‘I often feel guilty about work and children’
CATHY MOSS, 41, lives with her partner Bjoern Reinke, 39, and daughters Thea, five, and Maya, two, in the southside of Glasgow.
She has a PhD and works as a research scientist at Glasgow University.
Ms Moss is easy-going but she often feels torn between work and spending time with her children.
“There is an expectation that if you’re university educated you’ll continue working after having children,” she said.
“I’m not sure if I’d say I feel stressed, but I often feel guilty about both work and children and guilt is a form of stress.”
She thought many women who pursued careers had to move away from their own parents and lacked help from them with childcare.
In contrast, she thought women who were less career minded may have stayed closer to home and therefore had help with childcare from their own parents. “Pursuing a career, managing children and childcare and childcare in the absence of support from grandparents is challenging,” she said.
She believed educated women took their babies to lots of activities – which could add to the pressure, Ms Moss said: “I think highly educated mothers do put a lot of pressure on themselves to be excellent mothers.
“There’s also a lot of pressures these days to do lots of stimulating things with babies; baby yoga, baby massage, baby swimming – and while these activities are enjoyable they probably add to the general feeling of being very busy.”
She added: “The more educated more you are, and the more aware of what good parenting is. You want to make you’re own food, take the children to interesting classes. The more educated you are, the more ambitious you probably are as a mother.”