Robbie’s wife: Dads don’t feel as selfish having a career
HE’S a pop singer with concerts across the globe, she’s a model and actress – and together they are bringing up four children.
But Ayda Field said she is doubtful her husband Robbie Williams feels as ‘selfish’ as she does when she prioritises her career.
Ms Field, 43, said working mothers and fathers are not treated equally and claimed the pop star is never asked if he feels ‘guilty’ about leaving his children for work commitments.
Speaking on her Postcards From The Edge podcast, she said: ‘It’s interesting, it’s the same voice that goes in my head – you used the word “selfish”, that mummy has to be “selfish” to do her work.
‘It’s interesting, like I see Rob going off to do his work, and I don’t think he ever thinks of it as being selfish.
‘And it’s interesting as women – and I don’t know if that’s because of what we’ve inherited culturally from our mothers and their mothers, and society, and what’s expected of us – how we do feel guilty when we pursue something that’s ours.
‘Or it feels like it’s at the behest of our children, or that it’s wrong to want those things because it’s selfish – that judgment we put in place.
‘It’s that thing where you judge yourself and you do find it selfish sometimes and that voice that you have to fight. Whereas I look at Rob, and I imagine many men, and they don’t feel like it’s selfish.
‘Why do we do that? Why does it become selfish all of a sudden?’
Ms Field married the singer, 48, in 2010. They have Theodora, ten, Charlton, eight, Colette, four, and Beau, three.
She said she does not think Williams has ever been asked about feeling ‘guilty’ leaving his children for work, adding: ‘I’ve been there at his interviews and I’ve never heard anyone say, “Do you feel guilty being away from the kids?” Or, “Who’s looking after the kids while you’re on the road?”’