Parental Leave for Those Who Feel the Need to be Productive
Time to read: 5 mins
As with most things in life (because we live in a rich and diverse world) how you approach parental leave will be different from the next person and while there really isn’t too much you can physically do in the first few weeks, I will talk about what comes beyond that if you were lucky enough to have one month plus off work (which I did).
For many high achievers / creatives / those used to spending their time running at 100 mph, life beyond the first few weeks with your baby can be a minefield. Whilst you’ve got many firsts and worries to navigate still you’ve just about figured out how to keep your baby fed and watered and can sometimes get them off to sleep.
Just a few weeks after my son was born, I started to feel lazy with all the sitting around, cups of tea, mum walks and Netflix series. I wanted to feel some sense of normality again and a little more like me. I took back the marketing elements of my clothing business and also fulfilling the orders. This meant creating and delivering content through our social channels, newsletters, blogs and also packing and sending out orders most days. Something very manageable for somebody who hadn’t had a baby just a few weeks before. Although it was a lot harder and a lot more exhausting than before, my productivity fitted like a favourite pair of old jeans, and I was pleased with the distraction and also secretly loved people telling me how impressed they were that I could do this all with a newborn.
I do have some regrets though; I think I pushed myself a little too much and while I don’t know the answer for entrepreneurs who are new mums (who often don’t get business / sales if they don’t work). Lowlights included shouting at my baby (and then breaking down in tears at the guilt afterwards) when he wouldn’t stop crying once in the middle of a big session of packing orders or delaying my physical recovery further when I took a huge laundry bag of orders to the post office on my back while pushing the pram in the pouring rain. The truth is, I don’t know how I would approach it if I ever did it again, but I don’t think I’m alone in having to be ‘productive’ in my maternity leave. Like keeping an entirely dependent human alive isn’t being productive enough.
I took all of my keeping in touch days for my corporate job and was even set up on a coffee date with a Senior Director of a department, somebody in charge of hundreds of people who was very vocal about being a mother of 2. She told me to soak up all of the time with my child but when I asked her how her parental leave was, she confessed to keeping up with every single email, often during the night feeds because she didn’t want to ‘miss anything’. The irony.
I went back to my corporate job after 10 months off and I have to admit, although I wasn’t fussed about the job or the company, I was looking forward to the ritual of getting ready to go into the office, the commute, seeing people and speaking about non-baby related issues for a few hours. I thought I was going to snap back into the old version of me, like the last year of my life hadn’t been the most wild and transformative yet. Needless to say, things were not the same as they once were. And when I say things, I mean me, I was a very different person, and the trouble was everything at work was the same. They were still worrying about the same projects and issues that I had been working on before I had the baby and now I could see the projects and issues with a new lens, I could see how clearly it was all just a big waste of time. A lot of work for work’s sake, a lot of people talking absolute nonsense.
Just over 6 months later I left the corporate world to go freelance, thinking that a world with less responsibilities (like managing a team) might work but it was as though my tolerance for inefficient processes, conversations and people had reached an all-time high. Didn’t they realise that we could be all wrapped up on x, y, z project if we cut the 10 minutes of weather chat from every call and did things when we said we would to keep the project moving?
Now that I’m working on my businesses full time (at least for the next few months) it’s slightly easier but still comes with its challenges. The lines are more blurred between personal and work time, so it often gets to the afternoon before I realise I’ve just been doing household chores all day. There’s no sick pay if my son needs to stay off nursery, or maternity leave if we decide to have another child. As you can see, I definitely don’t have all the answers but I’m trying my best to figure it out!
Greg’s response
Zoe is one of the most productive people I have met, it's hard to get her to slow down or even stop to rest and relax! Productivity is rooted in her personality and heavily connected to work - just like myself. Reading her story, it triggers on one killer fact that I empathise greatly with: parenthood changes your identity and with that what productivity really means. In 18 years of working, I would have never left work at 5.30pm to prioritise my family/friends, yet now with our son, it's the simplest choice to hang up, go to nursery and see him.
Productivity is impacted by time (less of it) and changing priorities (family > work) and that was something I don't think either of us were really prepared for. The element I would encourage is to spend parental leave getting to grips with the new version of you, and explore your priorities honestly before attempting to be productive for the sake of it
TAKEAWAYS:
Try to find a healthy balance of productivity so that you feel satisfied that you are exercising your mind and skills a little (trust me, this will make going back into work after maternity leave much less daunting) but not hindering your mental or physical recovery or getting cross with your baby like I did if they stop your flow. Some practical ways to do this include noting 1 – 3 things a week that would help fill your cup productivity wise but that aren’t time sensitive so that you can pick the tasks up and down around the baby’s needs – things like finally sorting that cupboard in the spare room, mood boarding a new idea, learning a new skill via online learning (pre-recorded so that there’s no time pressure on how many times you pause, re-watch or when you take the tutorial).
Although when you’re in it parental leave can seem like it will never end and you’re so desperate to get your life back you will miss the cuddles, the slower pace and the ability to just sit in the sunny garden together without work or commitments getting in the way. Try to enjoy it now and again.
Aim to leave the house once a day to talk to somebody in real life. Parental leave can be a very isolating time and although baby classes aren’t for everyone (they weren’t for me) there are lots of coffee hours, walking clubs and even just meeting with a friend can do a world of wonders.
