Skills I’ve learned as a mother that support me in my paid work
In the workplace, mothers still face discriminations. Even though we have laws and regulations in place, there’s still many ways to circumvent them. Mothers are often considered unreliable, always leaving early, less committed to their careers...
However, since becoming a mother myself, I would argue that the opposite is true. I remember being pregnant for the first time and struggling with a particularly challenging boss. My (male) colleague then told me not to worry, because my priorities would shift once my baby was born. While he most certainly meant well, I have come to realise that this is one of the less obvious discriminating comments that pregnant women and mothers face in the workplace.
He was right, my priorities did shift. But instead of feeling that my work was not less important, as was suggested in that conversation and is still often expected of mothers (not fathers surprisingly), I felt exactly the opposite: I needed something other than being a mother in my life to thrive, even if it felt hard leaving my child. If I was to spend time away from my child, I wanted to do something that I absolutely loved and was passionate about. I wanted to make the most out of that time, gain energy from my work and be surrounded by inspiring people.
A lot more commitment
As a mother, I don’t have the same flexibility I used to have before the kids. The traditional kind of flexibility, that includes spending long hours in the office, being available on demand. I need to pick up my children from day care on the days I am in charge and cannot just leave them there if there is a last minute emergency that comes up at 5pm.
However that doesn’t mean that I am less committed or flexible than any other employee. I am convinced that a mother doing work that she is passionate about with an employer that shares her values is at least as committed, if not even more committed to her job, than anyone who doesn’t have children. Her job might be her lifeline - the part of her life that allows her to simply be herself, the woman she is, not a mother, a housekeeper, a cook… It might be the balances that allows her to pursue an interest, a purpose outside of her home.
After my first son turned 1 and the world shut down because of the pandemic, my work schedule was affected because of the news. I needed to treat documents in another rhythm that collided with my actual work days. I remember shifting work days and working more flexibly so I could meet the needs of my employer while also being there for my family. This was facilitated by the fact that I was fully working from home and while my husband still went to the office most days, he was very flexible in his work hours.
I know that this is not possible in every job, because of the nature of it. However, the mothers around me who have flexible jobs are the ones who take their laptops home and finish a project in the evening because they had to leave on time to pick their child from day care. This kind of flexibility, for jobs that make it possible, allow mothers to thrive and at the same time be present for their children.
New priorities in motherhood
Throughout all of this, I believe that I have learned so much and grown into another version of myself. While it feels like change is never ending particularly with young children, I am convinced that women who are allowed to transition during motherhood, to become the version they are right now in this season of life and who let go of the pressure to fit into a certain box that society puts them into (Dr Sophie Brock calls it “the perfect mother myth”), grow and take along so much that will benefit them in the workplace..
My priorities clearly shifted when I became a mother. But not the way people around me had predicted: it wasn’t that my children became the sole focus of my life and everything else wasn’t important. My children were my priority AND I wanted to do something meaningful in my life, a job that fulfilled me, that offered me purpose, joy, creativity and meaningfulness.
Additionally, I have learned a bunch of new skills as a mother. Because children push you, challenge you, force you to grow. The next time you look at a CV of a woman who took a break to look after her children and think that she must not be fit for the workplace anymore - take a moment to think again! Because there are surely skills she has learned in this period of time that would benefit her in the workplace.
Some of the skills that I have learned in the past 6 years as a mother and that have supported me in the workplace and while setting up my own business are:
Multitasking and prioritizing: I am quite reluctant when talking about multitasking, because I believe that we cannot do everything at once and that expecting employees to jump from one task to another will lead to more mistakes and less productivity.
However as a mother, it feels like I am constantly juggling different “projects”: the daily chaos, the weekly wash load, clearing out clothes by size or seasons, finding activities that entertain my children and support their development, reading books or researching ideas when we encounter challenges, etc.
I have had to prioritize in a way that I had never been able to before. There are always things that need to be done. So many things. Children with needs that have to be met NOW. It’s about constantly judging what is most important right now and accepting that not everything can be done at once. It’s about taking a step back, focusing on the one most important task while leaving the others aside for a moment - then moving on to the next one and giving it your full focus. Only by doing one thing after the other can we beat overwhelm. Things won’t move forward faster because we stress ourselves and we will complete our tasks better by taking the time to do one, then moving on to the next - rather than procrastinating for hours because we feel overwhelmed (as has already happened to me in the workplace before having children).
Protecting myself from burning out: We often relate burnout to work. However, parental burnout is real and I regularly see parents, mostly mothers, affected by it. In the past year, I learnt about stress and burnout, how they affect our bodies and minds, how societal beliefs play a role. As a woman, I have self-silenced since childhood. I believed that I needed to do it all, that my children needed me with them all the time and that I only had a successful day when I could spend 100% of my time with them, didn’t get overwhelmed or scream at them and they didn’t have any meltdowns.
I have learned now that a lot of this is linked to the lack of emotional intelligence that many people in my generation grew up with. That children have meltdowns, but that these don’t define me as a parent.
Most of all, I have become more aware of the signs of burnout in my body and created a list of tools that support me - habits that I can easily integrate into a busy work day or while I am around my children. These habits - some smaller, others bigger - have supported me over the past year to feel more calm and balanced and to learn that I can calm down my nervous system with simple tools even when life feels overwhelming. These are the tools that have allowed me to move forward in a fast-paced world, to find my own place and go at my own rhythm. I believe that this knowledge is invaluable to an employer - because it means having someone who knows their limits and takes the breaks they need while also giving their best at all times. Recovering from burnout is much more challenging and involves longer absences from the workplace than preventing it by creating some healthy boundaries AND accomplishing the tasks that you are trusted with.
Organisational skills: my organisational skills are off the chart. In the first couple of months, it seemed like my life revolved around feeding & nap schedules. These days it’s more making sure that my kids get to where they need to get to on time, that they have their homework, that they are dressed to spend the morning in the forest…
There’s a lot of organising involved in motherhood - and at the same time, I’m slowly starting to get into “not organising”: making sure we have enough down time, prioritising rest for each of us, preparing some loose activities to keep the kids from complaining while also trying to stimulate their creativity.
Finding this fine balance for myself and my family has helped me refine a skill that is transferrable to the work place - how many job ads ask for “exceptional organisational skills”! While I have learned part of it before becoming a mother, the amount of organisation with a family is next-level and I have definitely developed these skills to a level that I wouldn’t have been able to before my kids were born.
Rest: this may sound unproductive, particularly in the workplace. But one thing I learned from having children is the importance of rest - for them AND for me. Because by resting properly, I actually have the energy to get things done during the day, and therefore I can be productive at work.
As a millennial woman, I grew up with the believe that I can have it all. However what often wasn’t said when we were younger was that it also includes doing it all. We are all human, not superwomen. Rest is essential for us to thrive and only by being able to rest, by teaching my body that it’s safe to rest can I actually use the down time I have to recover and regain energy. It’s a work in progress after many years of simply being “on” - but I realise that I have so much more energy when I allow myself moments of rest (big and small), than when I feel stressed because I need to get it all done NOW.
Conflict-resolution and negotiation: I’ve previously spent a couple of years working in diplomacy. While the stakes are different in discussions around an international conflict and a fight between my two children, the skills used to resolve this are often very similar: listening to both parties, trying to find a common ground, negotiating a solution.
The days of strict hierarchy, be it in the workplace or within a family, are slowly fading away and it’s a skill to support children in resolving a conflict on their own, coming up with possible solutions and not taking sides. We are still on the training ground and often, when I ask the children about a possible solution, their answer will be “I don’t know”. But I do believe that this will teach them over time to reflect and find their own solutions - and sometimes even now they come up with their own amazing ideas.
Some of these skills are actually really important in the workplace. The skill developed is the same - yet somehow it has less importance because we’ve learned it by looking after a 2-year-old, even if we probably had way more opportunities to practice it with them and thus refine them (try negotiating with a 2-year-old who doesn’t want to get dressed or stop playing even though it’s time to leave the house… EVERY SINGLE DAY). It’s sad that we don’t value them in the same way and often still judge mothers who have left the workplace for a while to look after their children - even if they are highly-skilled and capable people who have developed nothing less than superpowers in the time they spent with their families.