The Curse of the Working Mum

I have a flighty brain, my thoughts tend to jump all over the place at the best of times, after all I am a counter clockwiser.
But I am convinced that I will never be the best in the field at my job (Database Administrator - DBA), or even the best on my team and I blame being a working mum.

Another DBAess I work with has no child like distractions:

DBAess:          "You see the script saves the last line number as a cint, once you hit
                       32768  lines it stops"
Me out loud:   "ok, do you want me to revisit it or do you want to do it"
       inside :     "bugger, bugger, bugger, didn't spot the cint"

DBAess :        "the next problem is that the overflow hung for 72 hours...."
Me inside:      "Shit, PE day tomorrow forgot to switch washing machine on,
                       I'll never get it dry overn..."
DBAess:         "so you need to revisit the schedule..."
Me inside       "I hate the windows scheduler, where's cron when you need it"
DBAess:          "....the output needs to be..."
Me inside         "15:25, she should call to let me know she's home,
                           why hasn't she rung yet.  I suppose it's a bit early"
DBAess:          "...OK?"
Me outloud:     "Absolutely, leave it with me"

And she can leave it with me and I will fix it but I still seem to have a constant child distraction even without child present.  DBAess remembers the dictionary views (it's a DBA thing) because she doesn't have to remember a school timetable, PE days, homework diary, yet another school letter to return.  My brain is full and then I have to squeeze work into it as well.  My little book of views sits unattended on the breakfast table, waiting for the quiet moment.

Strangely it was easier when daughter was younger, it seems that the older she gets the more complicated her life becomes and the more it complicates mine.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind.  Above everything I am a Mum.  If I had nothing else in the world I would still be happy.  But adding 'Working' to Mum adds a complication to my career that only another Working Mum would understand.

I may be wrong but I don't think Dads have the same issues.  The ones that I work with all have wives (both WMs and SAHMs) to do the child thinking for them.  Maybe single-parent Dads with primary responsibility would understand but on the whole I think it is a Working Mum issue.

I want to be the best at my job, I really enjoy it and I am good at what I do but there always seems to be a child related reason to me having to leave the office before 6pm or not work all weekend or even just concentrate 100%.

I blame the women of the 70's who convinced the world we could 'have it all'.

I can't.

This is pretty funny though:
 

http://xkcd.com/327/