Having it all for working mothers everywhere

i recently saw a clip of the late great

ruth bader ginsburg talking about high

when she worked in columbia law school

during the 1970s

and her son was 10 years old her son’s

skull would ring at least once a month

to ask her to come in to talk about his

lively behavior

now she went every month when she was

asked

but after a while she grew weary and the

next time the phone rang

rang she said look

my son has two parents i suggest you

start alternating your calls

now the school did start alternating the

calls but the interesting thing about it

was

the calls reduced from more than once a

month to less than once a semester

and ruth bader ginsburg’s explanation

for that was

that the school was much more reluctant

to disturb a man at his work

than they were to disturb a woman

now when i first saw that clip i shared

it online immediately with the caption

for working mothers everywhere

because i thought it captured something

of what society still expects from

working mothers

but when i sat back and thought about it

a little bit more i wondered whether the

problem is really what society expects

from working mothers or whether now 50

years on

the issue is more about what working

mothers expect from themselves

you see now that i am a working mother

i’ve realised that i’ve tried to carry

out my job

as though i don’t have children and i’ve

tried to parent my children

as though i don’t have a job

and that’s presented challenges that i

just wasn’t prepared for

i have three children i have an amazing

daughter who’s four

and then twin girls who are just

fabulous and they’ve just turned two

and i’ve been a barrister now for nine

years a career i love

but just to rewind a little bit i

initially trained and worked as a

pharmacist

and throughout my twenties i saw many

successful women

who were juggling careers with family

lives apparently without any difficulty

and as a woman in my twenties i really

didn’t give much thought to what that

really was like

because i had no intention of having

children just yet

i returned to university when i was 28

and a couple of years after that it came

to choosing

which career path and law i would take

and my father who is also a lawyer and

who had instilled in me from a very

early age that i could be anything i

wanted to be and i mean

i think he probably told that to me

every day

he sat me down and told me to consider

carefully whether i really wanted to be

a barrister

because i would be self-employed with

all the financial uncertainty that would

bring

and if i was successful in years to come

it would be very difficult to juggle my

career with a family life

now clearly perhaps because i’m

something

of an optimist or perhaps because my dad

instilled in me too well

the idea that i could be anything i

wanted to be i carried on into a career

at the bar

regardless and five years later in 2016

i had my first daughter and two years

after that

i had my twins now

those first few months are hard

the sleepless nights the dirty nappies

the constant worry about whether or not

you’re getting it right

but i find that since returning to work

and as my children are growing older

i’m now facing a new struggle which is

that i don’t really know what type of

mother

i’m going to be

you see for people like me who are

ambitious

and driven

we want to have it all and women who

have come a very long way in terms of

equality in the workplace

and when their children come along they

don’t necessarily want to step

back to focus on their families but nor

do they want to step back from family

life to such an extent that they feel

like they’re not really properly

parenting at all

a few weeks ago one of my twin daughters

hurt her foot and needed to go to the

hospital

for an x-ray my husband asked whether i

wanted him to take her

or whether i wanted to go now

immediately

without hesitation i said i wanted to go

because i suspect like many mothers

i wanted to be there to hear every

minute detail of what the doctor was

going to say

just like in years to come i want to be

able to go to school plays and sports

days

and if the school rings to discuss one

of my child’s behavior

i want to be the first one to hear it

so while now it’s largely a matter of

choice

who the school rings first i still want

it to be me

my husband is very supportive as cheryl

sandberg

ceo of facebook and author of lean in

recommended

he is an equal partner

but that doesn’t mean i like it when if

one of my children fall over and hurt

themselves

they call for him first

and the other day when i was helping my

husband out to the car with the children

i had a real pang of jealousy when i

didn’t know that one of my two-year-olds

likes to press the doorbell on the way

out

and while child care is a necessary

reality

for many working parents

i still remember the first time i smelt

a stranger’s perfume on my baby’s head

and the feeling of fear that i had

that after spending eight or nine hours

in somebody else’s arms my baby was

going to start loving

me a little bit less and start to love

them

instead

you see those feelings i wasn’t prepared

for

i knew that being a working mother was

going to be difficult

looking after tiny little people making

sure they’re well cared for

on top of what is a stressful job was

never going to be easy but

i didn’t realize quite high emotionally

tough and at times confusing

it could be and although

we talk jokingly about mummy guilt

i think there’s room for a much deeper

discussion

about the internal conflict that many

working mothers and parents

face

to allow us to really work out how we’re

going to

enjoy both work and home

in 2019 a bristol and essex university

study

found only 27.8 percent of women

were in full-time work or self-employed

three years after childbirth

that’s compared to 90 percent for new

fathers

and now while i know that there is a

host of complex reasons behind that sort

of statistic

i wonder if for women in particular who

want to carry on in their job

or need to that they’re feeling like the

compromises they’re making in one way or

the other are simply too great

we need to recognize that you can’t lean

in fully both at work

and at home all of the time

inevitably i think that leads to people

taking on too much

and women in particular placing

unrealistic expectations on themselves

and ultimately i think that leads

to problems with mental health

and takes a toll on relationships

so what are we going to do about it well

i read recently that when you’re trying

to spin all the plates

whether they be work plates or home

plates

you need to work out which ones are

china and which ones are plastic

you need to work out what your

priorities are

and then start letting those plastic

plates drop

or better yet don’t even start spinning

them in the first place

so in terms of my work that might mean

that for the next few years

i don’t accept every invitation to a

work dinner

or every opportunity to broaden my cv

and on the home front i’m going to have

to get comfortable with the idea that

i’m not going to be there every day when

my children come home from school

and i might have to miss the occasional

sports day or school play

and while those things are going to be

hard

i think perhaps even most more

importantly

i need to practice letting go of the

little things

that every day make the mental burden

that little bit more hard to bear

so who cares if my children go out

without their hair brushed

if they go out without their um matching

outfits on

and i’m definitely never going to be one

of those mothers that packs school

lunches that are organic

and muddled into little penguins

and if i do forget to do something

or if i can’t be there for my children

i’m going to be honest and open with

them about why that is

and it’s because i’m trying to be a good

working mother and set an example for

them and i am

only human and it’s okay for them

to really know that

my mother worked full-time whenever i

was a child she was a college lecturer

she also looked after my elderly

grandmother

and she was one of the first amongst the

first generation of women

who had the opportunity to do that

and she made it work when i look back in

my childhood

i don’t remember all the times that she

wasn’t there

i remember the times that she was and

what i really learned is that you can be

a

great mother with an incredible bond

with your children

and work at the same time

but if i’m going to put that into

practice and be happy

i’m going to have to realize that there

will be compromises and there will be

sacrifices

but i’m going to have to stop judging

myself if things aren’t perfect

all of the time

working parents simply can’t be

everything

to everyone and we need to start having

a real

open vulnerable conversation

inside and outside of the workplace

about how we’re going to make it work

you see i think that the only way

that we can truly have it all is when we

stop

trying to do it all

so well i don’t know exactly

what type of mother i’m going to be

by letting some plastic plates drop i

hope that i can show my precious

daughters the fulfillment that comes

from having a career i love

while raising them

there is a short window of 15 or so

years

when our children are most dependent on

us

those years will be hard work but if we

work hard

to let go of some of the expectations we

place on ourselves

my hope is working parents everywhere

can embrace and enjoy them