Mum in profile: Annabel Crabb
Annabel Crabb
Writer, journalist, mum
Libbi Gorr said recently Annabel Crabb has ‘a sharpness of mind and an unruliness of hair that strikes a chord.’
A mother of two under four, Walkley award winning Annabel is one of Australia’s most respected media commentators and is currently the ABC Online's chief political writer and a regular presenter on THE DRUM.
Annabel was an early adopter of digital conversation and with over 30,000 Twitter followers she wields significant influence in the online sphere. With the backing of her ‘rare creature’ husband, Annabel tells Essential Baby flexible work practices are the foundation to her world and allow her to produce - amongst many other things – a versatile pasta bake.
Annabel, how many children do you have and what ages/sex are they?
I have a daughter, Audrey, who is four, and a son, Elliott, who has just turned one.
What has surprised you the most about becoming a mother? Is it what you expected?
I think that before I had children, I was preoccupied with counting up the sorts of things motherhood obliges you to give up. I sort of had to be talked into it a bit, actually – mainly because I’ve always loved my work so much. What I didn’t expect was the extent to which I wouldn’t mind all that stuff – the early mornings, the nappies, the madness.
What you don’t factor in, before it happens (and how can you?) is that the compensation – laughter, fascination, love - is wildly disproportionate to the inconvenience. I suppose that’s probably an evolutionary thing. Otherwise we’d all be eating our young.
You managed to cover the Election 2010 from all angles - TV, radio, online, various forms of social media. Please tell us how you managed that period with a young baby and toddler!
Okay – the first thing is that my partner, Jeremy, is a rare creature. A lawyer and hands-on Dad who takes turns. He looked after the kids full-time during the election campaign; I was around, but busy, because my agreement with the ABC was that I would return to work full-time the second the election was called. Elliott was five months old. You can just imagine the crazy feeding juggle. My Mum airlifted herself in from the farm in rural SA, too; she is a massive help, always.
Even without an election you appear to have a demanding job, yet always seem so calm. On a daily basis how do you manage the logistics of work and childcare?
I work in a way that would have been impossible ten – even five years ago, maybe. I work from home, in the main. I go into the ABC most days, but only for the time I need to be in studio for radio and TV. I don’t even have a desk at the ABC; I take my iPad in, and set up wherever I’m working that day. The rest of the time I am upstairs in my little home office; I am usually up with the kids at about six thirty, then at my desk from about eight, which is about the time Jeremy leaves for work too.
Since the election, we have a live-in au pair, Julie, who looks after the kids during the day; Audrey also has two days a week at ICC, the excellent child care centre in the ABC building at Ultimo. The great blessing of my life is flexibility; I can start early and finish early or (as often happens) get a lot of work done after the children are in bed. Working from home, with Julie on board, means that I can see the kids at lunch and in the mornings and cook them dinner, without wasting time in traffic.
I’m not always as calm as you generously suggest. I’m still struggling with the problem of turning off from work; working from home has its downsides, and always being switched on to work is one of them. Every morning, I read books aloud in an oddly-staged manner that allows long gaps so I can hear Fran Kelly’s interview. My children become suspicious, as you can imagine.
Not being from Sydney, do you have family or a network around to help if things start to fall through the cracks….?
My parents, and Jeremy’s, are in South Australia. And yes – it would be lovely if we all lived in the same place. But we have people around; my best friend from primary school, Wendy, lives just up the road and is a) a super-mother and b) studying psychology so she is brilliant for both “Oh my God! What the hell is parvo-virus?” AND “I think I am going crazy”. Very handy.
Another great mate of mine, Miranda, has just moved in around the corner, too. But seriously, I don’t want to suggest that I just battle on, courageously, heroically, and so on. I have help. Having an au pair live in is a brilliant solution for us. It’s cheaper than child care, and it means I can see the kids during the day, and there’s always someone there to hold the baby for twenty minutes while I do a radio interview. Having someone else living with you is a little weird at first, but you get used to it, and we’ve found it’s sort of fun to have someone else around.
Many mums strive for consistent ‘me time’. Do you manage to get it and what do you like to do?
I like reading books in bed. That’s good “me time”. But otherwise if I have free time I want to be with the kids. It’s the one thing I miss in my pre-children life.
As a writer, how challenging is it to ‘turn on’ the creative juices when you have the demands of small children?
I am much more disciplined now. I start work earlier. I concentrate better. I don’t wander away from my desk.
As a mother, what do you think you're pretty good at?
Baking. Making costumes. Reading. Making up stories.
...and what are you terrible at?
Consistency. Tidying up. Checking the pigeonhole at child care.
Many working mums say they actually envy women without strong ambition outside the home. It certainly can make life simpler. Have there been times when you've thought 'this is just too hard!' and considered giving up your work to become a full time mum?
It’s hard for me to answer that question. I don’t really see my job as a product of or expression of ambition so much; I don’t want to end up editing a newspaper or running a network, or anything like that. It’s much more an expression of the things I’m interested in – politics, for example.
If I didn’t work, I’d be interested in them anyway, so it seems natural to write about them. Of course, some days you feel like falling over. But I don’t actually think that’s very unique to working mums. I think all mums feel like that. Raising children is hard whether you work at another job or not. It’s hard because all of a sudden you have this new vulnerability, these little hostages to fortune running around. It’s hard because you’re never sure you’re doing it right.
What would you say is the hardest element of being a working mother?
Guilt. Fear of missing out. Fear of buggering it up.
And the best?
Being able to work flexibly in a way that maximises my productive time and my time with the kids. It can be exhausting at times, but I never forget that the reason I can have this flexibility is that some seriously kick-arse ladies laid the groundwork. The next step is for more men to feel free to work flexibly, too.
Annabel, finally a question all mums must face - what are you feeding your children for dinner tonight?
Probably my standard fallback: Pasta bake, a diabolically stodgy but universally popular combination of pasta, vegetables, cheese and often tuna in a white sauce. It can be prepared in advance and doled out for days. It can be eaten with hands or cutlery. It can be taken on the road. Hell, it could probably be used to pave a road. And it has cheese on top.
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