Wanting To Be Challenged / Creative VS Being Kind To Your Tired Mind
Time to read: 4-5 mins
I admit that I took on too much too soon when it came to getting back to working after our baby was born. Just a few weeks after the birth I took back the marketing element of my business which involved blog writing, newsletters and social media creation and management. For the most part I loved it as it could be done from the sofa with my child in tow and gave me a chance to exercise my mind and creative flow.
The problem came when I had a set task to do in a set amount of time. How could I come up with an engaging newsletter when I’d had a terrible night sleep and felt particularly drained and hormonal that day? I’d experienced slightly more subtle versions of this in the past before children and actually had that very same feeling today. I had a goal of how many articles I wanted to write but was up for a lot of the night with River and so, writing anything half coherent and engaging seems a monumental task.
I spoke to a mum who went back to her corporate job (that she loved!) after a few weeks of giving birth to her first child and then again just a week or so after her second child. She confirmed my theory because she explained that she could work from her sofa doing tasks she enjoyed without the pressure of deadlines. She was planning to take a year off but practically begged her company for work sooner when she realised how bored she was.
When I spoke to some fellow female founders they said that whilst they enjoyed the overall creativity their work bought them at this time, they sometimes felt they weren’t putting their best selves out there. When so much of you goes into a brand or a business it can be hard to show up with 100% energy all of the time. One founder reminisces “ I remember recording videos of myself for Instagram marketing of my business and the baby either crying or me hating how I looked”.
Another founder who said she loved working on her business during mat leave described it as ‘just as well’ because there’s no company maternity pay when you are working for yourself. Therefore, it can be hard to totally switch off for months because you don’t want to lose existing clients or miss out on new ones.
A friend who studied for an MBA during her maternity leave said she wouldn’t change a thing stating that ‘the gender pay gap is real! So many women drop out of the workplace because they are too tired / overwhelmed to work all day and take care of the family the rest of the time or resent their whole paycheck going towards childcare but make the investment now because it's hard to make up lost career years’.
For a lot of high achieving and ambitious women maternity leave can be the first time they’ve slowed down since starting work. When I say slowed down, they are still working around the clock to care for their child but perhaps they aren’t rushing from meeting to meeting or using their minds quite so strategically. It can be an opportunity to take stock of what you enjoy in your career, think about whether your role or your company still align with your values (which no doubt might shift slightly anyway after children).
Perhaps it’s the crowd I keep now but I’m noticing more and more women starting their own businesses after children or going freelance. Sure, sometimes it can be out of a need to create a more flexible lifestyle around their care duties (that their previous career couldn’t) but even so, I love connecting with these women who have found a way to turn their passions into profit.
And of course, you can be ambitious and smart and creative and not want to do anything but be with your baby during maternity leave. As this experience called motherhood has taught me, there’s no one size fits all. For the women who choose to take just a few weeks off from their corporate job please make sure you hire / ask for the help and support. Women are pretty amazing but we are only human after all.
Greg’s response
Zoe has an unparalleled work ethic and watching her battle this need to be productive and challenged from a work point of view and be a mother is a constant theme in our relationship. The anxiety of not making an impact or losing your edge due to lack of challenge is real for sure, and I hear this from a lot of dads too. On my extended paternity leave, the best advice I received from a close friend was not to set overly ambitious goals for yourself as parenthood is the priority in the early days. I like Zoe’s addition that its about being compassionate with yourself and not putting unnecessary deadlines or pressure on the work output until you have got comfortable with your new routine.
Which brings me to the final observation, work was a huge part of Zoe and my identity. Parenthood shifted that. It wasn't a desire to work less, but to have more freedom and emotional permission to change our mind on what we did as we learned our new identities. That made us way more open to opportunities like founding MoveThru.
TAKEAWAYS:
If you do want to work during your maternity leave whilst simultaneously looking after your child try to do things that don’t have a time restraint / deadline. That way you can work or create when you feel on good form without the pressure of being at your best.
When you do feel good do not skip a beat. Work, exercise or do whatever it is you need to do as this time can be so unreliable. You’ve got to take the opportunities when they come!
Guess what, you can do a bit of everything and see if you like it. That’s the beauty of this life, most things are two way door decisions. Signed up to a short course but finding it too overwhelming? Don’t punish yourself - come back to it when you feel more yourself. Expected to love the chilled pace of maternity leave but bored out of your mind? Cool, start that side hustle you always dreamed of. You can literally do WHATEVER YOU WANT.
