Women at work, beyond the 9 to 5: The untold realities of working mothers’ lives.
Jamie* works full-time and has two boys ages three and one. The oldest has level 3 ASD, is nonverbal, and needs a lot of care. We talked about why women want to work, the challenge of juggling it all, and finding space for your passions amongst it all.
Progressing and changing careers even with babies
“When I feel pregnant with my eldest in 2020, I was doing shift work as a retail store manager and studying for my Bachelor of Business in HR. I had my son, took six months off and transitioned back into the workplace.”
When her son was eight months old, she got a role at her current employer – an engineering company – three days a week and continued with casual shift work in the store. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?
“It got too hard to work weekends and night shifts with a small child, so I stopped working at the retail store and just worked in the office role.
“For me, that was the best mix, I loved having Fridays off with him, it was great.”
Why paid parental leave matters
The engineering firm she’s at doesn’t have any paid parental leave at all, so Jamie had to rely on government entitlements. Having a fairly easy pregnancy, she increased to full-time hours to add to her savings and worked right up until seven days before birthing her second son.
“Centrelink [payments] are only 16 weeks. So, I reached out to my boss to see if I could work from home a few hours a week, just to have money coming in.”
She also couldn’t yet secure childcare for her son, so she needed a project she could do flexibly while her baby was sleeping.
“Financially it’s been rough. In March this year I asked my boss if I could work flexibility full time. She was happy for me to work from home one day a week. If I could, I’d love to work four.”
Stories like Jamie’s highlight exactly why sufficient parental leave payments and access to affordable childcare are so important. Economic outcomes for women are vastly improved by structural support, and outcomes for children are better when the mother is properly supported.
Check out The Parenthood if you want to dive deeper into the childcare issue and be part of the solution.
Why women work
Like many women I speak to for Beyond the 9 to 5, Jamie finds work incredibly rewarding. She wants to work, but would also like more support.
“I’m very career driven and always have been. I like getting out, talking to people and feeling like I’m making a difference in the workplace.”
Jamie is currently getting her HR certification through AHRI so often studies in the evenings and spends every other spare moment reading.
Jamie finds that work helps her feel like herself. She enjoys the challenge, learning, and making an impact.
“Even if I was able to be at home I wouldn’t, I like being in the office and having those conversations.”
“Being a working mum is hard but it’s worth it. It makes me a better worker and working makes me a better mum.”
The value of flexibility
In her interview for Women at Work, Parents at Work CEO Emma Walsh said that flexible work is the number one tool to keep women connected to the workforce.
“My company has been really good with me being a working mum. They’re very supportive and flexible in terms of me leaving early for appointments and things like that.”
In her retail role, one of Jamie’s colleagues returning to work after her second child wanted to work longer days during school time to give her more flexibility, and the company just flat-out refused.
“I can’t understand why placeds aren’t flexible about something like that. Working mums get the job done – they are such good workers.”
Jamie herself cringes to look back on her own lack of understanding before she had her own children.
“I can see that I was even someone who was potentially judging someone because they couldn’t do something.”
“I did have that bit of a thought that if you can’t meet the requirements of the role or work night shift because you’re a mum, why take the job? Now I cringe thinking about that.”
“Here [at my current workplace], it’s very flexible in terms of hours, so if someone leaves at 3 or 4 no one even thinks about it.”
The juggle – again
The juggle of managing it all comes up over and over in Beyond the 9 to 5. We’re all trying to cobble together individual solutions to issues that are bigger than any one family, and Jamie is no different.
She’s currently trying to find more supported childcare for her three-year-old due to his level of needs. On top of that, daycare sickness is a big issue for parents with young kids.
“It’s go, go, go from the minute you wake up until the kids go to bed. I struggle with the morning routine, it’s a rush to get two toddlers and myself ready!”
She joked recently in a work meeting that she wants to be the dad next time, and a dad defensively said it’s also really hard.
“I just think it’s really different being the primary parent or the secondary parent.”
And if you read Annabel Crabb’s The Wife Drought, you’ll find she agrees with Jamie on that.
Carrying the mental load
A common theme across Beyond the 9 to 5 is the weight of the mental load, which is true for Jamie as well.
“As a mum, your brain doesn’t stop. It’s constantly ticking over. When you’re at work you’re thinking about the kids, when you’re at home you’re thinking about work. It’s one reason I read, because it pulls me out of my head.”
Keeping your passions as a working mum
Another common theme across Beyond the 9 to 5 is that women who make time for themselves and their hobbies seem to be the most content within the juggle of it all. Jamie’s kids are very young, with high needs, but she makes time to read as her main passion.
“I’ve read 83 books so far this year. I forgo sleep to read. In the car, while I’m doing housework, I’m usually listening to a book. I love it, so I prioritise it.”
“I also do [cultural dancing]. I get there once a week or fortnight. I started doing that when I was 2 or 3 years old, did it for 13 years, and then had a 20-year break. I went back to it when I had my first son. My husband was playing soccer, and said you need to do something as well!”
“I make sure that I have things that make me, me, so I can be my best for my boys.
*Not her real name. Because of the stigma faced by working mothers, the motherhood penalty, and the fact that the state of women’s relationships directly affects the state of their lives and careers, the women in this series have chosen to remain anonymous.
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