I am mother, I am unavailable

I have been inspired by my good friend and blogger Rosalinda Batson to write my very own International Women’s Day blog post. I agree with Rosalinda and many others that feminism has stalled. I don’t know why it has stalled but there are still so many unspoken social expectations of women. I could wax lyrical from an academic or intellectual perspective but I thought a bit of exploration of my own recent experience might be interesting. I am of course a white, middle class fairly privileged person so my problems are hardly significant but do point to, I think, a missed opportunity.

I recently become a mother, my 18 month old is allowing me to write this blog as she sleeps. I choose to resign from my career, in corporate governance, to become a stay at home mother. I didn’t know what to expect when I became a Mum but I genuinely love staying at home and being the primary carer of my daughter. I have found though that I am becoming isolated and one dimensional, and I miss intellectual stimulation and adult conversation. I also miss having some financial independence, I have always been used to earning my own money and having freedom about how I spend it (after the bills are paid).

I don’t want to put my child into care to return to work even part-time, I highly value this time with her before she goes to school. I would love to do some small projects in the evenings or weekends from home, I even set up my own business in an attempt to facilitate this www.elindapak.com . I have not gotten any work from this mainly because I don’t have the time in work hours to drum up business, network and basically sell myself to potential clients. Unless they would be happy to go to a child friendly café and have my divided attention. I feel like an untapped resource lying dormant for the next 5 years (maybe longer if I have more children), by the time my child goes to school and I am ready to reenter the work force I am concerned my skills and experience will be considered outdated.  

I feel that my main obstacle is that others cannot work out how I could juggle being a mother and completing work at home. Mothers of young children are not seen to be ‘available’ for any kind of paid work unless their child is in care.  Organisations want people who are available during the day, during the week. The fact is they don’t need me to be available for the kind of work I do, I can make some phone calls while my daughter sleeps during the day, complete work and send e-mails in the evenings or weekends. Process mapping work that peers see as time consuming and complex takes me no time at all to whip up. I have an amazingly supportive husband who does more than his fair share of the housework. However the above information is not ‘allowed’ to be expressed in a sales pitch even though it is silently being wondered about. Maybe one day we might be a little more creative about how we source employees or contractors. Hopefully the outcomes and outputs we produce for organisations will become more important than the number of hours they imagine we are available for.

This only skims the surface but – maybe some food for thought.