A Call to Courage

Creating the work of tomorrow

Motherhood today is a constant juggling act, a relentless balancing of professional ambitions and the unyielding demands of raising children. The systemic and structural challenges that working mothers face are numerous and deeply ingrained. And increasing I've been considering that we as working mothers accept these challenges and obstacles too easily.

We accept that we’ll be tired. And in truth, we are tired. Pretty much all the time, especially when our children are younger. And also in truth, expecting ourselves to operate at the levels we want to be working at during this time is unsustainable and irresponsible. There are studies showing that sleep deprivation can have the same impairment risks as being intoxicated. And while I know that there are some who challenge this research, I know it's true, because I’ve done it.

I’ve showed up to work exhausted after being up all night with niggly twin babies. And I know that while I tried, I was not doing my best work. At that time, I was working in a very parent-friendly and people-focused business, I had support around me, and I still struggled.

I can’t imagine how much harder it is for working mothers who do not work in parent-friendly businesses and who don’t have support. And let’s not even talk about single mothers – how they keep going remains a mystery to me apart from knowing that they have no choice but to make it work.

The Onion of Challenge

Like any onion (thanks Skrek for the inspiration!), the challenge we face here is multi-layered; and peeling back those layers can bring tears to our eyes!

1. It’s a challenge to society at large to reframe the expectations of “motherhood” in line with the modern world we live in.
2. It’s a challenge to employers to ensure that they have policies that support all caregivers. It’s a challenge to make these policies equitable.
3. And it’s a challenge to us as working mother and parents to push for these changes.

I think that while we do benefit from the rights that so many generations of women before us have fought for, that we don’t owe our sanity, peace, and mental health to this history. And I think that these rights are yet incomplete.

While we generally have more rights in most parts of the world (even where these rights are under threat in some places) we have not redefined what being a successful working mother looks like in the world we live in. Because of this we can so easily fall prey to the ever-ready insta-perfect images of motherhood as being serene, all knowing, peaceful, ever patient, sacrificing themselves at the altar of their families and subjugating their own needs.

Not one mother I know benefits from choosing and chasing this ideal. And make no mistake by not challenging this perspective, but not redefining that being a working mother means, we are subconsciously at least accepting it.

Remember the quote that is sometimes attributed to Laurie Buchanan: “Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing”?

What are YOU choosing?

I’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat it here: the world has been built on the unpaid and unvalued emotional work and mental load of women the world over.

And it’s time for that to change.

And the change must also come from us as working mothers. We cannot wait for the changes we need. If we do, we will be waiting in vain, because these changes will not happen in our lifetime unless we do something different.

So, this is a call to courage.

When it comes to pushing for these changes, there are so many reasons that we don’t.

• We worry about being pushed onto the “motherhood track” where our careers go to die a slow and painful death.
• We worry about being perceived as not committed to the business and the work we do.
• We worry about not being seen as capable to do the work that we were doing successfully before we had children.
• We worry about being judged as wanting more than others get in terms of benefits and creating policies that seem to be unjust and unfair for those who don’t have children.

And I think that sometimes it just feels all too big to take on this challenge on our own.

But here’s the thing I’ve been thinking about.

Re-Valuing the Role of Motherhood

How much of us not pushing for more comes down to how we ourselves value motherhood and parenting?

How much of our reticence to push the boundaries on what we need to succeed comes from our own fears that we’re failing in the realm of the working mother because we can’t do it all?

I’m here to tell you that we CAN NOT do it all. And we should not expect ourselves or others to do it all. I certainly wasn’t doing-it-all all the time before I was a parent. Yes, there were times where I was balancing work and life, success, and fulfilment across all the areas of my life, but these times were as easily unbalanced as my life is now post-kids.

I think we forget that as working mothers we are still women. We still face the societal and structural challenges and biases from a society that undervalues women. And now that we’re working mothers, these challenges and obstacles have just been raised even higher for us.

I’m also here to tell you that you, me, and all of us deserve more. We deserve more than hustling our lives away to the corporate clock. We deserve to be treated with more humanity as we work to build businesses around us.

There is no one group of people more committed to work than working mothers. Despite the challenges we face at work and at home. We want to work. We want to be successful. We want to be financially independent. We want to feel like we’re making a difference. But we don’t want to sacrifice ourselves or our families to work. And we should no longer have to feel that way.

The Motivation for More

And I think we forget how much is riding on us.

It will be up to us to build the workplaces where our children will work. It will be up to us to build a world where work is about more than the clock and is about output and impact.

It’s up to us to build a world where all caregivers and all care-giving is valued. Where we have true diversity, equity, and inclusion.

After all we have the best intrinsic motivation in front of us. As we watch our children (finally!) peacefully asleep in their beds, marvelling at the miracle we’ve created as we watch their chests fall with every breathe and as we chuckle at their fast-asleep murmurs, this is what we’re doing it for.

We are the new generation of leaders – and female leaders - who can reject the status quo and build a better world of work.

We are that generation of leaders who will define what success looks like for working mothers. And won’t it be a shame if our legacy is one of exhaustion, burn out, stretched too thin and overwhelm?

But first we must decide to value motherhood more for ourselves, for the mothers who work for us and with us, for our friends and family. We must define the value of motherhood as we parent the next generation. We have to re-order our priorities – we have to decide that our own fulfilment is paramount, that motherhood is the higher purpose and that work fits around motherhood, not the other way.

Don’t we want more for our children?

Know that you are not alone. There is a world of working mothers out there all facing the same challenges day in and day out. What if we all joined together to change the world?

I believe it’s possible and we’re the only ones who can make this change.

This is your call to courage.

Will you join me?