Career and Family Planning

So, I thought long and hard about what I could post of value on today, International Women’s Day. Clearly, I could talk about inspirational women in my life (of which there are many), share quotes that inspire me or books I have read but I’m not very good at that sort of stuff. What I’m better at is sharing what I know and one of the questions I get asked a lot about, particularly by early in career women, is around planning for family and career.

Mostly this comes up in an informal chat or mentoring scenario, very rarely via any more formal channels. Family planning and careers just seems to be one of those topics we don’t talk about in the open which is crazy. We all talk about managing a “work-life balance”, yet we rarely talk about what that actually means and particularly what that means for women. So, I thought I’d share what I’ve learnt from building my own family and career in the hope it may be helpful to at least one of you. Or if nothing else, maybe we can start to break down some barriers about what’s seen as “ok” to talk about in a corporate environment.

1)     Fertility is a gift, not a given.

Just because you theoretically can, doesn’t mean you can have children. According to the NHS 1 in 7 couples suffer from some degree of infertility in their lives. As someone who has a child but has also been through multiple miscarriages, I know building a family isn’t always straightforward. Many women ask me when the “right time” is to have a child. It is for the reasons above that I’d say, there is no “right” time. It’s not something you can always control so why wait? As a hiring manager I hire someone for the next five plus years – not the next 12 months. A male friend has just hired a female he knew to be pregnant knowing she was the right candidate. So, do you really want to wait for that perfect role just to find out you’ve missed your chance at a family? 

2)     What about time out of the business? I’ll miss out.

I took 9 months out with my son. On my return I found that small things had changed, but much was the same and a lot of people thought I’d been away for a lot less. Even if you take a year out on maternity it’s a small amount of time in the grand scheme of things. The state pension age for women is currently 67 years. Therefore, if a female enters the workforce after graduation at say, 23, she could work for 44 years before retirement. 12 months doesn’t seem so long now does it?

3)     I’ll find it harder to accelerate my career with children

The truth of the matter is there are always choices as to how you live and work – we just can’t do everything. I’ve seen so many different ways in which how parents balance this, and there is not right or wrong – just what’s right for you as an individual and as a family. For example, when my son was little, worked compressed hours. It was hard for a while, but I got every Friday off with him where we built memories I’ll cherish forever. Yes, it probably meant I didn’t accelerate my career as fast as I could for a while, but now he’s in school I can as I have more time. That was my choice, I made it and I’m ok with that.

4)     How will I find balance – it looks impossible to do it all!

Yes, it is impossible to do it all. As much as I’d like to hand stitch all my son’s World Book Day costumes like my mum did I just can’t. But I am really good at Amazon Prime! To be honest he doesn’t care as long as he gets to go as whatever random character he’s chosen. I got some fantastic advice when I cam back from maternity and that’s to focus on 3 thing that make you feel like a great mum and three things that make you feel like you’re doing a good job at work. Everything else is a nice to have. That really helped me when I felt out of control or that I wasn’t enough for either my son or my work.

5)     As a man what can I do to help the women in my life/team?

Men can do so much to help here. Firstly, shared parental leave – be that man that takes it and talks about it! Childcare isn’t just a women’s work and social norms around who looks after the children can only change when people are the change. Ensure, you’re doing your fair share. My husband is an amazing dad, but we often talk (read heated debate) about the mental load I carry as a woman. We split the housework evenly, but I buy all my son’s clothes, know what day he needs to bring his gym kit in, nags him about more guitar practice and less Forza, knows all his friend’s names and buys them birthday presents etc ad nauseum. I don’t do all this stuff because I’m better at it, it’s just in my head. Yes, I could tell my husband to buy James an art set for his birthday but then I’m his manager not his wife.

I’m not perfect in any way. At times I get the balance in my life really wrong; I know I’ve messed up when my son tells me to put my phone down. But I’m trying and I’m happy to talk about what I’ve learnt that works and where I have gone wrong in the hope that it opens up a better dialogue about what it really means to be a working mother. I’d love to hear from anyone else on this topic and how we can ensure that we lift up the next generation of working mums – because let’s face it without us the workplace would be a little less organised and poor James would never get his art set.