Motherhood is beautiful. Yet, for many working mothers, especially in the US, especially in the past few years peppered with global pandemics, political and economic woes, motherhood has been “hard”. Hard is not often a word that we want to associate with being a mother, at least not one we dare to speak out loud when it comes to mothering. Yet, it certainly is the reality for many, one we soften with cute Instagram videos and funny stories, but a reality nevertheless. As many women after the COVID pandemic especially are turning to a “softer” approach to life and work, they’re also turning to a “softer” kind of motherhood. One that seeks to relieve the pressures of modern motherhood, allowing women to mother more lightly, more happily, more authentically…
I remember having a conversation with a fellow mom at my kids’ school. She laughingly was recounting how one of her daughters had told her on the ride to school one morning, that she did not want to be a mother when she’d grow up. When asked why, the young girl responded: “ Because it is so hard…” That made me think about all the times my own children may have thought the same thing. All the times our kids, nieces, or nephews look at us , between drop-offs, pick-ups, after-school activities and overflowing laundry baskets, and vow not to have children of their own, because…it looks so hard. And this is considering that most of us make it look easier than it actually is…
Many women are hitting walls of exhaustion and burnout, and bravely acknowledging it, as New Zealand’s ex-prime minister Jacinda Ardern did by stepping down earlier this year. As they do so, they are also sending the signal that things cannot keep going as they have been. Even as the world needs increased gender equity, diversity and inclusion, what it doesn’t need are mothers too exhausted to fulfill their potential in and outside of the home. Yet, with companies reneging on work-life balance measures and slowing down their diversity efforts, this is also signaling an urgent need to step back, stop glorifying the “hard” path to working motherhood, and instead re-imagining a softer way.
Often, when we hear of taking a “softer” approach, we may be tempted to think the latter would be less effective. In a society focused on over-performance at the expense of effectiveness, we’ve unfortunately come to equate “hard” with “effective”, or even “worthy”. Yet, the opposite couldn’t be truer. When it comes to motherhood, “hard” erodes the foundation of healthy mothering. Hard motherhood is motherhood that lacks flexibility, motherhood that barely survives rather than thrives, motherhood that is not full or complete, but only a shadow of its true potential. When mothers are submitted to unbearable pressure to perform, produce and deliver in the midst of a blatant lack of social, economic and political support, they are not set up for purpose, fulfillment or success. On the very contrary, they are set up for failure. And when mothers are set up for failure, families, communities and entire societies are set up for failure.
So what are we to do when ditching hard motherhood for softer mothering? In our modern society focused on productivity and results, it’s a tall order. Yet, it’s a change that can occur gradually starting with a few underrated, yet oh so effective principles:
Changing our minds about what it means to be a working mother
It all starts with mindset. For many, if not most working moms, motherhood has become an endless performance. From the wee hours of morning, to late night, they’re performing and giving of themselves without so much as a respite. The tiredness, the exhaustion, even the resentment have become a badge of honor, and the source of many acclaimed social media memes. If you’re a working mom, you must be tired. If you’re a working mom, you must not have time for self-care. If you’re a working mom, you must deny yourself, day in and day out. I remember an acquaintance telling me when my kids were still babies, that I did not look like a working mom because I was too well-put together. So does looking disheveled and piling on the under-eye concealers otherwise qualify us to be valid, worthy working mothers? Nope.
This journey towards softer motherhood begins with a changedmindset around what it means to be a working mom. It means redefining working motherhood in terms of better work-life integration, increased fulfillment and purpose. No, we don’t have to look like we’re on the brink of burnout to be approved as good mothers.
Reframe our careers and lives
The next step is to reframe our careers and lives around this mindset of fulfillment, purpose and fullness on our own terms. What are our non-negotiables? How do we take better care of ourselves in order to take better care of others? What can we take off of our plates rather than adding in? Where, and how can we get the support we need? These are a few questions to begin and continue the conversation.
Reframing our careers and lives is a matter of re-envisioning what a sustainable schedule looks like, from work obligations to kids’ activities. It is creating margins and boundaries in otherwise impossible timetables. Sometimes, it may be a matter of getting rid of the entire timetable altogether.
Taking back our power
Last but not least, softer mothering is about taking back our power to live fuller, more authentic lives that do not reflect a fraction of our potential, but as close to its entirety as possible. It’s about reclaiming the time that is so freely given away and under-estimated, and requesting the infrastructures and support needed, whether it’s childcare, flexibility or equity in the home. Finally, it’s about getting rid of the creeping, generational, overwhelming fear that keeps us from prioritizing our needs, and regaining the confidence to be the mothers we were created to be.
At the end of the day, motherhood was not supposed to be hard. Not this kind of societally-imposed, articificially-made “hard”. Is it bound to be challenging? Yes. Is it supposed to be easy? No. But this hard shell of modern motherhood that seems to be offered on the platter of “having (and doing) it all”, is not it. Rather, re-imagining a softer, effective, and sustainable approach to modern mothering is a better path to creating and sustaining societies that can thrive, and not just survive.
When we think of working women and moms, we often think of work-life balance, this elusive Eldorado of perfect (or semi-perfect) equilibrium between motherhood, work, and life in general. An elusive Eldorado that has yet to be proven true, and whose impracticality and subjective nature keep pushing working women and moms everywhere over the edge… Countless articles and arguments have been written and built around this concept, only to slowly end in the sober realization that
work-life balance for working women and moms simply does not exist…Instead, shouldn’t we focus more on work-life integration?
How can one balance the deeply personal, unpredictable and subjective journey of motherhood with the creation and nurturing of a partnership or marriage, and the demands of a purposeful career interspersed with the many obstacles all too common to working women and mothers? How can one talk about balance when your average working mom performs at least five jobs before even leaving the house in the morning? And how can there ever be a sense of balance after the way women bore the brunt of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, from the home to the business and work front?
The simple answer, after all these years of building theories and concepts around work-life balance, is that there is none after all, at least not for working women and moms. The good news? There is a link between work and life, one that can finally be beneficial for working women and moms. It is not balance, but rather an integration of the various aspects and areas of our lives as working women and mothers.
While I, as a working woman and mom, do not pretend to or even desire to balance work and life, as it would suggest an equality of weights that does not even begin to exist; I can integrate them into the ever-evolving puzzle of my life. Here are a few steps to get started:
See your life as a whole
The first step is to stop giving in to the temptation of compartmentalizing the various areas of our lives. As effective as it may sound, I have found in my own experience as a working woman and mom it doesn’t exactly work. Planning for my work schedule without taking into account the kids’ school and activity schedule is a recipe for disaster. So is considering what my priorities at home are, without taking into account my professional life. Hence why it’s so important to see our lives as a whole, with inter-dependent and integrated areas as opposed to separate and independent aspects…
Consolidate what you can
When I started really understanding how connected the various areas of my life are, I began using the power of consolidation to bring them together. I have to say, my first motive was to make my life easier. The more I was able to consolidate tasks together, the better I was able to build and maintain habits that would otherwise be unsustainable for me. For instance, when I started building my schedule to allow me to go to the gym right after dropping off the kids, building a consistent exercising habit became easier. Since I already had to be out dropping off the kids, why not wrap my exercise into this continuum of activity? The more you can consolidate your habits, tasks and ultimately your day-to-day schedule, the more you can achieve a more integrated work and life. This way, switching from one activity to another goes from being this impossible task, to just being part of a flowing schedule.
Create and maintain margins
One of the biggest problems I face as a working woman and mom is having enough margin in my schedule. Instead, I often face, as many working women and moms, a packed-tight schedule with very little breathing room. The result? Feeling a sense of always running from one thing to the other, without enough breaks in between. Ultimately, this results in a sense of going from crisis to crisis and never catching a break.
This is when intentionally creating margins and breaks in your schedule can help. When we see and approach work, life, parenting, relationships, etc, as separate blocks to attend to, we tend to want to allow as much time as possible to each, thus foregoing the necessary spaces between them we need to breathe and recover. However, when integrating work and life, we’re able to allow the various areas of our lives to flow into each other, creating the much-needed margins we crave. For me, it means limiting multi-tasking, scheduling breaks, and allowing for at least an extra ten minutes for each task.
Overall, planning for more work-life integration as a working woman and mom requires the willingness to see our lives as a whole, instead of buckets to fill up and boxes to check at the end of the day. It also demands intention and some level of planning to consolidate what we can, and create the margins we need to breathe, recover and refuel. This year and beyond, I hope we can commit to more work-life integration and allow ourselves to live fully, rather in a compartmentalized way.
How will you integrate your work and life this year?
There are few books I’ve read that have made me feel like my experience as a working woman and a mother in general, and a Black professional woman and mom in particular, is universal. Seldom have I felt more at home than in the pages of Michelle Obama’s latest book “The Light We Carry”. Rarely have I felt more seen, more touched, less invisible than inside her no-nonsense words, her lived experience, the shelter of her unique yet so universal testimony…
Yet, this is no common woman whose life I was reading the bold and brilliant strokes of. This woman, this role model to the whole world, also happens to be the first Black woman first Lady of the United States of America, an educated, profoundly and powerfully human woman. A woman who’s been praised, but also critiqued, denigrated and misunderstood…Yet a woman whose light she so graciously allows to shine on the rest of us, even as she gently summons us to let our own shine…
As a Black woman born and raised in Senegal, West Africa, an immigrant on US soil, someone at the margins of different worlds, cultures, even languages, I could so relate to her voice also suspended between worlds. Worlds transcending generations of past slaves, into a middle-class home on Euclid Avenue in Chicago, to the heights of Ivy league schools and prestigious law firms, into the noble service of the highest office of the land at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Worlds that may seem foreign to a little African girl like myself, an immigrant, yet that rang a familiar bell through every single word, every heavy phrase of a loaded yet interestingly familiar read. The reason this book felt so familiar to me, is because it speaks of the universal familiar experience of being a human being, a woman, a mother at the fringes of worlds colliding and coming together in an unending dance of life and experience…
How I could relate to the strong sense of achievement brewing inside the young woman on Euclid Avenue, as she felt in her a call for the things, places and universes many did not think she belonged in. How I could understand the determination to transcend barriers in her way, coupled with the desire to do it in an authentic, real manner that also made room for the things that truly matter, like family, love, health. And how I could sense the deep longing for normalcy in the midst of the uncommon, the cultivation of the ordinary in the middle of the extraordinary, the duality between the highs and lows of those of us who dare to do the work of our lives…
More than anything, what I could relate to was the feeling of constantly navigating different worlds as a Black woman at work and in life. This constant need to adjust, recalibrate, prepare and do the work. It’s a feeling so many Black women experience in the corporate and professional world day in and day out, one they learn to carry with them as fuel rather than deterrent to their own lights. One they fight to not let steal their authenticity, their heart, hope and soul, as they stand on the shoulders of the women and men who came before. Those same shoulders that made it possible for us to wear our natural hair at work, to create our own businesses, to be more vulnerable, more raw, more human…I could hear and feel through her words the ache of others’ perceptions when someone who wasn’t supposed to make it does in fact break through the doors of success, when the cost of destiny is leaving your home and family to pursue new dreams, when all you have is your faith, hope and fight to turn the rejection, frustration and anger into the healing power to keep moving forward.
As a mother reading her, I could so relate to the urge to protect our children, counterbalanced by the need to allow them to fly on their own. One of the parts that most edified me in the book, is the part when she was describing her mother. Learning about her own mother teaching both she and her brother to be more independent, taught me about the more challenging yet more impactful side of mothering. The side that requires us to prepare rather than hinder our children from the world. The part that describes our job not just as a rosy cloud of love and kisses, but as a tough armoring of the souls entrusted to us. The side that requires us to buy our kids an alarm clock rather than having them depend on us to get out of bed in the morning. By the way, I did buy my son an alarm clock, finally…
As a wife and partner reading her, I could so relate to her account of the reality of marriage. Not a reality mired in roses and visions of eternal romance, but one of practical love, love that stands the test of time, love that takes into account the differences in people, backgrounds and destinies. The no-nonsense love of our forefathers and mothers, who shared a common purpose, a common goal, those who weathered storms and somehow came out on the other side…What it also made me realize is the imbalance of marriage, the uneven nature of partnership at its core, and how to navigate the reality of it with a long-term view in mind while still keeping our end of the bargain somewhat intact.
Reading Michelle Obama’s words, I could feel a growing sense of hope that the work is not, after all in vain. The work of motherhood, the work of marriage, the work of Purpose, and ultimately, the work of being human. While I could identify more closely to her experience as a Black woman, wife, mother, sister, friend, it was really the universality of her story that she refers to, that is left in me. A universality that says, as she herself explains it so well, that at the end of the day, we have more in common than we have differences. That as women and mothers, the threads of our existences and experiences are so intertwined, so similar despite all the apparent complexities of our individual stories, that we can’t help but hear each other even in the midst of the noise of our current times. Most importantly, we can’t help but see each other, see the light we carry, the light we give, the light we receive…
In episode 34 of the podcast, I’m starting a series on “leading like women”. Here, I’m chatting about what characterizes women’s leadership, and how to embrace it to lead authentically and powerfully.
This podcast refers to research from the Business Journal from the Wharton school of the University of Pennsylvania: “The Masculine and Feminine Sides of Leadership and Culture: Perceptions vs Reality”.
If you have any insights as to this episode, please email us at corporate@thecorporatesister.com.
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I know most days you have too much on your plate to think about your mental health! As you furiously work through your to-do list, lugging the kids from one appointment to the other, often not getting enough sleep as you make up for work and household chores when everyone is already in bed, you may not even consider how your hectic lifestyle is impacting your mental health.
In many instances, you may not even suspect the constant feeling of overwhelm, along with the clutter in your minds and unexplained irritability, is hiding the shadow of maternal depression…Even when you do suspect it, you often dare not admit it, because, well, who talks about the ugly secret of depression, let alone maternal depression? Isn’t motherhood supposed to just be the wonderful stuff of “perfect” social media Christmas photos? And when you appear to “have it all”, the cute family and the great career, how could you dare complain? Even if the pandemic did a number on you and your sanity. Even if working mothers are leaving the workforce in droves and suffering the most from mental health issues. Even if 68% of working mothers have sought therapy, as opposed to 47% of women without children, due to lack of childcare, the impact of COVID, and general economic instability.
Additionally, as a working mom, your mental health does not only affect you. It also deeply affects your children, as well as the environments you live and work in. As a matter of fact, research shows maternal depression harms children’s mental health more than poverty.
Maternal depression is real, and despite its stigma, does not have to be an ugly secret. It doesn’t have to be a secret at all. As a matter of fact, it’s a well-known fact the COVID-19 pandemic has tripled depression and anxiety symptoms in new moms. From catching up on work at night and on weekends, to being flat-out burnt out, having trouble sleeping, needing more support, moms everywhere have been struggling, in one way or another.
So dear working mom, it’s ok to not be ok. And you’re far from being alone if you’re experiencing it right now, or have ever experienced it. The only secret around maternal depression is the one society desperately attempts to keep in order to fuel a stigma that needs to disappear. Here a few ways that can help you cope, and support other working moms as well:
Acknowledge where you struggle mentally
Let me say this again, it’s ok not to be ok. Normal people are not constantly happy. Life happens, and it can be hard and bring you to your knees. There is no reward for overworked, exhausted, over-committed mom of the year, but there is a heavy mental health cost to pay.
So learn to recognize the signs of anxiety and depression, from poor sleep, to an over-cluttered mind, to nutrition issues, to cite a few. Check in with yourself as often as you can, your body always tells you when something is not quite right.
Seek support
Mental health struggles are not weaknesses. Neither is reaching out to get some help and support. Everyone experiences, to varying degrees and instances, struggles with their mental health. Seeking support could be reaching out to a trusted friend or family member, or seeking professional support in the form of therapy.
Whichever way you choose to seek support, remember asking for help is a sign of strength and bravery. By seeking the help you need, you are also giving others permission to do so, while getting the tools that you can then use to help others.
Make self-care a priority
I know your schedule is already overflowing, however, making your self-care a priority is far from being an indulgence. It’s a necessity to care for yourself in order to be able to remain present, be all of who you are, and be there for others as well. Your children deserve a fulfilled, healthy mom, and that may just be the greatest gift you could give them and yourself.
