I can't have it all right now

by Mamamia Team June 21, 2012

I used to want to be

Well, more accurately Carrie Bradshaw, but SJP was high up on my list too.

As a writer surrounded by my supportive girlfriends while we battled with the world of relationships – and the most fashion courageous (read: outrageous) of my girlfriends – I used to consider myself the Carrie of our group. We even debated over a bottle of wine (or three) one night who we all resembled from the show – something I’m sure most of my generation of

Sex and the City

loving gals have done. But now, seven years on since watching the final episode with said girlfriends and jugs of Cosmopolitans in our own special farewell, it’s a new SJP that we’re looking up to.

But is this a good thing?

Her film

‘I Don’t Know How She Does It’

, based on the

book by Allison Pearson

, is all about trying to find balance in a life consumed by work, kids and marriage. Something our friend SJP also talks a lot about. And as a former Sex and the City addict, I listen intently to her reflections on motherhood and careers, trying to get tips on work/life balance from her like I used to get fashion advice.

If she can do it, so can I.

But as I frantically run from a full-time job, to freelance writing, to my children’s day care, to a three minute conversation with my husband before falling unconscious into bed, I found myself reconsidering my longing for Sarah Jessica Parker’s life.

With her films, producing commitments, perfumes and Melbourne cup appearances, as well as her marriage and three children, our SJP seems to be the perfect pin-up girl for all of us that have graduated from our Cosmos to our Babycinos.

This is the woman who seems to have it all.

I don’t think so.

Even SJP admits with the nannies, babysitters and luxury of taking time off after a film, she feels like it’s a massive juggling act. So if she struggles despite all the extras her fantastic life brings, how am I supposed to do it?

I am one of those Mums that has to work. Not for money (although yes, that’s a pretty big consideration considering the Carrie Bradshaw-esque shoe obsession), but I need to work because it’s part of who I am. I have to write and work to be a better person, and therefore a better Mum. And my philosophy is as long as my two daughters are coping with Mummy’s schedule, then all is OK.

That is until Mummy is not coping with her schedule.

Even though I spend most of my time telling myself and anyone who’ll listen that I am coping just fine, the reality is most of the time I’m totally frazzled. Sometimes, in between running from work to swimming lessons to the supermarket to pick up nappies because my poor 20-month-old is wearing the last, very soggy looking one in the house, I have to remind myself to breathe.

Just stop and take a breath.

And it’s a very long, strained, breath.

Is this success? Is this what we have fought for – to be the woman who has everything from the flourishing career to the adorable children and the hard-working but family-devoted partner? Are we just trying to be that woman everyone looks at and proclaims ‘I Don’t Know How She Does It’?

Looking around me at the women we most admire, I think the answer is yes. We idolise the women who bounce back straight after babies with a film, a cookbook and the front cover of Harper’s Bazaar. We buy magazines with interviews with new Mum Miranda Kerr by the thousands to read how she is ‘balancing’ it all. We can’t get enough of it. Why?

Even SJP doesn’t know how we do it. 'It is a heroic endeavour every day,'' she told her Melbourne press conference, ''how [working mothers] accomplish the things they accomplish with little or no support."

I hear you sister.

So what’s the answer? I know I’m not ready to give it all up, and would probably fall into a heap if the pace of my life slowed down too much. But I do think the alarm bells are starting to ring for me that perhaps that illusive balance is getting further and further away. It’s time for a reality check. It’s time to realise that maybe I can’t have it all right now, just like I couldn’t have Carrie’s Manolo collection. Or the New York apartment that I so longed for. But that’s OK – because I got my life instead.

It’s time to get real. And breathe.

And make sure we remember exactly How She Does It.

Amy Taylor-Kabbaz has been a producer at ABC Radio for nearly 12 years, but it was the birth of her first child that reignited her childhood passion for writing. She is now the ABC’s resident Mummy blogger with her weekly blog “