine otherwise known as the breast pump.

Security (who appeared to be a young man): Mdm, what is it in your bag?
Me: Breast pump.
Security: I will need to take a look.
Me: ok sure.
Security( examining my breast pump): This one heavy item, dangerous. We need to leave it at the counter. You can collect it when you leave.
Me (thinking to myself, siao bo, you think I Bo dai Bo Ji will throw my expensive breast pump at the Judge or what meh): err... But I need to express milk now.
Security (continued examining my bag if related items): what is in this black bag Mdm?
Me: errrr... My breastmilk?
Security: Can I take a look?
Me (awkwardly took it out of the bag for him to examine): I will need my breast pump because I need to express milk now.
Security's female superior: Sorry Mdm, he doesn't know ah.. It's okay you may enter.

A few hours later as I was leaving court, the young chap apologized to me and said he has never seen a breast pump before and that he doesn't know there is such a thing. Haha! So cute!