Julie Jay: Being a mammy is the one job you can’t quit

Because we have somehow fallen into a traditional way of doing things, my husband has been working since JJ was five days old, while I have waved him off in porridge-encrusted pyjamas like a Civil War widow. 

Every week he returns and cryptic clues point to exciting times. Recently, I thought I spotted blood on his joke notebook. 

"Has comedy become even more cutthroat?" I enquired before learning it was "just beetroot" — the forgotten root vegetable.

City life has officially changed my husband into a hipster.

Being a mammy is the one job you can’t quit. I know because I’ve googled it. 

Of course, the reasons for wanting to cut and run are understandable — most of your day is spent praying for a toilet break and mealtimes usually consist of eating a Babybel on your way to clean up somebody’s vomit. 

If the working conditions attached to parenting existed in any other profession, your friends would tell you to P45 your way out of there all the way to Jobseekers-ville.

The thing about being self-employed is that maternity leave goes on for as long as you can afford it. 

In my case, financial needs had me sending emails before JJ had crowned. 

Even now, a whole eight weeks later, whenever I think of allowing myself an extra hour’s lie-in, I ask myself: 'What would Leo Varadkar do?' and drag my bedraggled bottom out of the bed quicker than you can say 'sleep is for the weak'.

Being back at work is pretty surreal, and the first show is a big one: Liberty Hall is surely the most apt spot for my Britney show. 

Given that it is an iconic trade union building and that James Connolly himself was basically the Britney of his time, there is a beautiful synergy to performing the show to 300 lovely people, none of whom are asking me to breastfeed them.

Before the show, I am feeling the love from Mary, an icon who works in Liberty Hall. 

Mary presents me with a tray of tea and biscuits and is so lovely to me — telling me to mind myself after the baby — I don’t quite know how to handle it. 

So I do what Irish people do best: nervously joke and hope the moment of sentiment passes quickly.

“I bet Tommy Tiernan never had to pump before a Vicar Street,” I say to the promotions team who have landed, and we laugh the knowing laugh of women taking over the world, one malfunctioning breast pump at a time.

Over the course of my 24 hours in the big smoke, I do two radio interviews and am asked in both if I miss the babies. 

The truth is I haven’t had time to miss them, what with my headspace being consumed by technical issues with the show and other comedy-related problems. 

But it is all a doddle in comparison to the daily domestic sweat. Despite shortening my lifespan by at least five years with the stress, I would take PowerPoint problems over a baby that can’t be winded any day.

Back in the '90s, I would watch Oprah every day after school, and every day after school I would do an inward eye roll as she reminded my fellow 14-year-olds everywhere that being a mother was the ‘hardest job in the world'.

 ‘If it’s that hard, why can you do it wearing pyjamas?’ I would say to myself silently for fear my mother would hear me.

But here’s the thing: I absolutely know it to be true now. 

Being a mammy is the toughest job in the world — and I once worked in a hot dog stand which didn’t sell buns. 

A quick sidebar: the year was 2005 and we had all decided the only thing that stood between us and a Jennifer Aniston body was that old food devil Mr Carbohydrate. 

Every day, I would explain we didn’t sell buns, and everyday customers would respond with: “But it's a hot dog stand?” and I would shrug the shameless Celtic Tiger shrug of a woman who would never again have that amount of disposable income. 

Arduous? You bet. Still, that job wasn’t a patch on parenting and the challenges it presents.

Last weekend, as I struggled to get my Britney mic working, I thought surely there must be an easier way to earn a crust, like signing your friends up to a pyramid scheme or selling turf on the black market.

But then I reminded myself how difficult it is to be faced with a crying baby that you can’t soothe in the wee hours of the morning; how tricky it is when your toddler has kicked off in a supermarket queue because he is too tired. 

Of the sheer sense of failure you feel when you’re the only mammy in the playground who forgot to pack baby wipes. 

Of the constant sense of running at full capacity while feeling what you’re doing is never even close to being enough.

If you are a mammy, remember what you are doing is the hardest thing. 

No job is more difficult than trying to be a good parent, and you deserve all the Babybels in the world, anytime you fancy. And that is the gospel, according to Oprah.