I'm Not A Working Mum

I have 2 boys and have worked for almost their whole lives. I’m not a working mum.

When my first son was born, I was lucky to be in a full time position and relished 9 months paid (albeit it lowly) maternity leave. God Bless the UK. Maternity leave was a gift that I loved every day (well, all the fluffy, cuddly, loving fun days; I’ve chosen to forget all the crappy, long, exhausted, repetitive days). With my second son, I was running my own business. I went back to work within the first week, taking a call about a project at London Zoo whilst nursing my newborn. Being your own boss does not afford you the gift of maternity leave.

My husband had one week’s paternity leave when our son was born. Just one week to bond, one week to mop up after me and our son, to rescue me from the sleepless stupor you are moving in. One week to acclimate to our newly expanded family and then gone. Back to the day job.

When dads return to work after a new baby’s arrival, they aren’t defined as being a working dad. When their babies are born, they don’t re-evaluate their jobs to determine how they are going to work around nursery pick up, sick days, teacher training days. These are men, who happened to be fathers, carrying on their careers as normal because society expects it, babies or no babies.

I’m not a working mum. But I am a working parent. I write this with feeling. Two of us brought our children into this world and yet, archaically, the role of primary parenting, the bit that demands the head space, the planning, the sacrifice on a day to day basis still falls regularly on the mother’s shoulders.

The world is pushing to give girls the same opportunities for knowledge and training - google ‘girls education’ and see how many organizations are created to promote this. Girls are traditionally seen as more studious, conscientious students than boys. Clever us. We push hard for our careers once we leave university and employers want us bright, diligent women on their team. Then bam, mid 20’s/early 30’s there we are, creating families and side stepping our careers, often for good, because the other option - returning to said career, is just logistically too complicated. Having a two career household is one hell of a challenge.

I don’t write this piece because I have a political or social statement to make. I don’t have a solution to impart, a piece of wisdom to share about how to make it different. I wish I did.

My sole point is that we need to treat all parents equally. We need less emphasis on helping mothers manage their schedules to go back to work. In a world where we need two incomes, let’s focus on helping parents manage their schedules so they can both work. Let it be correct that dad leaves work early for school pick up when the babysitter is sick. Let it be ok for dad to take the phone call from school when their child is ill. Let dad be the one to drop their meeting and head back home.

The broken, angry world is crying out right now for more women in power, in top jobs, in authority. But stop making it so darn hard for us. All that us parents need is flexibility to make this whole family thing work. Flexibility in our hours, in our vacation time. Let us properly share the parenting role (from head space to nursemaid) so we can all have the careers we deserve, the equal power play we need and be the parents we want to be.