So you’ve all read Fatty’s blog post on Colony, the coworking space we’re creating right now. How he conceptualized Colony, to his whole process in bringing his vision alive.

My turn to talk about it from my perspective!

So Fatty asked me to join him and help him start up Colony.  And I agreed.

Putting aside issues like how it affects our relationship and marriage, my life basically turned upside down.

I became a working mom. *jeng jeng jeng*

I don’t have to go in every day from 9 to 5 but here’s what my schedule looks like these days –

• wake up, get ready, send the kids to school
• while waiting for kids, either run errands, go wet market, or just hang around near school doing work on my laptop
• pick kids up, send them home and get them started on lunch
• sneak out, head over to office for meetings, catch up with other office people, review the work done, etc etc
• rush back home to see kids
• spend the next couple hours trying to finish up more work while entertaining them (because already super guilty never spend quality time with them the whole day)
• dinner, wash up, bedtime stories, put them to sleep
• At night, Netflix with Fatty or draft blog posts/do more Colony work
• Rinse and repeat

My schedule already considered very flexible cos still can take kids to school and go market and sometimes sneak in a workout while they’re in class.  But I still feel the mom guilt, guys.

And that’s me with a nice stretchy schedule! I salute you full time working moms how do you guys do it. T______T

So when we were planning out Colony, I wanted to make life for working moms a little easier if I could.  And this is what we came up with.

1. Lactation room

When I was working full time, I was young and unmarried wtf, as were most of us in our department.  However, our boss was a mom and she’d just had her second baby.  And she was breastfeeding.

Every day, she’d pull out her Medela Freestyle and storage bottles.  And she’d holler to us all that she was gonna pump so nobody come near her cubicle.  Then we’d hear the pump going WHOK WHOK WHOK and nobody would dare walk near her place wtf.  When she was done, she’d take her breast milk and stash it in the fridge where we kept our beer. Hahahaha.

Being young and stupid, we all thought it was hilarious and the jokes lasted for years lolol my poor boss.  But as a mom now, I can totally imagine the pain.

Which is why, I told Fatty we need a lactation and nursing room.  We’re creating a small room with plug points and a comfortable chair, and a small freezer to store expressed milk.  No more pumping at your desk while discreetly trying to protect your modesty, or worse, pumping in the toilet. -_-  And if you happen to bring your baby to work, you can just nurse there!  It shouldn’t be so hard for a working mom who just wants to feed her baby.

2. Kids play area

I don’t know how many companies actually allow their employees to bring their kids to work.  But I think if I were a working mom — eh wait I’m technically one now HAHAHA. Well, if I had to drop by the office for just a while, or come in on weekends or something, I’d love to bring my kids with me.

So we’re creating a safe area (behind a glass door) for kids to hang out and play!  There will be a designated children’s section filled with toys and probably a TV running cartoons – somewhere you can safely leave your kids and have peace of mind while you settle whatever you need to do.

Inside that room I plan to put tables and chairs, maybe some couches so that you can also sit and watch your kids and have a coffee or something. Which also brings me to the fact that there’s going to be a cafe too! 😀

Here’s a 3D rendering of it.

Our cafe will actually be open to public so you guys can come over any time 😀 Which also brings me to my next point…

3. Tiffin carriers at the cafe

We have two vendors – EspressoLab for drinks and maybe some snacks, and Bold Grains by The Healthy Food People for proper meals.  They specialize in healthy, home cooked food and we thought another way to ease the burden of working moms is to provide tiffin carriers and give moms (or anyone else, really) the option of taking food to go so that they don’t need to go home and cook dinner for their families.  You can also bring your own container obviously, but hopefully it will take one less chore off you guys.

There’s other things I’d love to implement. For example one day, a childcare center attached to our coworking space. 😀 You can bring your child to work with you but just drop them off in the childcare and pick them up after work.  If you miss them you can go see them anytime hahaha.  And if they’re sick it’s so easy to go get them.  This is my ideal situation yo.

Butttttt this is just our first location. Hahaha hopefully got more la ok fingers crossed if all goes well. When we gain more experience I think there’s lots more I could do.

Working moms have it the toughest I think.  The world has advanced enough that women can work and aren’t confined to house and home, but at the same time, while women work full time, as much as their husbands, women still take on the bulk when it comes to domestic chores, and children.  (and this bothers me a lot! Lolol)

We still have a way to go to get to full gender equality but in the meantime, I’d like to help create something that makes things easier for women and moms. 🙂

Some other 3D pictures of Colony!

If you want more info, ask me! Hahaha. Or check out our website here la.  Or our Facebook page.

We’re launching next month!