Work Becoming a Secondary Priority
Time to read: 4-5 mins
I love that we have more options nowadays to work and mother. I love that Greg and I are fortunate to have enough money for full-time childcare so that we can both work but like many things in life, the world is still catching up to the idea of being designed to work for women.
Or for that matter still catching up to the idea that fathers might want to spend time with their children over being married to their jobs.
Like many mothers I’ve spoken to I had huge amounts of guilt for looking forward to getting back to work and then when I did arrive back at work I felt sick that somebody else was looking after this little human that I had nurtured for over 18 months (pregnancy plus the first 10 months of their life). I asked if I could work part-time with a vision that I just might be able to thrive in my corporate role, thrive as a business founder and thrive as a mother.
The reality was that I felt as though I was failing across all three, not to mention struggling with things outside of these roles like friendships, relationships with wider family, personal fitness and mental health. I felt as though my fellow managers at my corporate job were constantly having to make adjustments for my hours, I felt that my business partner was getting frustrated that she was having to answer customer queries during our busiest time of day which clashed with putting my child bed, I felt my husband was disgruntled that I hadn’t had time to hang the washing even though I’d been working from home that day.
As you’ve probably guessed a lot of these expectations were things I was putting on myself and those around me probably weren’t that frustrated at all but I’m not here to tell you to take the pressure off of yourself. You’ve heard that a million times before and if you knew how to do that you wouldn’t have made it this far into the article.
‘The Rush Hour of life’ is what Steph Douglas describes as us wanting to
“Work and have kids and still have a social life and be a decent daughter/partner/friend.”
In her Grazia article she goes on to say ‘More women are working in some capacity, but this hasn’t led to a fundamental shift in what happens at home. So we’re just adding. While often trying to simultaneously replicate the more traditional role we saw in women in our parent’s generation carry out. Then we’re having children later, so we’re also managing a timely triumvirate of kids that still need us, ageing parents and perimenopause. And we wonder why we feel broken?’
Yet I still feel the need to feel grateful for my options, I don’t want to complain for fear of somebody taking away my option to work and then I’d have to learn to properly cook and clean. At least I know how to work or at least I thought I did until I had my child.
Just a few months ago before I left my corporate role my child got the inevitable sickness bug and had to stay off nursery to recover. Instead of taking a day off to look after him I was wracked with guilt and instead asked my husband to WFH so that we could try and scramble together to take care of him alternating when one of us had a meeting. I was presenting to the EU managers at the same time as my husband was also having an important meeting so I volunteered to take him on my call knowing that he was drowsy and praying it would go to plan. No more than 5 minutes into my presentation with my child sleeping over my shoulder and me presenting on camera was he sick all down himself and all down the front of me. All I could do was hop off the call to try and help him and run upstairs to bath him. Far from ideal, once I’d sorted everything out I messaged the EU managers to PROFUSELY apologise, rearrange and give them the necessary information until we could meet next time. Nobody replied to say ‘don’t worry, these things happen’, or ‘are you both ok?’, instead my apologies were met with a tumbleweed silence just as my pre-warning beforehand had been that I would need to present with my sick child.
I often think about how I would have reacted pre-kids if this happened to somebody who was presenting to me. I think I would have been horrified and absolutely perplexed as to why I didn’t reschedule the presentation from the outset, but I know that many people reading this will understand that I didn’t want my colleagues to think I was using my child as an excuse and that I could try and juggle both.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg told the story of her son’s school ringing more than once a month to let her know of her child’s ‘lively behaviour’. After a while she asked if the school could start ringing the child’s dad every other time since she was working. The school instantly reduced the calls from more than once a month to once a semester. Ginsberg put it down to the fact that the school was much more reluctant to disturb a man at work than they were a woman. This brings up so many worrying ideals of what society expects from us but more so what we expect of ourselves.
So where does this leave us? The age old question of can we really have it all, something tells me we will have a lot more content to come on this topic…
Greg’s response
There are blind spots that I didn't know about until reading this. Zoe and I have the same nursery app for communicating with our son’s key worker. They have contacted me twice in a year, yet Zoe they contact nearly 3 - 4 times a week (on largely trivial matters)! It proves the point of the bias towards leaving men alone to work vs. being able to disturb the working mum without hesitation. The expectations are larger on the working mum, versus the dad who gets given the title of family breadwinner. That comes with huge expectations, I watch many friends & colleagues struggle with this and almost get given ‘outs’ to focus on work versus sharing the workload of family and work priorities with their partner.
One thing we have learned the hard way is marriage isn't 50/50, it's about communicating so your actions become ‘fair’ for both parties. It's up to you to decide what that ratio is, and it's unique to you but be honest about what it needs to be (watch Michelle Obama 50/50's amazing perspective). Just ensure you don’t fall into the ‘I’m doing it for us’ bullshit excuse, I promise you your presence as a father is often more valuable than the £/$ you bring in.
TAKEAWAYS:
Instead of trying to manage work if you have a sick child or childcare issues take a moment to think about what would actually be more professional and fairer to your child. Chances are, you’ll regret it if you try to do both.
Is there anything you can delegate to your partner or co parent? Even if it’s just letting your childcare provider know that on a certain day of the week they need to be the primary contact as that’s your most intense day in the office.
In that first 6 months to a year back at work do not take on new side hustles, courses, roles if you can help it. Focus on showing your value as best you can in your original role while taking off the time you need for mothering.
