SEVEN TRUTHS ABOUT WORKING MOTHERHOOD

How to juggle your home and professional lives

Iused to look at pregnant women and think, ‘How do you stay so calm? A person is going to wriggle out of your cha-cha, how can you just be… walking?’ To me, it was like being on an airplane, knowing it would crash and just watching the inflight movie. I now know I was scared of the wrong things. I thought it was a physical trial, all birth and breastfeeding combined with project management, but the real story is about the change to your job, your relationship, your sense of self. My first two children brought on an identity crisis. In short: I returned to my job after maternity leave, but a new boss wanted to downgrade my role so, in a panic, I took another job, which I wasn’t suited to, then tried to escape by having another baby. Essentially, I had no idea how to be ‘successful’ in the terms I had previously set.

I decided to interview other working mothers and wound up writing a book, The Mother Of All Jobs. I learnt that most of what I had known up until having my baby was either not useful or actively unhelpful. Things I knew how to do were: get stuff done, be direct, respond to messages quickly, cope with office politics. Things I did not know how to do were: go with the flow, cede control, bond with women over children, do the same things repeatedly, combine work with kids. It’s taken a long time to adjust, but there are many things I’ve learnt that would have made me far happier had I known them before…

‘I HAD TO LEARN TO LET GO AT WORK’

1 YOU HAVE TO STOP DOING SOME STUFF

I assumed babies and children would somehow fit in around everything else I did. I didn’t notice other women running around frantically while making it look, to my untrained eye, simple. My few years of mixing full-time work and the remnants of a social life were a car crash. Early in this period, a lovely ex-boss asked me if I’d like to move to his company and do a three-day week. I foolishly said no because I wanted to keep working full time. Two years later, exhausted, demoralised, and probably depressed, I walked out of my job with no plans other than to sort my life out and be more present at home. Be smarter than I was: plan how to divide your time between work and home.

2 ACCEPT YOU’RE NOT IN CONTROL

My waters broke in a pregnancy Pilates class and, as I attempted a soggy shuffle towards the door, it was a big clue about what was to come. The illusion that my life was defined by choices had ended. At work, there are many examples: not choosing your maternity cover, someone taking your desk, not completing a project. These are before you get to active exclusion: when I returned to the office after my second child, I was looking forward to a meeting with my biggest client but was told there wasn’t a chair for me. At work, I had to choose my battles. Plus, if you let work decide your hours, you may drown. I know ‘superwomen’ say you just need to work hard and be organised, but many women I speak to say this approach breaks them. More than one mum told me that returning to work after a baby and trying to do what she did before triggered recurring postnatal depression. Decide at every stage what’s best for you and your family, how many hours you work and your boundaries. Then stick to what you’ve agreed.

3 MAKE YOUR MONEY COUNT

Having children removes financial stability. We spent a year breaking into piggy banks and withdrawing £50 from childhood Post Office accounts. Previous ‘essentials’ don’t even make the wish list when you’re paying for childcare. Get ahead of it: cancel curry night, downgrade your phone. Don’t think about moving into a bigger house or renovating. The aim is to be able to make active choices rather than being backed into corners. For example, if you top out your mortgage, you won’t be able to choose between a date night or booking a cleaner – neither will be an option. Many say the way they make it work is by paying for stuff that makes life easier, such as ironing or booking parties in places that do the logistics for you. If you can put cash aside, it’ll make all the difference.

4 BAN ‘MUMMY WARS’

If you work, don’t fall into the trap of imagining that at-home mums judge you or dislike you. More often, they just don’t know you because you’re always jabbing at your phone to tell the team you’re ‘five minutes away...’ With a bit of effort (ideally in the early years), other mums, especially at-home ones, can be your best allies. They know what’s going on locally and in school and, more importantly, on the day your train gets stuck, you will be eternally grateful to have 10 people on Whatsapp who can whisk your child home with their own for TV and sausages. Other allies you’ll need include: childminders, the GP receptionist and neighbours so local that a two-yearold can microscoot to their door, unaided (ish).

5 TRY NOT TO HATE YOUR PARTNER

It’s not his fault you’re both exhausted, poor and stressed. Raging at him for being able to get the bus to work every day and drink coffee in peace may feel reasonable, but it doesn’t help. Don’t blame him for the fact women give birth and social structures mean he is likely to get his ‘normal’ life back long before you do. It’s easy to idealise being at home (if he’s leading on childcare) or in the office (if you are at home), but both options can suck. If you can keep talking, laughing (however darkly), sleeping in the same bed and carving out bits of time alone, your lives will be easier. Seek to play as a team rather than individuals.

6 CHOOSE WHAT MATTERS

The worst approach – and god knows I’ve tried – is to be on work email while dishing up the kids’ tea. Similarly, when at work, you need to cut off home as much as you can. Develop rituals to divide ‘work you’ and ‘home you’: I turn off my email on the train home, so that I’m calm when I walk through the door. One mum even told me that reading pornographic novels on the commute kept her sane.

7 HAVE FAITH THAT YOUR STRENGTH WILL SURPRISE YOU

When I was heavily pregnant with child number three, my husband went abroad for work. But the girls got ill, waking every hour of the night with raging temperatures. Three days later, broken, I told him to come home. He found a flight and got back 17 hours later! Even though I had to go to a meeting and appear calm (tearfully begging a friend for childcare cover, no nursery would take them), we got there. There will be moments when you don’t believe you’ll get through it, but you will. And somewhere deep inside your soul you will feel that if you did that, you can do anything.