The Working Mum;
A dedication.
A dedication to the Mums up before the sun, packing the bags, the car & negotiating with toddlers just to get out the door on time! To the Mums who do a “5-9 before the 9-5”. Who walk through the door at work & pretend like they haven’t just been annihilated by their toddler, probably wearing some portion of breakfast & trying to regulate their own emotions before tackling whatever they are about to walk in to at work.
Foreword:
Now before I get in to this, lets tackle something right off the bat before I offend everyone. I am writing this on behalf of the working Mums. When I reference this, I mean mothers who are physically going to a paid job. This does not mean in any way I discredit the working load EVERY mother has whether paid or not however what I will be representing here is from my perspective as a career girly Mum. I cannot write on behalf of the SAHM because I am simply not her however I stand in solidarity with all Mums and marvel at what they all manage day to day & recognise each role presents it’s own set of challenges.
The Prelude:
It starts long before you’re pregnant or even planning to have a baby. The worry, the overthinking, the societal expectations & the different perception of you versus a male in the work force. Lets break that down a little…
The worry- Will I ever be in a place in my career where I feel ready to have children?
The overthinking- I don’t know how I’ll juggle my job and a family. Will I be overlooked for promotion because they are worried I will have a family & that it will impact my performance/availability.
The societal expectations- She simply must want children so would not be able to manage a huge workload. Every woman starts thinking about a family around a certain age.
The different perception- She’s approaching the age where women start families so lets overlook her for the position and opt for a male. Add to that the time expected to be out of the workforce.
The truth is (from my experience & from listening to other Mums) that thinking about becoming a Mum, how to fit that in to a career, the timing or how to balance work and family life is something that weighs heavily on our minds long before you would think! If we look at my career for example, I started out in business as a young, naïve 18y.o. At that point in time, having a family felt a long way off for me but I will say this, the questions and the narrative were already following me around. So without question & from no doing of your own, it plants a seed. You start to understand what is expected of you but also the foreshadowing it will have on your career. Additionally, you start to notice how Mums are treated, positioned or stigmatised within the workplace.
The second little truth bomb I’m going to hit you with is, there is no perfect timing or way to know for sure how you are going to manage/balance it all beforehand. It really is a learn on the job & pivot kind of scenario (which is kind of terrifying)! I think partially that is because formerly women weren’t trying to do both (at least not on this scale) and instead held the more traditional roles within a family unit so the representation or the model just wasn’t there. I’m very proud to say that as hard as it is to be the ones forging and representing now, we will be the generation of mothers that model this & pave the way for our daughters. *We had to be known for more than just low rise jeans and over plucked eyebrows right!?
The Introduction:
You get your first real taste of what it’s like to be a working Mum the second you announce you’re pregnant to your workplace. All of a sudden this constant that you’ve had in your life just changes. Instantly the conversation becomes centred around you’re pregnancy and what will happen with your role in the meantime. Of course all of this is to be expected but it does just leave you feeling pretty far removed from who you used to be recognised as at work. Your due date almost becomes like a ticking time bomb and you may feel as though people are taking bets on the side as to whether or not you will last out to your planned maternity leave start or if/when you will return to work. As someone who had my self worth & identity wrapped around my career pretty tightly I struggled with the shift. I remember bawling my eyes out the second I walked out of work on my last day when starting maternity leave. As someone who had worked from the second it was legal to (also prior child labour on the family farm) I just felt a bit lost and a bit like I didn’t know how to be without this aspect of my life.
The Main Act:
Maternity leave- you made it! Swollen, exhausted, terrified, relieved, excited, anxious, hormonal… you are here! You’re unsure of what to do with yourself but you’re here nonetheless. I remember thinking about the construct of time around maternity leave & specifically how long say a 6 month period of time felt to be off from work. Let me tell you, that time vanishes faster than my husband does when he sees I’m watching an episode of Real Housewives! I did the nesting, the resting, the prepping & that time went slow but as soon as your baby is here the time just evaporates. Before you know it, you’re starting to have conversations around returning to work & this will be your first exposure to feeling torn in two!
For me personally, I felt really ready to head back. I had missed that part of me & as I touched on earlier, it was such a big part of my life & who I was. So I knew getting back was important to me & would make me feel somewhat closer to Kressinda pre baby. I also had worked incredibly hard to get to where I was in my career so I wasn’t prepared to let that go. Based on feeling ready, I wasn’t prepared just how hard & significant returning was going to be. No one gives you a map. No one helps you figure out your new routine or how all the pieces are all going to fit together. It all sits with you and boy does the load get heavy quick! It’s almost like taking two completely different lives & trying to mould them together. I eased back in starting out at three days when Quinn was 7 months old. I say ease but I should have said I threw myself back in because it really is just throwing yourself in to it & hoping you will figure it all out along the way. The three days was a good way to start out I feel but I always knew that was not a long term solution. I was in a senior management role & so I was always going to be required back full time. On top of that I am the majority income earner for my family. I also wanted to return for myself. I think Kressinda without a career would be a full time nut job & probably a danger to society!! So then before we knew it I was signing up for four days & for me that simply didn’t work. The thing with four days is your basically back full-time so you end up trying to cram five days of work in to four. So before I knew it I was back to FT!!
The major battles I faced when returning to work:
Being torn between wanting to be with your child & returning to work. A constant mental & emotional struggle.
DAY-CARE SICKNESS. Awful. Horrendous. Unavoidable. Your child has no immune defence & you send them in to an epicentre of germs. Not because of anything day-care does wrong, it’s just kids spread germs. It’s very hard to consistently show up at work when you’re constantly getting calls for collections & trying to figure out how to manage all of that. People that have not had to handle this DO NOT GET IT and that adds another layer to it.
Finding my place & rhythm back at work. The ego took a hit for a bit for sure. I had to sort of readjust my expectations & find my footing again.
The systems are really not setup to support working families. Working schedules do not align with school schedules and you’re supposed to somehow just make it work. My favourite memory of this realisation was when I discovered day-care isn’t open Public Holidays but you do have to still pay the fees for it but then can’t work because you don’t have child-care. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE PEOPLE!!!
Managing the mental load. Oh boy was I a foggy, stressed out, overwhelmed, exhausted & frustrated mess there for a while. The reality is it’s too much for any one person to handle, particularly if you’re in a management role. You essentially have your family you have to think of & take care of but then also your work family & responsibilities- it’s a lot.
Adjusting expectations. You need to get pretty comfy with letting your high standards drop a little. You no longer have the time or capacity to do everything you used to the way you used to do it. You learn to prioritise & balance but it is a battle getting to a place you’re happy with & feel as though you are achieving all you need to.
Learning to pass through different phases. They all pass but it’s challenging to remember that in the moment. You also are on this constant cycle of pivoting & readjusting & just when you pass through one the next one comes along to shake things up. So it’s very hard to get in to a routine or feel like you’re in a good rhythm.
Judgement/Mum guilt. The “oh you’re putting her in to day-care at 7 months” “oh wow you’re going to return to work 5 days a week” “oh so you’re travelling for work how will your husband manage”. All the questions/comments us working Mums seem to get hit with that remarkably our husbands do not.
Here’s a photo I love. I randomly had to take Quinn in to work with me for a quick moment one day & I always look at this & imagine she’s looking at me with so much pride.
A day in my life:
To the last point above, I have learnt to say to myself, unless they’ve walked a day in my shoes they don’t get to comment & unless they’re my little family, their opinions simply do not matter here! So with that being said, let me take you through a day in my life…
3:45a.m. My husband leaves for work.
4a.m. I get up & shower (if my little girl has not ventured in to our bed which she is doing consistently atm hello new phase unlocked)!
4:30a.m.-6a.m. Breakfast, exercise, pack bags/car, get ready.
6a.m. Get Quinn up, dressed, breakfast.
7a.m. Day-care drop-off.
7a.m.-8a.m. Commute to work. Take a breath & usually a sip of coffee.
8a.m.- 4:30p.m. Boss mode activated & deal with whatever I’m hit with!
4:30p.m.- 5/5:30p.m. Commute home. Walk through the door, give my daughter attention for ten minutes & then start dinner.
5:30-7:30p.m. Dinner, family time, bath & bed.
7:30p.m. We all head upstairs to do our bed time routine. I then do skincare & read until lights out at 9p.m.
Rinse, repeat & do it all again.
So that’s my basic day to day Monday- Friday routine as a working Mum but what the above doesn’t outline is all I manage & carry within those hours.
Some mornings are just a constant battle with my 3y.o. She is a very stubborn/strong willed little girl which I’m incredibly proud of but sometimes it would be nice if she didn’t test that out on me! Often I’m running out the door not having eaten breakfast, with an armful of things, carrying my toddler, bribing her just to get out the door on time!
I then walk through the door at work to be met with god knows what!! I manage a team, I have a customer base of 1000 customers that I’m responsible for & I work in an industry where anything can happen & we have to react quickly.
At any one point in time, I’m running with a million different tabs open in my brain. My planner helps with this & I’m very organised however it is mentally draining & exhausting! Paying the bills, managing the budget, life admin, child-care requirements, to-do list for home, the meal plan, my job, my customers needs, managing my team, medical appointments, events/activities the list goes on & on & on.
I spend most days being needed by someone for majority of the day & pulled in many different directions. My needs barely register (getting better at this but still).
Sometimes I feel like I’ve hardly spent time with my child that day and the heartbreak of that can be unbearable.
Now I’m not outlining any of this for your sympathy or to say waaaahhhh look how hard my life is, poor me… no. My objective here is just to shine a light on the realities & life of a working Mum in today’s world. I am sure as shit not the only one out here doing it, there are countless women out there carrying heavy invisible loads & managing more than you know. A lot of their realities are probably a lot harder than mine. There are Mums out there juggling shift work, there are single working Mums, there are Mums who are fly in/fly out, there are Mums who work in high risk jobs. They are all doing the best they can with their own set of circumstances. I think sometimes as working Mums we are a little hesitant to speak up about our day to day battles. Probably because we are scared of the judgement & also probably because we have sold our work & ourselves this narrative that we can do it all so it feels counterproductive to then highlight just how hard it all is! In my opinion we need a lot more work done in the space of setting up systems to support working mothers & working families in general. The concept that you’re supposed to work as if you don’t have a family is just absolutely ludicrous, unsustainable & unfair. We need to even the playing field for our career driven Mums & set them up for success!
In closing, I will ask this of you all… If you are a working Mum first of all, take a f%cking bow & give yourself some grace. Second of all, talk about it. Tell people what your days look like, the real, unfiltered version. Through transparency & understanding, that’s how we make progress. If you’re not a working Mum but maybe you work with one or have someone who is in your life that is one. Tell her she’s doing great, she probably hasn’t heard that enough & it may just help drown out the sea of judgement & criticism she’s hit with. Lastly, let her know how incredible she is for all that she is carrying & if you’re able to, help her carry some of it!
