One of Daughter-Two’s favourite books is “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins”, and I have been thinking lately that I feel like I have 500 hats myself.

And I have been thinking about how men and women - and their hats - differ. Most men, it seems, have just a few hats. A work hat, a Daddy hat, maybe a “Thursday night at the squash club” hat. And, generally, they only wear one hat at a time.

 

In fact, when they leave for work they usually leave their Daddy hat at home and don’t even think about putting it back on again until they get home.

 

 

Women, on the other hand, have many, many hats. Off the top of my head (pun intended) I can think of my Mummy hat, cook hat, cleaner hat, secretary hat (since I handle all the paperwork), tutor hat and then my work hat. In fact, I even have two different work hats – one which is fun and quirky and another which is a little more subdued and perhaps a little dull, but which I have had for a long time and don’t want to throw out.

 

 

And, like most women, I rarely get to wear one hat for any length of time. Sometimes I’m swapping them around so fast it’s a blur. And sometimes I’m wearing two or more balanced precariously on top of each other, as I try to cook dinner, think about an email I need to send and supervise homework at the same time.

 

 

Even when I went to work in the office, I would have to take my Mummy hat with me on the train intoLondon, ready to replace the work hat at, well, the drop of a hat. And in my lunchbreak I would be making phone calls to rsvp for a child’s birthday invitation then dashing out to the supermarket to buy food for dinner and a present for the birthday party.

If men even tried to wear more than one hat at a time it would surely end in disaster. One of those hats would slip down and they would crash the metaphorical car or walk into the metaphorical lamp-post. But I wonder – are women better at multi-tasking because we are born that way or is it just because we have to and it’s just one big conspiracy against us?

 

As you can probably gather, it has been one of those weeks. I really need to clone myself.

Now you must excuse while I don another hat (the “helpful” neighbour hat) while I advise the people next door that they were mistaken in their belief that their teenager was responsible enough to be left alone in the house overnight. (If they are not apologetic enough I suspect I may need to pull out the “outraged at being kept awake till 3am hat”).

 

I leave you with the results of the precious little time I was able to wear the “digital designer” hat this week (all at Designer Digitals):

 

 

 

And there is a freebie from me this week too:

 

Comments

[Lisa]

Sounds familiar! ;) It's a good thing we are so good at wearing all of those hats!

And I love what you created while you had your digital designer hat on this week! Beautiful!

[Linda Motes]

Very nice blog. Enjoyed reading about all the hats we wear. Good insight.

[Heather G]

Glad you found some time for your Designer Digitals hat.

I haven't heard of that particular Dr. Seuss book before, going to have to have a gander at it.

[anke]

Oh Lynn you cracked me up with the hats and the teenagers next door!! I love your new products, that paper is awwweeeessssoooome!!!!

[Merrilee]

Lynn, I hope you never take off your designer hat (at least not for very long). The new designs you created are wonderful! Clever writing! I love thinking of the image of you taking off and replacing hats in a blur. You're the greatest. Hang in there! The problem at getting really good at juggling the hats is that you get to keep doing it!

[Jen Martakis]

What great kits! I too know the joy it is to juggle several hats at once. ;)