roisin whyte

So these particular musings are about work. Also, women. And the world we live in.

Fun times.

I work/have worked in different ways. I have had permanent contract jobs in a number of organisations. I have also been contracted to work for a number of organisations, long-term, on an ongoing basis. In other cases I do project work. Project work means that I may work with a group of children or adults for anything from 6 – 12 sessions. Sometimes I am asked to do one-off things, a workshop or performance -as part of a festival perhaps; (Both these things happen to be true for next weekend, when I perform as part of the Sojourner Showcase on Sat 16/11/24 and then host a kids music workshop on Sunday 17/11/24 – all part of the fabulous Sound of Belfast, links below).

The work ranges from education, to performance to facilitation (i.e. working with groups that have never/rarely had access to music-making opportunities. ALL my work has music at its core, though I also have experience working in both commercial and community radio. So there have always been threads; music, song, story community. It may not sound like a career, but it has been my path.

These are fairly prosaic details that you didn’t ask for, so why am I telling you all this?

Well. As ever, you get the spin cycle of whatever I’ve been thinking about. And I’ve been thinking about this:

The various differences/knowledge/observations/skills/loads of other shit that I have experienced as someone who has worked both in permanent post for an organisation, and someone who has worked on rolling contracts/freelance positions.

It’s well over a decade since I’ve had a permanent/pensionable job. I’m not here to go into the advantages/disadvantages of that. Nor am I here to make any judgements on which is better, more productive, more fulfilling etc. As ever, I’m sharing my personal perspectives, and observations bourne of my own experience. I feel sure that some of them will resonate, others will jar.

As I started to unpick some of this stuff in myself, I quickly noted that I couldn’t separate my working life, as it has evolved over the last 10-15 years, with my being a mother. More of that later.

I spent the first part of my working life in a number of employed posts. I was lucky enough to gain permanent work quite early on with a number of companies/organisations. I didn’t quite have a plan though, and I didn’t always take full advantage of the opportunities/experience I had access to.

Nonetheless, I continued to get decent, permanent work in good organisations. I’ve always worked with great people and have, by and large, enjoyed the various roles I’ve taken on. And they’ve been nothing if not various.

I left the last permanent job I had in 2011. It was a year and a half after our son was born and it was all too difficult. We didn’t know then that our son was autistic, and that that was the basis of why childcare was hugely problematic. He couldn’t settle anywhere even though I had reduced my hours and he was in care for relatively a very short time each week. The stress of knowing he was unsettled, the often less than supportive responses from childcare providers, made our situation untenable. I had to leave my secure job, and work in ways that could work for our family.

The next few years were hard. Trying to fit piano teaching from home around my family, taking on choirs in a number of schools when the work was there, education work in whatever short-term-contract guise it came. If you think that freelance work is the nicer/easier option, that was not my experience. Because the worst part of working for yourself, is getting the work. There is virtually always either too much or too little of it. I’m good at the work, but I’m not a hustler, and that’s a key part. This work makes for a much more variable financial situation. I oft hear people lauding the freelance/self-employed life as the best thing they’ve ever done. And good for them. I, myself, am ambiguous about it at best.

Because there have been advantages. My children are 14 and 10 now and I have been at home for them their whole school life. I have generally been able to be off with them on school holidays, as much of my work has been education based, and so doesn’t happen during the holidays. I feel like both my children have had the security, that our son in particular needed, and a large part of that has been down to the work choices I/we made.

I am almost at the list bit. But first of all I need to elaborate on something that may seem tangental, but I feel is hugely significant in the context of my working life. As far as I can see there is no meaningful mention or tangible measurement of it, and I suspect that is because it pertains to women and mothers.

A Mother’s Mental Load/The Motherload: I can hear the groans from here. If this is the point at which you switch off/scroll away, fair enough. But your disinterest is telling.

For anyone still here, Motherload is all of the things that mother’s take on for their children/dependents. (It can also affect women who aren’t mothers, but have caring responsibilities). As a mam, these things include, but are in no way limited to: Scheduling extra curricular activities (music/sport/drama/karate etc, and the relevant carpool that go with)/ensuring these activities are paid for/getting the gear for them/organising ever more elaborate party-gatherings by navigating a maize of never-ending WhatsApp groups/finding some random bit of wood/metal/cardboard/linen/paint for whatever latest school project has popped up on whatever ever new school app one is obliged to sign up to/teacher meetings/non-uniform days/sleep-overs/homework/music practice/wacky-hair-day….and on and on. The best bit being that you will generally feel like you’re failing, because despite the fact that you’ll keep 99% of these things on track, you’ll inevitably drop some ball. You’ll see the disappointment on your kid’s face and THAT ONE THING will haunt you (and, you fear, be the thing your kid will remember).

These are the things that go with parenting a child. It’s all part of it. And you may be internally eye-rolling right now thinking well, you signed up for this, no-one forced you to’…. And to that I have to say DID I?! You may note that I used the word ‘parenting’ in the first sentence of this paragraph. Parenting, not mothering. Societally, we are still in a place where mothers overwhelmingly take on these rolls. Don’t come at me with but dads do…..It doesn’t help, and I’ll tell you why.

My husband, the dad in question in our lives is a gorgeous and great human. He is a brilliant dad because he is kind & tender, curious, protective and endlessly interested in our kids. He is involved is every aspect of our kids lives. The nature of my work, as I have said already, is that at times I have too much of it to deliver at once. I can struggle and stress in those times and the husband/dad in my life jumps in and says let me help. Tell me what to do.

And therein, I believe, is the crux.

Tell me what to do – only works, if in the sharing of the what to do, the task is FULLY transferred to the other person. In essence, Person 1 gives all the known details that they have of the task at that point to Person 2. Person 2 now takes full responsibility for the task, for keeping an eye on that task and whether any of the particulars of it are likely to change. In an ideal situation, Person 1 can then forget about this particular task. The phrase Tell me what to do, however, implies that Person 1 perpetually knows more Person 2, and so the ultimate responsibility remains with the Person 1. The parameters of the task could change; maybe the kids were originally going to go in fancy dress to the party but now they’ll be jumping mad in a trampoline park, so they need to wear sporty gear. Person 1 is in the WhatsApp group so they are getting this info. They will need to pass all additional info onto Person 2. It is actually increasing their workload. I’m sure it’s where that ‘ol chestnut of: I tried to help her but she was happier doing it herself, as the stereotype of the fussy woman comes from. No she wasn’t happier doing it herself – your ‘help’ ultimately wasn’t helpful.

I may not have explained that every well. Feel free to ask for clarification. I am using the mam/dad model here. I’d be surprised if similar tensions didn’t arise in same sex couples with kids, but I can’t speak from experience there. I am trying to show that the Motherload is so called, because it not often equally shared, even if there is willing to. Somehow, mother’s still have the ultimate responsibility for making sure the thing, whatever thing is, happens. That’s what the Motherload is, not the actual task itself.

That was quite the long and winding road. I share it, because it is important in the context of my professional working life, which is where we all began.

I am more skilled, experienced and capable than I have ever been. It is as simple as that. I don’t always appreciate that fact. I have, and at times still do, believe some very damaging and untrue things about myself in terms of my own worth, abilities usefulness etc. We all are cruel to ourselves in ways we wouldn’t conceive of being to others. I am particularly inclined to come at myself with the Jack of all Trades, Master of None, idea. The nature of my work has been varied. I may, at any given time be teaching piano one to one, preparing and directing school choirs, performing for residents at care homes, teaching music theory classes, performing my own music in a festival lineup and on and on. Each of these are specialisms. I have colleagues and friends who spend their entire professional lives honing their skills in just one of these areas. And it is possible to spend a lifetime doing that, and know at the end that there is so much more to learn, because joyfully, there always is. I don’t like to be mediocre at something, and so having such variety in what I do, does feed into an insecurity that I am just that – mediocre at best.

But the fact remains; I am more skilled, experienced and capable than I have ever been.

I will now take the mish-mash of all that information above and create my in no-particular-order list

• There is opportunity within stable, employed roles to learn, develop take on challenge and grow. I’ve seen many friends and colleagues thrive in this way. There is also opportunity to avoid responsibility, remain in comfort zones, take paths of least resistance. I’ve seen this too. I make no judgement on people who regard their work as something they do, and chose other areas of their life to be curious and to progress. What I do think, is that that is not a luxury afforded to the freelance/self-employed worker.
• I have learned to be a better musician/worker/colleague/manager because I didn’t have the support mechanisms of bigger organisation. I struggle in very significant ways with organisation and admin. As both a professional & a mother I have HAD to take responsibility for any shortcomings I have, and address my anxieties around management/organisation etc. Management in organisations is generally shared across staff teams. There are systems in place to support workers, and means of shared accountability. That is not the case when you work for yourself.
• My name is on ALL my work. On what I believe are the rare occasions that I’ve not brought my A game to a job, it has cost me in lost opportunities. (This is rarely an issue for employed people). In addition, my poor performance in the past could often be traced to a workload + young children imbalance. It is something that disproportionately affects women and is rarely acknowledged, much less examined, by powers that be in the workforce.
• I was always blessed with great colleagues in my various working roles. I regard myself as introverted. Yes, my preference is probably to sit and play music/go walking with my husband. But I do like to socialise sometimes, as I am endlessly curious about people. I feel the loss of a group of work colleagues keenly.
• The Motherload, as described above means I have gained exceptional abilities to problem solve that I simply wouldn’t have otherwise. In our particular case, the additional, relentless and ever evolving challenges that come with parenting a neurodiverse child mean I and we as a family have many barriers to overcome. These myriad of things would never come up in a job interview situation. But they should. They represent some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to take on. As well as sleepless nights, they have given me resilience I didn’t know I had.

The final thing I would like to say about how society screws it up when it comes to women: I do believe; (and I’ve said twice now!), that I am now more skilled, experienced, knowledgable than I’ve ever been. I was never a people pleaser as such, but there has always been certain kind of person that I could potentially feel a little intimidated by, maybe put myself out for their benefit. Occasionally, I probably still do, but I’ve been working on that too. I am better at speaking up for myself and declaring what I know is my worth. (speaking your truth even if your voice shakes etc)….To get all this knowledge and skill and problem-solving experience I had to do what society seems to see as the most vulgar thing a woman can do….

I had to age.

I reckon the world knows how extraordinary middle-aged women are. How over all of your shit we are, and that world is terrified at the prospect that we might get the keys to the kingdom.

All of this has come up for me this week because, I will, in the course of my working life:

• see approximately 150 children in 2 schools as part of the education project I work on
• prepare pieces of music for the wonderful members of the RNIB (Royal National Institute of the Blind) – our singing group that will perform at a showcase next Spring.
• start to prepare for a trad ensemble class I will be taking in January
• meet with someone to help start Irish language classes at my daughter’s primary school
• perform my own music at a gig at the Sound of Belfast festival
• host a kids music workshop as part of Sound of Belfast

And I’m trying to see this in terms of the very considerable efforts I have put in all these areas, rather than the Jack of All Trades voice in my head (see above for professional insecurity).

If this middle-aged woman ever decides to return to secure permanent employment, she may succeed. And whoever courted me successfully would be well lucky to have me.

Or she may fail, with her age counting against her. Because as well as all the legends there are out there. There are some awful stupid fuckers out there too.

https://soundofbelfast.com/events/sojourner-open-mic-night-showcase

https://soundofbelfast.com/events/sound-explorers-rhyme-travellers?rq=sound%20explorers