Stop Believing What You Think About Working Mothers
By Irena Ioannou — GAZE
Raising children is an uphill battle but the first months of a parent’s life are mostly magical. You still can’t believe how blessed you are — to have created new life — and your child has become your only focus, everything else fading in the background. Until you have to get back to work.
Five kids equal five pregnancies and therefore five times I’ve had to return to work with existential doubts in mind. And it’s the same now: the last maternity leave has run out in the blink of an eye and I’m heading alarmingly fast to a 9–5 workday and a consecutive second-shift motherhood.
You can imagine the thoughts creeping into my mind: How will the kids cope with my absence? What will my husband think about my priorities when I have to work late? And have my colleagues outperformed me already?
These are just fears of course, projected to me by others’ misguided stereotypes, but it took me five pregnancies to reach this realization. When it comes to the thoughts that poison mothers, the old saying is true: ‘Don’t believe everything you think’.
Everyone has moved on while I’m falling behind.
A pervasive thought even for women who do not suffer from post-partum depression. But just because someone has held a post for an additional year, it doesn’t necessarily mean they became more efficient at it. Or that they improved. Or gained more experience. It may mean that they spent one more unproductive year at a dull post, going over the same process, repeating the same un-stimulating train of thought. While a mother had the opportunity to take some time off, distance herself from everything and evaluate her performance. Come back with fresh ideas and a new understanding of the world.
Everyone else will be more committed to work
While a mother’s responsibilities changes, it doesn’t mean it affects her priorities. Just because someone hasn’t formed a family, it doesn’t mean their lifelong dream entails spending endless days working or thinking about their career. It could signify that they are more self-centered than others, more conscious of their needs, and that they are unwilling to let anyone or anything get between themselves and their sense of…
