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The working mother: can women have it all?
In this age of improving equality and women’s rights it can seem a real balancing act for a working mother. This probably isn’t helped by the image of successful celebs and sporting folk on TV constantly who appear to have it all. The career, the children, the doting partner and family. However we all know the reality must be different. Im pretty sure Holly Willoughby has a weep occasionally that she isn’t spending enough time with her brood and that her blossoming career has overtaken her life/work balance. Amanda Holden is perhaps frequently home so late she doesn’t get to put her children to bed.
However they make a choice, just as several of my friends do, who have successful partners willing to work and support the family whilst they have a career break and enjoy being full-time mummies. I frequently find myself envious of their daily routine of toddler groups, lie-ins, washing sippy cups, cooking nutritious meals, baby-wiping faces and changing nappies. It really is such a special and enjoyable time and I would have loved to savour it with all three of my children. Unfortunately I had to return to part-time work in order to pay bills, and so I have become something of a professional juggler of home-life, children, housework, homework, transporting kids to clubs, versus teaching, assessing, planning, marking, directing shows, parents evenings, course reviews and analysis of education statistics. Its a choice I have made and I work super hard at it.
I was once told by a family member that anyone who returns to work when they have become a mother, doesn’t deserve to be a parent. At the time I was flabbergasted and deeply hurt as they were clearly aiming the attack at me. They went on to say that no child should be sent to a nursery and it was wrong for grandparents to look after grandchildren and that it was a parents duty. (I was doing both) The final painful attack was on my age, stating than no one over the age of 30 should be entitled to have children.
Apart from the obvious pain that someone I trusted had clearly stated that I didn’t deserve to be a parent, I was completed overwhelmed by their view of motherhood. All those years of women campaigning for maternity rights, obliterated in one foul argument. This was a woman who had raised two children herself, and though she proudly proclaimed that she had stayed at home with hers and enjoyed every second of their childhood, I did quietly remember the times when they were toddlers that she worked as a barmaid in a pub until late at night. (It seemed she had forgetten)
I will never understand why my family member attacked me that day. Perhaps they were feeling unexcited by their own life with teenagers, perhaps they were craving their fertile years again, perhaps they had regrets from their own motherhood experience, or perhaps they were just feeling extremely envious of my devotion to my beautiful twin babies, jealous of the attention they were getting from all the other family members, or just wanted to destroy my wonderful, peaceful baby haze.
But I have never forgotten it and mull over their view regularly.
The truth is that a woman should have a choice. Alongside the many stay-at-home mums I know, I also have friends that love their full-time jobs and thrive on their successful careers. Having a baby was never going to stop that, in fact it was their right to have the best of both worlds. They too struggle with juggling it all, but they cope. Their children have equally rich lives, with careful learning and socialisation from a young age at private nursery, and exciting trips, foreign holidays, and extensive hobbies. They want for little and are still doted on. They just spend less hours of the day with their mummies.
But which is the right choice? Can we presume that working mums are detrimental to children? Are the children who were with their mums until starting school able to transition as well as the children of working mums? Which are brighter? Which are more sociable? What if a child is with a stay at home mum all week but sits in front of a TV all day and spends every weekend in the social club or pub beer garden? What if the working mum puts a child in nursery all week but spends every second of the weekend singing, drawing, painting, baking and pushing them on swings at the park? Can we really presume that one is more nurturing than the other?
The truth for me is that I see positives and negatives in both sides. When I am 24/7 with my children they may get my love and attention, but I can get tetchy and Im not the best mum at the painting and educational activities, as Im usually doing housework and washing! When Im at work I miss my children so much that I cant wait to see them and spend quality time with them on the evenings and weekends. I think I invest more positive focus on them after work.
More importantly I am a strong female role model to my children. An intelligent and educated woman who is committed to working hard to provide for the family home. Each day they watch me getting ready for work and representing the lifestyle of a professional, that I hope they will one day repeat. I want them to value education and work. It is the key to their own future success. I don’t want my children to sit back, not achieve, take the foot off the gas. I hope that by being a working mother they have met their first feminist and that results in complete respect for women and their choices.
I will always be sad that my own blood relative didn’t see the value in what I have done for my children. I cant guarantee I will be graceful in defeat when she becomes a grandmother herself, babysitting the grandchildren and waving her daughter off to her full time job, but if it happens then I will have quietly proved a point; those feminists wont have fought the cause for no reason.
Lets celebrate working mums, stay-at-home mums, part-time mums, mums in their 30’s, grandparents that do a wonderful job of childcare and love every second of spending time with the grandkids. Hey, lets just celebrate a woman’s choice!