Never Going Back

by vix on May 13, 2010

I’m never going back to the workplace.

Are working mothers shafted?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a lazy cow. I have no problems working. In fact I work pretty bloody hard. It’s just one day I realised that my desire to have it all had morphed into something extremely sinister.

I was not having it all.
I was doing it all.

I can’t see how modern women in business can avoid it. Especially if they’re working in an office environment to a schedule that suits the corporate not themselves.

When I started working in a large global Big Six accounting firm it was the late 1980s. I was ambitious and determined to have a stellar career. I was one of a three female member marketing team for a partnership of forty-something male partners.

Work time was counted in six minute units. Productivity was assessed on units worked. I often worked from 7am-7pm. Women were not allowed to wear trousers. But perhaps more importantly women were not allowed to juggle their home and work responsibilities. My boss never ate meals with her daughter during the week. Never! She hired a series of nannies who came and went. She famously told the story of how she was back at work the week following her daughter’s birth.

There was a very real pressure on women to prove their worth. That meant quite bluntly that women had to put in the face-time to prove they were worthy of climbing the corporate ladder. Women who chose to combine childcare and home time with their children were spoken about as irrelevant.

Fast forward some 20 years or so.

I was working in a senior role at a PR company in the UK. I no longer have babies the kids are now teens. I have a long commute every day (anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hours) there and back to the office and we are new in the country. I’m trying to juggle settling in a new country, wowing them at work, and working on integrating a new family that combines me and kids plus new husband. Add in travel, and a household that still needs cooking and cleaning and washing…and you have one exhausted working mum.

When I expressed my exhaustion at work, the response I got was ‘Oh that’s right you haven’t found a nanny yet’.

Has anything changed at all in the last twenty years?

I know I have! I’ve learnt so much about how to prioritise time, co-ordinate projects, manage deadlines (and screaming babies), not to mention customer service, and people skills (managerial skills!) I challenge any employer to find someone who knows more about how to work time efficiently and cost effectively, than a mother who has had to get the media release finished before the baby wakes up!!!!

I’ve changed in myself too. Call it maturity or life experience. I’m no longer as smart-arse as I was. I understand what I’m capable of achieving. I’ve learnt that months without sleep does not make you an excellent worker, just a tired ineffective one. I’ve learnt many, many things about how to use technology to ensure I can get everything done. Not to mention all that I’ve learnt about negotiation and deal making…

When your company needs to negotiate the terms of engagement for the next big project do take the working mother whose skills have been finely honed by talking-down the teenage daughter’s desire to wear sleeveless cleavage enhancing singlet top in the middle of winter!

Do women still have to work twice as hard to secure their place in the boardroom, or around the City partner’s table? Have huge advances in telepresence, telecommuting, technology, email/twitter etc not helped at all in providing a cohesive balance between home and work? Not only for women, but for men too?

And what of the family friendly workplace…did it ever happen?

It’s hard to see me ever giving up the freedom to juggle my work and family responsibilities as I do now.

Sure it means that I’m often working in my dressing gown at stupid o’clock, and that I have to studiously ignore the mess that builds up around me at home whilst I work. But I am able to collect the daughter from school when she has terrible period pain, or drop in the forgotten PE kit/notebook/textbook/phone/notice! My kids don’t need me to wipe their bums anymore but I think they definately need to know that I’m around for them if they need me.

What do you think? Do you think the workplace is more tolerant of working mums?

Will virtual commuting ever take off?

Or will corporates use family friendly working it to fudge over real change by quietly sidelining those women who combine work and home?

Image: Flickr Creative Commons

By Big Grey Mare

Tagged as: emotional health, Work

http://paris-ankara.blogspot.com sandrine

Fortunately not all work is like this! As an academic, I have a much easier time of it – apart from 9 hours of teaching per week, I can be pretty flexible as to what I do when, and I’ve never had to work more than 40 hours a week. Sure, some academics work weekends and evenings, but I reckon most of the time it’s because they’re disorganised or because they’d rather work than have to clean the house/ look after the kids. Point is, in many lines of work, you can have kids and do what you have to do. Men who do more than what is necessary and have families should be penalised for not pulling their weight at home, I reckon, not promoted!
Pingback: Tweets that mention Never Going Back | Vegemitevix -- Topsy.com
Eggs, cream and honey

I am lucky enough to also work at home. And do all those things you mention for the kids without having to ask permission from my boss. I miss office banter sometimes though. I do think that women are still expected to do all the traditional jobs at home & earn a descent wage outside the home. That seems to be where women's lib has brought us and it rather unfair! Employers could make it more acceptable for the dads to have time off and more flexible hours. Then the domestic work could be spread out more evenly. I sometimes resent that meal times are still my responsibility even though I've worked a full day just like my husband. But to me the work world still seems dominated by men and for that reason women's needs get overlooked.
http://www.stickyfingers1.blogspot.com Tara@Sticky Fingers

The newspaper I used to work for was VERY family friendly. But then we had all been there a long time and it was more like a big family.
But the editor at the time certainly recognised that a happy, rested parent was far more productive than a tired, stressed out one.

But for me I wanted to take my children to school every day and not have to rely on someone else doing it for me. That is why I left. I got to the point where I wanted to be a mum first and foremost and didn't want to get years down the line and wished I'd done things differently.
They're only young once after all!
http://itsamummyslife.blogspot.com/ MrsMummyslife

God what a brilliant post. Well done. I am a working mother. I am an MD of a PR company (which one did you work for??) and I have 2 small children, both of whom need me to wipe their bums, in fact one who still wears nappies. I am bloody knackered, stressed, pissed off, exhausted and useless 90% of the time. There is 10% of me that is pretty bloody good at my job and some mroe somewhere that is a good mother. But juggling the two sometimes breaks me. Why do I do it? well apart from the mortgage that needs paying (as the primary breadwinner) I need it for my sanity and I like it. But I like my kids more, and I hate how I feel guilty for leaving work on time to get home to put them to bed. I hate how I can't work at weekends because I want to be with my children and I I hate that that sometimes compromises my work, we don't win a pitch etc. Still I battle on because as you so rightly say, that's what women do. We just accept it and get on with it and by the time we realise that we're doing EVERYTHING a few years have passed by. There. You did ask…
http://twitter.com/LondonCityMum London City Mum

What a great post!

When I worked in the dealing room (yes, as a not-so-popular-now investment banker) there would have been no way I could have juggled the job with being a mother. As luck would have it, maternal instincts were furthest down my list of priorities, if on it at all.

Since then much has changed and although I am not necessarily enamoured of my work at present (it has its moments), I am far more in charge of my own time than before, plus the majority of people I work with now (mostly men) also have young families.

Whilst they may not necessarily juggle all the different jobs that a working mother typically has to (shopping, cleaning, laundry, cooking, homework, etc etc), they certainly know better than to challenge my work ethic, ie be efficient and get the job done in your own time but within budget and before the deadline.
So that at least has changed for the better. I am also very fortunate to have a husband that contributes at least 50% to the 'other' work, even though he still believes in the magic laundry fairy.

The other fact is that since turning 40 I have become far more of a pragmatist. If I disagree, I say so (but with constructive solution). If I have a view, I will express it (albeit with carefully chosen words). If someone pisses me off, I will tell them so to their face.

I guess it is a 'what you see is what you get' attitude, but then again this is the upside of having young children who pull no punches when they dole out opinions!

LCM x
vegemitevix

Thanks Tara for commenting. I found that it doesn't get any easier as they get older. IN fact I think there's an argument that says it's more important that you're around when the kids are teens not toddlers! In 16 years of mothering i think I've only had two years off working. Once when we moved to Australia and then when we moved here and the UK Border Agency revoked my visa! I need to work. It's important to me. I go a bit strange in the head if I don't. I just wonder why the workplace doesn't seem to have really changed and accepted virtual working…
vegemitevix

Don't know what to say except thanks for commenting. Glad to see I'm not alone in this. I'm working flat-out, just back working for myself as a sub-contractor/freelance so that I can juggle the kids, the house, the husband, work, my own writing career, blogging…you know all that stuff. Life I think they call it! ;-p If you need an excellent strategist/writer freelancer who ya gonna call? ;-p
vegemitevix

I must say this sounds far more appropriate. If only I'd stayed longer at varsity!! Sage point you make about those dads who stay late at work to skive off family life! I agree penalise them! And I meant to say too for my male readers, I'd like the workplace to be more family friendly for Dads too!!!!!!
vegemitevix

I notice that too. I'm 42 (yeah I know, wince) and when I disagree I say so too. Keeping up appearances isn't the be all and end all. I'm glad the guys in the office are taking their family responsibilities seriously too..maybe there's hope yet for the family friendly workplace?
vegemitevix

Oh ditto to everything you said. I also miss the banter but also the constancy of a pay check, and the desire to 'dress up'. I seem to slob around in my jeans all day. I also feel resentful particularly about cooking the meal, which is funny, because I love cooking as you do! I notice that the man of the house seems to be allergic to dishwashing powder and the kids offer smelly sacrifices to the washing fairy daily. I wish that all workplaces could see how virtual commuting could benefit them for both their female and male workforces.
You can't have it all

Business is a business…they are not there for the welbeing of the family only to make money…sorry but that is the hard reality of life.

There is a myth perpetuated by the popular media that women can have a successful career, be a mum, wife everything…unfortunately the reality is that this is a myth…get used to it. Life is hard
mummylimited

I totally agree. That's why I gave it all up when I became a Mum. My company fully expected loads of extra hours and bullied it into you. Mainly run by men who's wives were at home and they never saw their kids.
I was only thinking the other day that although my 'job' is now 24/7 I used to spend 50+ hours a week in an office and now I get to do what I like.
vegemitevix

I certainly agree with your comment that businesses aren't there for the family, but to make money. That is indeed true. However, don't you think that focused, energised workers make a business more successful, not less?
http://twitter.com/YummyNo1 Yummy Mummy

I tried and failed 'to have it all' and in my experience it is a complete myth.
When I was juggling a full-time career and my children, I wasn't doing a good enough job at either of them and I have never for a minute regretted my decision to be a SAHM.
I worked in banking and had to work twice as hard as my male and childless colleagues to somehow prove my worth, only to be overlooked for that next big project/deal/promotion anyway.. Sad but true.
I struggled to find a balance between work and home and for me something had to give and for me there was no contest – for now I have to put my family life first while they are still so little.
Really great post btw x
http://teensntwincesses.blogspot.com/ Fran

Just had to comment on this- it really strikes a chord with me!
Am 41 now and have had two 'sets' of children. The first set are now 20 & 16. When I had them, (in my very early 20's) I worked. I was full of the 'oh I can do it all, have baby will conquer' attitude. I did different jobs to fit around the children & eventually worked as an Event Manager – which I absolutely loved. I could work 3-4 days and put in 65-70 hours, a good wage and true job satisfaction.
I spent 2-3 full days with the kids & felt that I was giving them 'quality time'…….
Twenty years on and I now have two more small children.
I work from home.
If I could go back and shake the old me at 19 I would slap myself silly for going to work when my boys were small.
I have never worked for a big corporate giant with maternity pay & creches & paid holidays but to me it doesn't matter how family friendly your employer is -fact is kids need mums. More to the point Mums need kids!
I would give anything to have those days back with my older kids. I miss the one that is at Uni dreadfully and no amount of private dental, holidays or new tv's can ever make up for that.
I don't make a huge amount from home, I consider that I am now a 'frugal mom'. I sew, bake & garden and am so grateful for the chance to do it again.
Having it all just means doing it all and frankly womens lib, far from being about equality just means doing it all, with guilt & saggy boobs.
vegemitevix

aprpove
scribblingmum

I work for a large financial organisation, part time, 3 days. And I never feel like what I do is good enough. When I leave at 430 so that we can all sit down as a family to eat every evening. When I apologise that I can't attend a meeting as it's a 'non-working' day for me. Why I apologise I don't know, full timers wouldn't expect to attend a Sunday morning meeting would they?

But do you know what, I don't care anymore. I am being managed by a girl younger than me that I used to be 'above', I'm no longer on a talent list. But I get to do flexible hours, get a good wage and I have accepted that I just don't have the drive that I used to. I enjoy being Mum best and no job is important enough to make me miss seeing them grow up.
http://cestlavietlb.wordpress.com/ Tara

I am quite lucky in that I am still young, unmarried (though in a serious relationship) and I an not about to have kids. I like my job, we can work flexitime so when I do need to go see a doctor in the middle of the day, I can. However, I now that this is not the company I will be working for once I do get around to having kids? Why? Once simple reason. A colleague finally had twin girls after a long struggle. She took her 4 months maternity leave, as she was entitled to. Once she came back to work, she re-negotiated her hours, and took a pay cut in order to leave an hour earlier so that she could cuddle and play with her babies before the nightmare of feeding bathing bedtime commenced. This is fair. Less, hours less pay and the company was happy to let her do that. However, the MD (who was this woman's direct Boss) said to her “You know, you've let you babies take up all your time and attention. You're not a focused or efficient as you were.” And for the real kicker? The MD is a woman herself.

My colleague left the company about 3 months later. She's currently working 2 jobs, but the afternoon job is from home. She's happier than I've ever seen her.

I am proud to be an independent woman. I plan to be a working Mom one day. But you had better believe that if anyone ever told me that I was putting my babies ahead of my job, I would tell them where they could put that job.

Or maybe I'm naive…I don't know.
vegemitevix

Thank you Fran for commenting and welcome here! It's great to have you on board. Boy do I agree with your comment – 'having it all just means doing it all and frankly womens lib, far from being about equality just means doing it all, with guilt and saggy boobs.' I understand the pressures you felt when your 'first set of kids' (lol!) were young. I felt exactly the same. Unfortunately when I 'returned' to the workplace the year before last I felt all those feelings of pressure and guilt. Nothing had changed. Am I ruined? I don't think I will ever be able to 'go back' to clocking in and being told what to do. Biggest problem is the pressure I put on myself to contribute to paying the mortgage..and that's no small pressure I confess.
vegemitevix

Oh I hear you! I was once 'interviewed' by a recruitment consultant who wasn't even born when I started working! I would apologise if I wasn't working over the weekend, if I needed to go into school (instead of being first into the office and last to leave every night). I felt terribly guilty about leaving the kids with my Englishman when it was all so new to them and we were so new to the country, but I also felt incredibly guilty I couldn't put in the hours/time/energy to the company too. Made worse by the fact it was a small company that was struggling in the recession, so I even felt personally guilty for the directors! I guess I'm just a control freak and feel I do a better job of understanding where my priorities lie.
vegemitevix

Hi Tara, thanks for commenting it's really lovely to welcome you here! You know what? Unfortunately I've found it's other working women who tend to be the most difficult about combining home and family. Is it because they feel we have to work harder to prove our worth? If indeed it is true that my brain fell out with my placenta (and there is real doubt that it did) that was over 16 yrs ago… surely I must have recovered?
http://bloggertropolis.blogspot.com/ Steve

Times have changed – quite a bit in fact. I frequently take time off work or leave early to look after the kids when they are ill. The boss doesn't like it but doesn't stop me or penalize me for it either. The wife and I try and do 50% and both prioritise home life over work. We go to work to keep our home life going not as a replacement for it.
http://www.muddlingalongmummy.com/ Muddling Along Mummy

This is one of the things that scares me about my new job, that I have to train them up to realise that I can leave at 6 to go home and put the girls to bed and breastfeed the baby and be back working by 8 and that doesn't mean I'm less dedicated, rather it means I am VERY efficient in how I do things because I have these time constraints
geekymummy

My experience has been pretty good so far. My sick (too sick for daycare but not all that sick) kids can come to work with me. I can work at home if need be. I was fortunate enough in my last job to have a male boss who was a very involved dad, so we talked about our kids alot, and he was always completely supportive of my needing to take time to be with them. My husbands boss was too. I think things are changing. I am admittedly in a young industry (biotech) in a pregressive state (California), but for me at least being a working mum is working out well.

Anonymous

The funniest thing of all is that since writing this I have in a sense ‘gone back’. But this time not to a corporate bound environment but a wonderful flexible innovative little IT company, and I have the flexibility to be creative. It’s a wonderful compromise.