Women at work, beyond the 9 to 5: The untold realities of working mothers’ lives.
Mae* has four children, between the ages of three and twelve, and works full time – so life is busy!
Flex and full-time go together
Until recently, when people asked Mae if she worked full-time, she replied,
“Well, kind of. I have to get used to [the idea that] flexible doesn’t mean part-time.”
From part-time in a big corporation after her first child, to working in an agency with a focus on output, to her current full-time flexible role, she hasn’t felt ‘properly’ full-time for a while.
“It’s taken me 10 years and I still don’t feel great walking out of the office at 4:30, but that’s what I’m doing, and I’m not feeling guilt about it.”
Being the only one in your team
After giving birth to her first child, Mae returned part-time. She was working 8:30 am to 3:00 pm three days a week, managing a team of full-time staff.
“I hated that feeling of walking out. Not that anyone ever said anything, but I was uncomfortable with it.”
She moved to a role with no management responsibilities and loved that she was running her own ship and watching her own clock.
“Nobody was relying on me at certain times of the day. I pivoted to a role that suited the way I felt emotionally at the time.”
The confidence to ramp back up
As she moves into this new full-time role with a team, Mae has to remind herself of her competence and abilities to help boost her confidence and not question herself too much.
“I’ve been put into this role for a reason, I’m supported in this role, these are the hours I’m going to work, and these are the expectations on me and my staff.”
“I’m being quite strict on myself about it, and not allowing myself to have those feelings [of lack of confidence].”
(But Mae admits they’re still there a little bit).
Work off ramps and on ramps
Mae is like 43% of mothers who take off ramps from work at some point. But she’s in the minority, as only 40% of those women return to full-time work.
“I’ve been fortunate I’ve been able to flex between roles that suited me at the time.”
By comparison, Mae has a close friend who returned to work full-time with two small children, then collapsed in a heap and said she was going to have to leave the workforce. Mae said to her,
“You went from working full time and having no children to being in this intense child-rearing phase of two kids under two, then trying to go back to a full-time corporate role, with nothing in between.”
Mae was able to have her children and flex her work input and hours as it worked with her family.
“In some ways, I’ve slowed my career, but I haven’t lost it. I’ve moulded [career and family] together. Only in the last couple of months am I going into a phase where I’m going to concentrate a bit more on my career and devote a bit more time to that because the kids are a bit older.”
Mae considers herself lucky that she’s been able to take on different roles that suited her family life – but the reality is most workplaces and many women would benefit from easier on and off ramps. Keeping women connected to the workforce in interesting, fulfilling jobs is incredibly important.”
“What you want out of your career is going to really change in the period of a decade. You’ve got to try to put yourself in situations where you can roll with it. It’s a lot of pressure.”
When taking a step back is worse than the juggle
As Amy Taylor Kabbaz says, women are more likely to hit the maternal wall than reach the glass ceiling. And Mae has tried to manage the maternal wall against her desire for an interesting career.
With her first three parental leaves, she was comfortable in her role with available part-time.
“I was quite happy to sit there for a period of time. I knew I wouldn’t do it forever, but it ticked lots of boxes.”
“Then, when I went to this really junior role, I felt like screaming at everybody, ‘Don’t you know what I’m capable of?’. I had to do all this menial stuff, I wasn’t respected for my knowledge and people were putting me in a box. I felt really undervalued.”
She didn’t last long before leaving for contract roles and moving into agency, and eventually finding her current role.
Finding work with meaning and not burning out
Mae’s ability to manage everything changes each day. When she took a back step for the junior role mentioned above, the stress took a different form.
“I hated it. I was crying every day. What I learned is that my job has to challenge and interest me. I have no interest in just going and doing something to pay the bills. I want it to tick boxes socially and mentally.”
In agency, it was no better. In a commission-only role, it can take about two years to build your business. Mae reached two years then took nine months off with her fourth. While she was off, a listing that had her name all over it came up, but she wasn’t even consulted.
“It was awful, I definitely felt sidelined.”
So she moved into her current role, where she has meaning and challenge.
Letting go of mother guilt
School holidays cause a lot of stress for Mae, trying to manage care for four kids in different stages.
“Firstly, I haven’t got enough leave, so I don’t have time with my children; they end up playing Xbox eight hours a day and turning into monsters. I feel guilty about not giving them amazing holidays because we both need to work. I feel a lot of guilt during the holidays.”
When she had fewer children and was working part-time, Mae felt like she had time to do fun things and cook healthy meals.
“As I ramped up the busy level, I had to slowly let things drop off.”
“It’s not letting go of guilt as a construct, but all of the little things that are important to you, how do you prioritise those things and let the others go.”
“When I took on this role, I was so worried. In the first couple of weeks, we had COVID and gastro and I had a meeting and everyone was sick and I was crying. I catastrophised then, we’ve taken on too much! I try very hard to remind myself that some days are like that.”
And she maximises the time she does have with her kids, so they have time to connect.
“People try to set aside blocks of time to be a good parent or be at work, but I try to make the most of the tiny windows. If I’ve got 20 minutes at dinner with the kids, I make the most of those 20 minutes and make that really good. That’s better than two hours of me looking at my phone. Try not to bite off big chunks.”
*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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