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To work or not to work is merely the beginning of the work/life balance for most mothers. It is also a question that denies mothering the status of employment. Childcare, running a household and your partner’s career are just some of the pieces of the motherhood puzzle. Somewhere, in the middle of it all, is someone keeping the ship afloat.

Sarah Moore
Sarah has been with her partner Martin Thorpe for nine years. They have two children: Freddie, five, and Eleanor, three.

Combining motherhood and teaching was always on Sarah’s agenda. What she didn’t anticipate was the conflict she would feel when it came to leaving her children in order to nurture and develop the children of others.

“I started my teaching career at a school in London, assisting in the reception class with the littlies, the four- and five-year-olds. I’d always wanted to work with children, and right from the beginning I just loved it.”

The job was a maternity leave cover, so Sarah planned to work for a year and then travel through Asia, ultimately ending up in Australia. “I met Martin in my first month in Australia,” she recalls. “Believe it or not we were picking pears, working as a team and ending up as a pair.”

The couple returned to the UK so that Martin could obtain his qualifications as a solicitor, having recently graduated in law. Sarah went back to the same school and back to her career. “But we ended up immigrating to Australia,” she explains. “We both love
it here and it seems such a good place to bring up kids.”

Freddie was only nine months old when the family immigrated, and Sarah became pregnant with Eleanor soon after. “I’d planned to study play therapy in Australia – I felt it would add a whole extra dimension to my work with children and my mothering.” But she found her pregnancy made study impossible, so once Eleanor turned two, Sarah started looking for another teaching job. “I’d approached most of the Montessori schools in Sydney when we first got here, so they already knew who I was. I got a position pretty quickly at a school in Ryde and started the job at the beginning of the second term.”

“I knew almost straight away that I’d made a mistake. I still loved working with children – watching their progress and helping develop it gave me a huge degree of satisfaction – but it just felt so wrong to be leaving my children every day to work with other children.”

Sarah also found that working every day had a profound impact on her family. “In some ways it was good,” she says. “Martin had always been very involved, but now he had to be hands-on in a practical way and that really extended his relationship with Freddie and Eleanor. The main problem was the kids found it really hard to adjust to me being away all day, every day, and I was so bonded with them it was hard for me too. I’d used my training to set up a schedule for them and I knew what they were doing at each stage of the day; it just felt really sad to let go of that. I decided I needed to find another way of working.”

Yoga had always played a huge role in Sarah’s life, and after a prenatal yoga course during her pregnancy with Eleanor, she quickly became a devotee. “I was, and am, incredibly into yoga and it suddenly hit me that teaching yoga to children would be the perfect alternative. I’d be able to use all of my training and knowledge, combine it with my love of yoga and spend more time with my family. It would be a job that would include Freddie and Eleanor rather than exclude them.” Sarah approached her instructor and he agreed to take her through the training period that would qualify her as an instructor.

“I decided to concentrate on teaching children’s and prenatal classes,” says Sarah, “and since I started I haven’t looked back.”

“Running my own classes allows me to be flexible with my time. I can structure my schedule around the kids and as they get older and start school I’ll be free to take on more classes.” The trade-off is time with Martin.

“Working around the kids means taking a few of my classes during the evenings. It means I get to see less of Martin at the moment, but we balance it out by finding time for things like special dinners.” In some ways though it hasn’t meant a huge change in their relationship. “Martin’s job is pretty full-on,” explains Sarah. “I was used to spending quite a lot of my evenings at home alone anyway. I think I’m actually happier with Martin now. There’s less resentment when you’re both busy.”

Words: Francesca Newby. Photography: Sam McAdam. Hair & make-up: David Novak-Piper.