How do you fit your old role in your new life?

An existential crisis for working mums

When I opened up the floor to the parents club of Tony’s Chocolonely last week, this question poked its thorny head up, and it’s got me thinking.

Because this isn’t just a problem for the mums on the call that day. It affects all of us. Even if the role is exactly the same, even if the team is exactly the same, even if the senior management are exactly the same, even if the KPIs are exactly the same, you, Mama, are not.

You have been through a seismic shift: emotionally, mentally, physically (and, of course, financially). You have evolved, morphed, problem-solved your way to where you’re standing today, triumphant and resilient. So no, the view is not the same.

But the expectation is that you will slot back in like nothing’s changed. Like a typewriter that just needs to be slid back over to the left to repeat the whole thing again and again, week after week.

That unrealistic expectation will fuel mum guilt, because no matter what you do, you cannot be that pre-kids version of yourself. She doesn’t exist anymore.

When people ask me about my life with triplets, I quote the opening line of a book we studied at high school, The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley, “The past is a foreign country, they did things differently there.”

I cannot go back. I cannot bouce back. I cannot get my pink back. Back is gone.

Was that hard to accept? Did I have to grieve it? Do I miss it sometimes?

Yes, but nonetheless, I must accept it.

Acceptance not expectations, is the first step of breaking up with mum guilt for a reason.

But what happens then when you're expected to act like nothing ever happened?

In a word: masking.

Now, mums are pretty good at this, but that doesn’t make it OK.

Bupa found that nearly a third of mums put on a facade of coping due to fear of being judged.

But get this. In a totally separate study, I found that roughly a third of mums don’t feel understood by others in the workplace.

How could you be understood if you can’t be your true authentic self?

That’s a lot of mums quietly holding it together behind a confident smile. Until something has to give.

As I said in Stylist last year,

“Your employer expects you to carry on as if nothing has happened, so you mask and try to keep that up, and because you do this so well, they maintain those expectations.

The pressure builds, and when the mask inevitably slips. For example, when you can’t go to an evening event because you’ve got to pick your kids up from nursery, it can feel like a crushing fail.”

Let’s not forget that 26% of parents leave work within a year of returning from parental leave.

The real cost of masking

When you mask, you suffer in silence. You cannot ask for support (or, possibly, even accept what’s offered, in case, it’s seen as a weakness). It’s like that old adage from the TV Dramas, “Anything you do say can be used against you.” So you keep quiet, keep your head down, mask.

At the same time, you’re trying to “prove” you’re as committed as Brad, who has no children and can be in the office at 8am every day after his spin class, can do the overseas trips (and therefore bag the best clients and bonus) and has time to keep on top of every industry trend. Nice one Brad, mine’s an oat cortardo on your way in.

We need to get real about the expectations fuelling this mum guilt.

The first step, is just to acknowledge what they are. No judgement.

Some of them will be external. Your boss may have expectations around your hours, availability, commitment, and attendance of out-of-hours events.

Your family may have expectations on your mothering, how much you should be working/earning.

Social media will have expectations on every damn thing.

And then there’s you. What are you setting as the bar of success for yourself?

God knows, I put myself under more pressure than anyone to show how committed I was from pregnancy onwards. No one else was pushing me, asking me to prove myself. It was all coming from me. I was literally trying to launch a product from a MacBook on a labour ward (more on that tragi-comedy another time).

If you don’t know where to start, finish this sentence, “A good mum should…” as many times as you can.

(All of us, during another chaotic morning, racing to get everyone ready)

I need your voices

Next week, I’m going to deliver a talk on mum guilt and the return to work for Saint Joeli Brearly (she is a saint to me, as without her, I never would have got free childcare for my triplets when they turned two. I said a prayer of thanks to her every time I dropped them off at preschool.)

It’s a big gig for me and the FMG movement.

The stats are alarming, the theory is sound, but what I really need is you. I need real mums sharing their experiences of their return to work - what made you feel supported, what didn’t, what do you think we need to change.

I am fighting this fight for all of us, and I want to represent real mums and share their real voices. So if you’d be happy to share how you found your return to work and what you think organisations can do to make this transition better, please comment or DM me if you want to stay anonymous.

Thanks to every one of you. I know it feels like an uphill struggle, but the change we push for now could make things better and easier for mums in the future.

Much love,

Leila