Monty Python’s Flying Circus: When Mom Goes to School

A working mother juggles like a street performer and balances like a tightrope walker, at the same time. Families struggle to cope with the important demands of modern life: office, school, transport, clothing, food, medical care, and relatives. And mom is at the centre, often with a husband who is content with providing the finances needed to meet all of these demands. She is the ringmaster of a 3-ring circus.

When I succeeded in winning a Chevening scholarship, my private circus was a flurry of activity. I was working as a full-time government officer at the Ministry of Health in far-off Papua province and was managing a toddler and a baby. My mother became terminally ill with cancer, and for 6 months I shuttled between Papua and Jakarta before finally deciding to relocate back to Jakarta. So then came a new job, new home, new schools, and coping with my mom’s illness. She passed away six months before I had to depart to UK. The move weighed heavily on me. I had to think about the care of my kids, the difficulty of getting settled in London, and my new employer tempted me to remain with the offer of a glorious promotion. My dream of studying abroad could very easily have been cast aside. The timing was very poor, but I understood that the timing for a mom to vanish is always very poor. I asked my family to brace and bear up, to do their best, and I packed my bags. This was one of the smartest decisions of my life, and also one of the hardest to make.

When the family ringmaster goes to school, everyone in the family also goes to school – the school of hard knocks, learning to make the circus work by trial and error. Moms have decisions to make about that arrangement. This is different when dad goes to school. The family can often follow him. The circus goes to a new town. But when mom has the opportunity, dad can rarely pack his bags and come along. His career and the household finances will not permit it. Somehow, the show must go on in mom’s absence. Some mom’s will take some or all of the kids with her. Others will leave them all at home and hope for the best. In the end, this is what I decided to do. It was a 1-year program of study and I figured I could make one or two trips home in that interval to check on my circus in Jakarta.

In London I settled into the business of arranging myself physically and studying as hard as possible. I maintained constant contact with the on-going circus in Jakarta. I made executive decisions from afar, like new uniforms for the kids, arranging materials for school projects, and settling an instance of my son being bullied at school. I coached homework assignments by phone or skype. All of the contact and activity created the impression in my mind that my circus was doing just fine. When I went back for a short visit after 6 months I was confident of walking back into a well-oiled machine of a household. I got a reality check. The house had been turned completely upside down. My husband had silently unleashed his affection for pets. He expanded his canine collection; I found 3 dogs where there had been one and 9 puppies where there had been none. He created entire new collections of other animals. There was a confused looking monkey sitting in a cage with 5 rabbits. A cockatoo sat regally on the veranda. Chickens wandered about the backyard pecking at the raw dirt because all of my grass and herb garden had been already pecked out of existence. The new collection of pigeons made my yard sound and smell like Trafalgar Square. And finally, near the kitchen, sitting silent as a spy, an eagle winked at me, with his eagle eyes clearly seeing that this new human presence was an agitated one. Like the Allies at Normandy beach, I set about the task of removing these invaders. I spent my holiday systematically giving them away to friends, colleagues and pet shops. The human non-combatants in the house ran for cover, and no one would take them anyway.

A colleague of mine from Vietnam brought her son to London while the husband stayed back. Does this mean she had better time than me? Not really. Her circus, half-relocated, also suffered hardships and setbacks. She had to wake up very early, to cook and prepare a lunchbox, shower and bath her son, bring him to school, rush off to the university, ran back to fetch the son to bring him to a nearby day care centre, back to university, back to fetch her son, dash to shop for groceries, go home to prepare dinner, do homework with the boy, and, finally, do her own homework while she managed the laundry.

So, moms, to bring the kids or not to bring the kids? If the worst your husband can do is assemble a menagerie, they will probably do okay without you. It really hinges on his ability and willingness to assume responsibility for the household, and your confidence in those things and your kids. If you bring them along, do not forget to bring more energy than you thought you had. If they remain behind, be prepared to find your kids picking you up at the airport with homemade haircuts, big grins showing a chipped tooth or two, and zooming towards you on roller blades with an owl perched on the shoulder. It is, after all, a circus.