The wariness of blogging - I'm always keen to keep people anonymous, and to a certain extent also my work. Now, what has been going to and fro in my head, has a lot to do with my work, but I also realise how useful blogging is to get my head straight and take the edge of anger, tension and the everyday frustrations.

Working for the voluntary sector means dependency on funding grants. They usually last between 1 and 3 years, job security is therefore relative. My project is successful and established, but still there are worries. Current funding  will run out in a year's time, and it can't be renewed. I will have to look for a new funding body. Usually, innovation is something funders are looking for, so they don't want to pay for an existing project (which, if successful, should be mainstreamed into statutory provision, paid for by local authority or national bodies), but prefer something new. Bad cards for my project, and my job.

Last time around, I chanced it. Although I applied for posts I declined the one I was offered, in the hope that we'd get funding after all. It worked out great. This time I'm not so sure. I would really like to have a permanent job, because I'm getting older, because I have a family now. I'm 35 and havn't had a single permanent job in my working life. I've never been unemployed either, so I've fared relatively well, and I'm not too worried about not getting a new job as such. However, my biological clock isn't going backwards, so what can you do? If I get pregnant now, I'll be close to bursting at my wedding day, if I get pregnant in three months, I'll not get maternity leave and lose my job, if I wait longer, I may have a chance to have a new contract which may allow for maternity leave. Or I may still lose my job. If I wait longer I may also not get pregnant at all or have a disabled child.

How many articles have I read about my generation of academic women who chose not to get pregnant. All these words for the simple truth: there's no job security these days or even if, the demands of any decent and responsible job are such that they are not compatible with motherhood. Women's lib me arse, we're still the ones who've got to bear the weans. If I go part time, I'll earn just enough to pay the creche. If I stay fulltime, I'm going to be a psychic mess and a shite mum. I may have to stay full time because my partner's job is even more insecure than mine. We both have postgraduate qualifications, and we are still not able to land a permanent and secure job, in our mid thirties. Little wonder that many women, in less fortunate situations than ours simply can't afford to have children. And children are a rare choice in my circle of friends.

If I post this, will I lose my job because I've expressed a thought of having children and possibly taking maternity leave, or even leaving for a more secure job? If my potential future employer, who I may have an interview with, googles my name and finds this blog, decides he doesn't want a woman with baby probably already on the way, will I remain unemployable because I have a womb and think I should have the option of creating and offspring? Or shall I just ignore it all, be poor, not work, live off benefits and do what we were born to do?

Not much has changed since I was a child of seven. Then, I wished I was a boy. No periods, no labour, no getting fat and wrinkly for having a baby. I still wish I was a man, for the same reasons, and for wishing not to be made a scapegoat for the economical disadvantage of employing a woman. After all, I didn't choose to have a womb. And would be quite happy to have a man bear a child for me and still call it my own.