Mothering, Working & PhDing
It was almost 2:00 am and sleep for my three-year-old was nowhere in sight. My Ph.D. thesis defense was scheduled for that same day and I had planned to read my notes and finish preparing after I put my child to bed. Suffice to say it wasn’t happening. This was definitely not the first time I would give a presentation to an important group of individuals having slept very little, nerves shot while keeping my professional ‘game on’. I couldn’t help but wonder if other academic and working mothers (and fathers) had ever had this kind of problem: Big professional event, no sleep, act as if you have had eight+ hours and keep it together. I choose to speak about mothers because the majority of the time we tend to be the primary caregivers of our children. While the women’s movement has opened up ways of moving ahead in our lives the realities of motherhood and the systems in place both at work and in the academy fall short and have ultimately failed mothers.
Following four months of maternity leave, I returned to work and my daughter was off to day care (lets not get into the emotional trauma that happens). While this is quite common for women, the anxiety as well as general lack of sleep and guilt came as a shock. Oh, and another thing, my 0knack for swift and steady presentations, email correspondence had not only slowed down, the academic rigor that had served me well during the writing phase of my P.h.D left me in a fog. I was of course, expected to work as if I had not just popped out a baby and was supposed to function, business as usual.
While, I have been fortunate to work with understanding managers and even supportive colleagues with children of their own, I have had my run in with the occasional ‘horrible boss’ who insists on a Skype call after-hours while my daughter climbs all over me for attention; Or being told by my director that a woman’s career doesn’t actually start until the age of 50. A year or so after my redundancy as gender technical lead at World Vision International (lack of funding), one of my former male colleagues observed that perhaps my pregnancy set me back in my career because I could not travel extensively for the position and therefore unable to work at my “full capacity”. Full capacity? I was already burnt out from juggling a full-time job, finishing my Ph.D. and being a mom. Even more frightening, I had domestic help which was about 1/2 of my paycheck the other half to daycare. My reality was that I was unable to meet expectations and there always seemed to be something out of balance. My friends were sick of hearing about it and I was constantly getting ill. If I was at an evening function for work (there were many) I was missing my daughter’s bedtime routine, if I was with my daughter I was behind on my work obligations and my thesis revisions, and still if I was working on my thesis and/or work I was missing out on time with my kid. There were too many balls in the air, and inevitably one or two were being dropped. I was all yoga-posed out. I was bending to meet everyone’s demands and failing miserably.
As I write this I can honestly say I have come full circle. Post-redundancy, I took on more consultancy projects and worked remotely from my home office. I currently search for projects that allow me the time and flexibility to be able to take extra time with my daughter and insist or rather demand for a more work-life balance. My long-term goal is to run a consulting firm that supports working parents, particularly a special focus on support for single working mothers. It is time to address the key systemic systems in place that hold women back like the pay gap, maternity and sick leave, healthcare, and leadership development. These are all organizational issues that cannot be solved my working mothers (or fathers for that matter) who are just working harder and longer all the while on the verge of a burn out. My aim is to create a safe workplace environment where individuals feel comfortable with how parents show up and function at work. An office space with a day care and working hours that are shorter but allows for more intense work to happen instead of a 12 hour day. By making the workplace more equitable, inclusive and diverse for parenting and in particular women that face multiple systemic levels of oppression we create the opportunity for women to be leaders in their own right and for companies to reach another level of incredible productivity and success. When we support mothers, everybody wins.
