TamraDemanding Mothers
March 3rd 2008 00:36
Jeez Lousie! Those mothers, ey? Not only do they want equal work for equal pay but now they also want good quality child-care, satisfying work befitting a qualified, experienced professional who now adds multi-skilling to their portfolio, and they want to get to pick up the kids from school and, get this, they want it all at the same time! Ha! Oh yeah...I'm one of them.
In plague proportions I'm seeing mums foregoing fast-paced, challenging careers in favour of underpaid, part-time gigs in industries absolutely new to them, as they pursue that ever ellusive work-life balance. They're upskilling and down-grading on a precarious see-saw of family vs money and career. If it was working out for everyone, then why do so many women look unhappy?
Yeah, sure, I could find a "success" story - Melissa turned down a partnership in a medium sized law firm so she could spend more time with her family and now is a Plasticware consultant, raking in the twenty cent pieces!! But seriously, most women are thinking, do I have to sacrifice my brain and earning potential because I want to be a good mum and not miss out on the early important years of my child's life?
What about job-sharing? Yeah, what about job-sharing? Supposed to mean you can happily share the role with someone else who may be in the same situation as you, reduce your income but increase your family time... I haven't met one working mother who's found this successful. Look, there may be one, I just haven't found her. There's complaints about carrying the can for the other person, not an effective enough hand-over each week, things slipping through the system and that's before you speak to the employer. This should work, but on evidence it doesn't-much.
So, then let's look at swapping to a part time job or something new but less, but new, but less, ie: down-grading. What's wrong with that? Well, sounds fine except that most job applications come back with a-thanks but you're too qualified for the job, we think you'll just get bored-and you know, they're probably right, sometimes.
So, and feel free to slap me, is the problem simply that we want it all and we can't have it all? We just have to swallow the bitter pill and not see it as yucky medicine? We're women, we have the wombs. Can we ever have the 'perfect mix' of family time, work time, me time, relationship time, down time, study time, sleep time and still have any seconds left in the day? Sometimes. But not all the time. And I think we probably have to face that disappointment and just get over it.
It's the word 'perfect' in the sentence that is the sticking point.
We're lucky that as mothers we have an intimate bond with baby and child. We're lucky that where we live we have child care and we have relatively clean skies and we have a stable government, ie we can usually drop off the kids and get to work without dying. We can on occasion find work when we want to, it might be less than we deserve (and wouldn't it be good if the government included some Scandinavian dudes in his 1000 best and brightest summit so they could enlighten us on how to effectively support working families), but there is work available.
Like Zen and the secret art of happiness at work (in no good bookshops near you), I think we have to enjoy the actual 'moments' more fully. Be in the moment when you're with your kids, be in the moment when you're able to work and use your brain, and take the pressure off about how much you should be making in the office or how much time you're missing at home. Compromise with grace. It doesn't have to be forever. Or change it. It's that simple, isn't it? Tamra x
"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." Timothy Leary
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