The value of a stay-at-home mum & uni-tasking

There are many instances when I feel like I a hamster running on a wheel non-stop, I suppose most stay-at-home mums feel like that. Dont get me wrong, Im very grateful and appreciative of the role I have - there are plenty of mother's who dont have this luxury and are forced back into the work place, missing out on the first precious years of the baby's development.  Did you know, on average, stay-at-home mums spend 71 hours a week doing housework - the many thankless jobs such as cooking, cleaning, washing, tidying up, baby/child care (feeding, clothes changing, nappy changing, teaching, playing, protecting, entertaining etc.) - all this is valued at £577 per week or a total of £ 30,032 a year.  Which brings me to my next interesting fact, discovered on a life insurance advert - 30% of parents would have  to work part time or stop work totally in order to look after their children, if their partner (ie. stay-at-home mum) was no longer around. Is it me or are we generally just very under-valued, under-appreciated and sometimes just plain down-trodden upon ? Our job is one of the hardest in the world, the most rewarding and forfilling, but it is really, really HARD WORK ! I have worked in an office, had a few career changes, many different bosses - over the past 12 years. I've worked in border-line hard labour jobs and also very dull, monotonous desk jobs. All of those jobs and careers pale into insignificance in terms of reward and tiredness, when compared to what I do now. I've always prided myself and the rest of female kind in our ability to multi-task. But I've come to the realisation that multi-tasking is really not that fruitful or productive most of the time. It's a panicked attempt at doing many things quickly and ultimately quite badly. That is because we are not super-human and are not really wired to complete complex and also simple tasks simultaneously, without causing an accident or just doing those many different tasks, badly. There is a new term, it's called "UNI-TASKING". Basically it means, doing one thing very well or completely instead of doing ten things badly or incompletely. Food for thought I say. To conclude, the only way to get by these days, whether you are a housewife, a corporate high-flyer, a teacher or a rocket scientist, is to focus on the task at hand, keep your cool and live in the countryside. Yes, you heard me, live in the sticks. Latest research proves that the mind is at its healthiest and most content when the body is living in the countryside away from urban hussle and bussle. Balmy, country breezes flood the human brain with mood elevating serotonin. I believe this firmly, I lived in an urban environment and found it extremely stressful and agitating. Now I live in the countryside and it's the best thing we ever did. We have been living here in the countryside for over seven years now. It took me over seven years to write my recently published novel, "Scorpio Moon", now I have to try and get it sold. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005L3RPE0
Okay, that's all from me for now, I am pretty knackered and still need to do some shopping (online). Till next time !