They say it takes a village to raise a child. But there are no villages anymore.

(Technically I live in a village but let’s not get bogged down in semantics. My closest family and friends are strewn across the country, not close in proximity. Words are tricksy.)

Instead of a village, I’ve found a lovely group of local Mums. We offer each other support, solidarity and good company. But now most of the Mums are back at work and my makeshift village is shrinking.

I am in the chasm of social support that appears between my child being nine months and three years old. As a self-employed person, for the first nine months of motherhood I was paid a maternity allowance of around £145 per week. Once that allowance stopped, the honeymoon period of parenting ended and I felt cut asunder. When my child reaches three, the state will pay for a set number of hours of childcare per week. Until then, I’m on my own with paltry child benefit.

Let’s be clear, my child still requires full-time care. He’s now one, only just starting to walk and not yet talking, utterly dependent upon others for his survival. Looking after him is a full-time job. If I was to take on other work, then I would have to pay someone else to look after my baby-cum-toddler. That person, or institution, would be paid far more than I receive in child benefit (I think the cheapest nearby nursery option is £40 per day). My freelance earnings are too unreliable and meagre to cover such costs. And it seems silly to seek a higher-paid job that I might not like in order to pay someone to look after my child, which is a job that I do like. Today I took my baby to story-time at the library. A childminder and some nursery staff were there too, professionally employed, and me and some fellow Mums were doing the same thing unpaid. Society attributes no financial value to our role, despite rewarding the job when outsourced. Is it any wonder that Mums feel devalued? Why can’t I get that job for which I am surely the most qualified candidate?

This is just one part of a knotty bind. For whilst I want recognition for the job of parenting, I’ve always enjoyed my ‘career’ too. I love journalism. I try to pursue this whenever my child is sleeping. But it’s very difficult to do two jobs well simultaneously: I parent distractedly and work distractedly, doing neither with panache. Furthermore, this squeezes out all the time for relaxation and leisure and then the storm in my head threatens to capsize me.

I don’t know how to parent in the modern world. I am a walking contradiction. I carry around the burden of being primary carer like a martyr’s cross, but if someone relieves me of my duties then I feel bereft. I normally write to find out what I think, but writing this is just proving to me what a muddle I am in.

One problem: my sense of self-worth is too bound up with what job I do. My identity is fused with my journalism. This is because I have been lucky enough, and motivated enough, to be able to do what I enjoy and get paid for it. When people asked what I was up to, I felt I had an interesting story to tell. Now when people ask what I’m up to, I point at my kid. He’s interesting too but it’s a more familiar story.

Another problem: Why do I think I need a salary to feel of social value? Why am I equating money with meaning when I’ve railed against that concept my whole life?

Another problem: I have competing desires. I want to continue pursuing interesting work that I consider useful to society. I also want to parent like my Mum.

My Mum was a full-time, stay-at-home Mum. She gave up her work when I was born. She says this didn’t feel like a sacrifice because her job wasn’t her passion. She loved raising me and my brother. She didn’t want to be anywhere else. She was fortunate that most of her fellow Mums felt the same and were in the same position and they raised their children together in a social web. I feel I owe much of my happiness and contentment to the solid ground that she laid before me.

Probably the best advice that I have been given is to let go of any ambition for a few years. Babies are only young once and this precious time goes vanishingly fast. I see the wisdom of this position and yearn to embrace it, but I’m also reluctant to give up work completely when I dream of throwing myself into investigations.

Non-market solutions are available. I can lean on my parents and partner to assist me with their own unpaid labour. I can arrange time-swaps of childcare with fellow Mums in the same boat. It takes courage to ask for help and effort to build mutual dependency but it seems the most attractive option. Perhaps in this way I will muddle through, being a present parent whilst dabbling in stimulating work.

I know, deep in my bones, that the job of parenting is one of the hardest and most rewarding in the world, and a mighty privilege. I’m also handsomely paid in the truest sense. Though the maternity allowance dried up, the real-world rewards are increasing exponentially. My boy now waves, makes fish faces, blows kisses and gives high-fives. Dancing with him, cheek to cheek, is my favourite thing. When he wraps his tiny arms around my neck and envelops me in a hug, it’s the sweetest sensation. And when his face breaks into a smile as I enter the room, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.