An Australian mother, whose little boy has Down syndrome, has penned a poignant post about the reality of being a working mum.
Kat Abianac, who juggles her work as the owner of a social media company with caring for her son, Parker, five, shared the candid post to Facebook.
Scores of mothers were moved by her words and offered their support.
‘Every morning I’m home, my son slips his little hand in my hand and we go downstairs together,’ Kat wrote.
‘I leave for a week today. And I only just got home.
‘I’m looking into the future and pre-emptively missing him, using it as a reason to feel guilty about going, because he needs me and I should be with him.
‘He’s so little. He’s only 5. He needs me to be here, and present. Not so much time away.
‘I think back to when I worked full time. He was in full time day care, I picked him up at 6pm, bed at 7:30 and straight out the door for school the next morning.
‘But I was ‘home’ with him.’
But Kat went on to say that she’s leaving for a reason.
‘I’m leaving so I can be present, and with him.
‘I’m leaving so he doesn’t ‘need’ me as much, and has a chance to build his independence,’ she wrote.
‘I’m leaving so I don’t feel as guilty about spending time away from him- it’s a muscle that needs to be flexed often to separate from the co-dependence I formed over 16 months with my little oxygen baby.
‘I’m leaving so I can continue to afford quality personalised childcare and not 12 hours a day of dump & run.
‘I’m leaving so I can give him a future he deserves at 10, 20, 30.. 70.
‘I’m leaving because short term sacrifice means long term I get everything I want in life.
‘But I’m not leaving yet. Because my sacrifice has already started to pay off in small ways.
‘This is our quality time, and we’re spending the morning downstairs together.’
Kat’s post received hundreds of likes and scores of messages of support.
‘This is exactly what I tell myself every time I walk out the door to follow be dream of financial freedom,’ one mum wrote.
‘This makes me feel so much less guilty for leaving my 3 babies after only being home from hospital for 6 weeks,’ wrote another mum.
‘I thought 4.5 months away was the worst thing I ever did. But this is for the future I am building for my babies.
‘And for myself so I can go forward and know that I have always done my best. I no longer have an “easy” path to travel but it’s one of hope and to give us the future I dream of.
‘Thank you for taking away my guilt when no one else understands.’
