Just trying to keep my balance…
"Stop complaining working mums, you've got it good!" was the headline on one of a number of recent articles about Laura Vanderkam's book I Know How She Does It. The headlines are provocative, and message in the book is prompting mixed reactions from working mothers. For anyone struggling to keep it all together, hearing that it's all fine, when ...
"Because dads have harder jobs than mums," announced my seven-year-old, stopping me in my tracks, as we pulled into the playground. She was chatting about summer and playdates and conversations she'd been having with friends in school about seeing each other over the holidays. She'd worked out that one of her friends might be around, because ...
I've published 53 interviews with women about balancing work and home, and I've written dozens of posts about women in the workplace, but I haven't said much recently about my own job. I do have an update though - after seventeen years in the funds industry, six jobs, eight bosses, and far too many pairs of black ...
Are our families being damaged by the non-stop commuting lives we lead? Or are children with two employed parents doing OK after all? The media gives us conflicting answers to this - often on a daily basis. Most recently, there's are reports of a study that showing that children in families where two parents work are ...
It’s 8.30. The kids are finally in bed. Emmie will be down in a few minutes, to say her water glass isn’t full enough or she had a bad dream while she was awake, or her nose is itchy. I’ll kiss her again and in the same breath, I’ll ask her to promise to stay ...
Babies and commuting and working and cooking and changing and feeding and trying - trying very hard to keep it all together. That's how it was for me in the early days - like for so many others - as a new mother trying to maintain a career. I vividly remember reading an article by Gaby ...
Over seven years as a mother working outside the home, I've learnt a thing or two: 1. The working mother clichés are true Soother in suit pocket? Check. Smushed banana on trousers? Check. Racing out of work to make it to creche on time? Yes, a thousand times over. Clichés exist because they are mostly true, and really, in this ...
I'm writing this from my small boy's bedroom floor, and when he finally goes to sleep, I'll grab something to eat, probably standing at the counter, making a school lunch and checking e-mails at the same time. Then I'll bake a cake for the school cake-sale. OK, there's no cake-sale. But you get the drift. ...
Gender quotas – a progressive approach to equal opportunity, or unfair and ultimately counter-productive? I desperately want to believe that gender quotas are a good idea. Women, particularly women who are mothers, miss out on career opportunities, and if there’s a fix for that, I’m in. But with gender quotas, I’m still on the fence. So I've done some ...
A good friend told me last week that she's changing jobs - moving from a chilled-out project role back into the mayhem of daily operations. This is the reverse of what she wanted when going back to work after her second baby was born three years ago - in fact for many working mothers, chilled-out project roles ...