The unrealistic expectations we have of working moms

When I thought about having kids, it was for me always clear that I’d be a working mom. Maybe this was because my own mother worked full time and this was what felt normal to me. But I also didn’t see myself at home 5 days a week, caring for the children and running a household. I wanted the job, the career.

Yet somewhere down the line, my perspective changed. Becoming a mom made me reflect a lot on what is important to me, on who I want to be and what I want to pass on to my child. Becoming a mom the second time forced me to strip down to the bare essentials, to the core of who I was and to rebuild myself one step at a time. It was by far one of the most challenging periods of my life - and there are phases where I feel like I’ve not yet gotten to the other end of it. Or maybe this is what motherhood is meant to be like, a constant transition where we question ourselves and reflect on what is essential, only to re-emerge just a little bit stronger than before.

The upside of the pandemic

In the 1.5 years I worked with only one child, I felt like I was constantly late - late for work in the morning, late to bring my kid to nursery, late to pick him. To be honest, the one thing that saved me in this period of my life was Covid. Social engagements were kept to a minimum and I was working from home most of the time. I often exercised during my work breaks or as soon as my son was in bed. After all, I was home most evenings anyway and there was not much to do, so I enjoyed my little routine of yoga, journaling, reading and spending time with my husband. As an introvert (and as I recently discovered highly sensitive person), this rhythm suited me quite nicely - though I was of course missing meeting up with friends, going to yoga classes and travelling.

Then somewhere between being pregnant with my second child and ending my maternity leave, life got back to normal. I navigated going back to an office job with two kids at nursery, a move and the new reality that life was as a mom of two. I remember going out for dinner with friends that I really wanted to see, knowing that I needed this time away from my family and struggling to keep my eyes open past 8.30pm because I was so exhausted from the sleepless nights.

With time, I’ve found a rhythm that works for me and my family, but I’ve also taken the unconventional decision of not going back to paid employment after my contract ran out, of trying to set up a business and - more importantly - of allowing myself and my body to recover from pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum while I rediscover who I am as a mother of two.

Matrescence and the transition into motherhood

This past year, I’ve been setting the foundations of a business that hopefully will support myself and my family in a few years time. I have a very strong vision of the lifestyle I would like to have - and this is a very big part of it. This time away from paid employment allowed me to focus on myself and my needs, to organise our household tasks (including a house move) in a way that I didn’t feel completely overwhelmed and reflect on what mother I’d like to be to my children and what values I’d like to teach them.

It allowed me to find out and read more about matrescence, that transition that women go through when they become mothers. It shows for me that the expectations we have as a society for women to come back to work after 14 weeks of maternity leave here in Switzerland and life to go on as before is just unrealistic. We are going through a huge transition in our life and most likely, we will never be the same. However, we aren’t allowed to take the time to find out who we are now, who we want to be. We are expected to function the way we used to - or listen to degrading comments (or sometimes even both).

I’m in the very privileged position of being able to take this time out - officially to build up a business, but the reality is that more often than not, my energy levels, my mental health, family emergencies or personal commitments get in the way. This past year has allowed me to gain some perspective on the expectations we have for mothers as a society - and why these do not feel aligned with my own personal values anymore.

• Matrescence is real and every woman should have the time and space to reflect on the transformation she has gone through after becoming a mother (again). It’s not only the hormones that shift, with a lot going on in our bodies during and after pregnancy. It’s also the personality shifts, the new priorities and perspectives. This needs to be talked about more and mothers should know that they are not along, that this is part of the beautiful and challenging season that motherhood is. It’s a time to rediscover who we are in this new season of life, who we want to be and what our priorities and needs are. Every mother should have the time and space for this.

• In our Western culture, we are expected to bounce back quickly after childbirth. We are proud when we fit into the same jeans as before pregnancy, we are expected to be out and about as soon as we are back home from the hospital and we go to work with our own perfectionism or the pressure from our superior telling us that we’ll need to deliver the same work. However, this is not the reality for many of us - and that is ok! We are not the same person as we were before, we’ve grown. Our bodies change during and after pregnancy and need time to rest and recover from childbirth. And pretending that we don’t have a family just to fit into the workplace and fulfil the expectations of our bosses will not make us happy, nor is it realistic (let’s face it, our kids WILL be sick, it’s inevitable).

• The expectations put on women are still the same as more than 50 years ago: raise the kids with all the responsibility that comes with it and run a household. One big change is that men are now more and more taking on their share of the responsibility. The transformation is a big one and the progress is painfully slow, because the values of society are so deeply ingrained into us that we sometimes don’t even see it ourselves. Every step that we take is a step in the right direction and I have the hope that my boys will be the generation that grows up to being equal partners in the relationships that they choose as they grow older.

  However right now, there lay still a lot of expectations on us mothers - and very often expectations that we can’t possibly fulfil without losing ourselves, burning out or worse. Women mostly take the larger part of the responsibility of childcare, the household and the mental load - and on top of that, they want or have to have a job, a career! This right to work, to vote, to stand up for ourselves is a right that the generations before me fought for - and it’s a right I am very privileged to have to the point that I sometimes take it for granted. But it’s up to our generation now to voice out that the current system, the expectations that are put on mothers and families, their role in our society are not working for us anymore.

  It can’t be that having a child automatically means that you will be on the edge of burnout for the first 4-5 years until the child enters the school system (and maybe even longer - because here in Switzerland, school hours and childcare options are chaotic at best). Having a child is a choice and I have the outmost respect for anyone who chooses not to go down this path. However I don’t believe that families should be left to fight on their own, only being able to get out of this whole journey relatively stably if they have the financial means for it (and often also struggling then because of the beliefs we hold, the pressure to have to do it all on our own) - because ultimately our social system, our society, needs children to survive, to function, to pay the pension funds. And we are in a situation where birth rates are going down - so when do we realise that NOW is the time to do something, to act on this and to make a change?

• We need more kindness, compassion and understanding in the workplace. Mothers often have a bad reputation, because they are the last to come in, the first to leave and they are often away from work looking after a sick child. However, mothers are often also more efficient in the little time they have, because they’ve learned that time for themselves, uninterrupted time to work is very rare and they need to make use of every single moment. They’ve learned to multitask, to plan, to negotiate, to focus on the most important tasks first. Real skills that are often frowned upon when put forward because they were not acquired in a workspace. Mothers often sit in front of their computers when their children are asleep and try to catch up on as much work as possible after spending the whole day looking after an unwell kid. We should open our eyes to this much more, rather than seeing the mom who is once again not at work! And maybe show her some compassion because she has been in a difficult position, with sleepless nights and no time to herself - just like we’d appreciate the compassion if we care for sick parents or lose a loved one.

The person I am today is not the same I was before I got pregnant the first time or even 3 years ago. The person I am today is more confident about her values and her needs, what’s important to her in life and what she wants to teach her children. It’s easy to get consumed by the world around us, especially in the digital era that we live in. For this reason, I want to take a step out of the box, be the odd one out and teach my children that for me, the relationships I have are more important than the things we own.

That I’d rather visit our family and friends in Singapore, Luxembourg, the UK, California, Denmark, Spain or Italy than buy any expensive bags or clothes.

That there’s joy in sitting by the ocean and watching the waves pass by.

That home is where the heart is and where I am with my family, not matter the place, because they are my anchor.

That I choose follow a dream that will take years to build because I am in a privileged situation where I can. Building dream will be a life lesson for my children in not giving up and moving forward one step at a time.