This Sunday we celebrate Mother’s Day so we wanted to recognise some hard working Super Hu-Mum’s from our region. We asked a few friends and clients about their experiences of being a Super Hu-mum. Today we hear from Lorraine Howie from Pre Retirement Consultant services Ltd and Jill Turner of Jill Turner Associates.
Lorraine Howie
1993
The fab hugs from my boy who’s now a man & towers above me!
Missing out on stuff when they’re tiny
Keep calm & drink wine! Does that count?!!!
A friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer when her boy was born. Subsequently it reoccurred & she’s beat it again. You would never know she’s had cancer, she just gets on with her life.
Q1: What is your name
Jill Turner
Q2: When did you become a become a mum
In 2009 during a thunderstorm and an incredibly rainy day in June
Q3: What do you enjoy most about being a Mum?
Watching my children play and their smiles, it puts me right into the moment and makes me refocus.
Q4: What’s the hardest thing about being a working Mum?
I get tremendous support at home and have built my work and business around my family so I can’t really say I have any major struggles except perhaps when my children are not well. Perhaps the hardest part is working with people who don’t give any importance to family commitments. I know many mums who don’t have any choice over how and when they work and this can give rise to tension and stresses from being conflicted in their duties as a mum and duties as an employee.
Q5: If you could share one piece of advice with other working Mums, what would it be?
Teach them at an early age how to use the hoover, stack the dishwasher, empty the washing machine and make a good cup of tea. After which they could progress onto scanning and shredding documents, cashflow modelling and washing clients cars whilst we are in a strategy meeting.
But seriously though, I would bring my children into the workplace so they can see what you do, why you do it, where you do it and who you do it with. If sure as a child it helps them to picture where their Mum is during times of separation. My children are tiny still, I guess it will be completely different when they are teenagers, they’ll probably want to picture where I am for different purposes, so they know how much time they have to get up to teenage mischief in my absence.
Q6: If you could nominate another Super Hu-Mum who would it be and why?
Well I think it would have to be my Mum. She didn’t get an opportunity to follow her career until later in life. Her father made her leave school at sixteen as he didn’t see the point in girls being educated and he wanted her to start contributing to the household and help in the shop. It was only after she had her own children and felt we were old enough, that Mum went to teacher training college. Sometimes it was hard as I thought Mum cared more about her children at school than us. We didn’t understand about the responsibilities of teaching and any jealousy or ill feelings toward her pupils, melted away as my sister and I ploughed our way through all the chocolates she had bought for them, one Christmas. Mum went on to become a head teacher and we were so proud when we went to her retirement party. During her speech, she said how important her daughters were to her and how she would hear no nonsense about what girls could and couldn’t achieve. It was a great feeling and one that’s stayed with me forever.