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