Episode 9: Why Becoming A Mother Supercharges Your Career

Listen up as I drop some truth bombs in this episode, waxing lyrical on why becoming a mother can accelerate your career like a bat out of h*ll!

We’re telling mothers that they lack drive, determination, commitment and that when the baby arrives, that’s it, it’s game over for their career and they’ll just shuffle off into the background.

But what if I told you this doesn't have to be the case?

What if I told you that becoming a mother is a supercharged way of achieving bigger and better things in your career?

It can be the beginning of realising that you can achieve success on your own terms without burnout, overwhelm or exhaustion.

Giving the finger to the stuff that’s been weighing you down, shunning the outdated beliefs about motherhood and what success means is key to this. 

Recognising that we’re still carrying more than our fair share of the domestic/mental/emotional load at home AND living in a society that doesn’t value caregiving also comes into play is also important.

MOTHERS’ HOOD

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Motherhood Podcast. This is another solo episode. Today I'm talking about ambition and motherhood, and it's central to the work that I do to my teachings. So I wanted to come on here and clarify some myths and give you some facts about that very thing, ambition and motherhood, and why it's so important.

That we as women know this so we can reach our full potential. So going back to matrescence, the transformation of a woman as she becomes a mother into and through motherhood, and this is an an overnight. Phenomenon several months. It arguably lasts a lifetime and it happens again and again as we become a mother with our second third.

So on child and later on as our children become  teenagers as so it goes on and on and on. And I took about more in my episode on Mares essence. So understanding Trence is a fundamental part of my work, and when our tres essence as a mother is fully supported by people that understand Trence. It can really be a beautiful time to fully understand ourselves and live an awakened life.

And when I say an awakened life, a life where we are connected deeply to ourselves, understand what's going on internally, and follow things that are right for us amongst other things. And that is where the beauty of Tres Essence works alongside us as we return to work after having children. And really it can then supercharge us into a truly  successful life where we are dreaming big, we are hitting big goals.

We are showing up in ways that align with us, and when we're showing up in a ways that align with us, we are vitalized, we are fulfilled, we are energized. Other people really can feel the energy and they can vibe off that. But when mothers aren't supported through trence and don't fully understand the concepts that are affecting us in modern motherhood.

It can be a difficult time. It can be really confusing, and I referenced my own story of becoming a mother. It took me a long time to even decide that I wanted to have a child or children. I think it was possibly always in there, but I was focused on studying, getting my school results, getting good exams at school, going to university, and then coming out.

Finding a job, studying more  postgraduate degree, more work qualifications, and then cracking on with my work. And career goals. And looking back now, I think that I subconsciously absorbed the messages that having a baby will impact your career. You won't be able to sort of get ahead and reach the goals that you wanted to.

You'd be overwhelmed, burnt out, and just settling for second best, not prioritizing my myself. And I think it was almost that. Okay. Perhaps maybe I'll get to X level before I go and have a baby because I know it will affect my career and I want to be able to come back to a good level and knowing that I've got there without having a baby to hold me back, so to speak.

So again, looking back when I became pregnant. I, I don't think there was an exact moment, but I realized that what was going on for me at work, the things  that I wanted to achieve at work didn't really match up with how I was feeling now. So I was thinking, oh, I want to carry on and do that and do that. I became pregnant and I thought, don't really think I want these things anymore.

What's wrong with me? Maybe I am just gonna shuffle off into the background and be the supporting act to my child, who is the main act in the story. And I think that that led to the feelings of confusion about myself now that I'd become a mother. So this, I think this kind of carried on the background, but I was focused on the birth, getting the birth right.

That was very much my focus. So I didn't really think too much about work because I, I think for me. It was almost like there was a preplanned route of what happens. You get pregnant, you go on maternity leave, you come back, and then you just kind of find your way through and go with the flow.  And I wasn't seeing any other women doing it differently.

There wasn't many other women. In my industry, even within my business that were becoming mothers. I also saw those women that had come back after maternity leave being treated differently and just really not much guidance or support for them. I mean, we talk about career coaches and yes, they have their place of course, but when it comes to a mother, there is so much else there.

And again, mares essence is such a huge part of that, that if we aren't understanding and processing and reflecting on the identity part of it, that monumental transformation, let's be real here, then we are missing a whole part of it because. The goals and career aspirations that we have change, and women need to understand that it doesn't mean that you are not ambitious anymore, that you're not determined, that you don't have big career hopes and dreams and feel  fulfilled at work outside of the home.

You can, we were told as young girls growing up, you can have it all coming out of an era where. There was very few women in high positions in business of leadership and leading and running their own businesses. It was this, you go get 'em, and especially the background that I came from. I went to an all girls secondary school, a grammar school, and it was very much about achievement.

Of course, that's the premise of a grammar school. Really achievement, high achievement, going into professions like law and medicine and engineering, and cracking on with your goals, being successful and hustling, but actually trying to fit into a world that is created by men and dominated by men. And the career routes that were available and were there and were visible again, and the working culture were set for  middle-aged white men who had a wife at home looking after the domestic load, the family load, the mental load, invisible load raising the children.

So all he had to do was focus on his career. The mental space that he had was focusing on his career and goals. So. Being socialized into that. As women, we push down our own traits. We push down our own wants and needs and desires. Don't be too feminine, don't be too loud, don't be too emotional. Don't be too much, but be confident.

Be sure be assertive, but don't be too bossy. Literally the most conflicting messages, so we have that bubble of the successful women. So this is over here. And this is what we are conditioned into as women. But then we also have the good mother over here, which is messaging about what it  is to be a good mother and.

This comes from our family, our immediate community, the news and media. And then today we also have the added layer of social media, which you know is 24 7 constant bombardment and people's highlight reels. And we live in a patriarchal society that likes to tell women how they should be, how they shouldn't be, what they should be doing, what they shouldn't be doing.

And this messaging of a good mother. Is really damaging because in today's society, what is considered a good mother falls under what's also known as intensive mothering, whereby the mother is the person that should be solely responsible for the children's upbringing. Uh, educational welfare, emotional welfare, physical welfare.

The mother is the only person that can appropriately give care to the children and should be raising them.  Now, as we know, children were traditionally raised in communal societies in villages. We shared the load, so we were mothered and we were mothered by aunties, cousins, friends, lots of different people.

Lots of different people were involved in that. And our social structures have fractured and we are mothering in nuclear families now, and the fall load has fallen to those two parents. But really it's fallen to the mother. If a child's misbehaving, we blame the mother and the school ringing the mother if the child is sick.

There's so many examples in this, so we can see that we have what is considered a good mother over here, and that on its own is intense and has unachievable and unobtainable standards so that on its own, if you were a mother without any external commitments or desires or work. Is unachievable on its own  would lead to burnout on its own.

We then have what is considered a successful woman over here. Again, this on its own, without any caregiving responsibilities. This on its own, as we know, often leads to burnout. So again, the values and the conditioning that come into what we consider being a successful woman, values that we have subconsciously adopted.

Also lead to burnout and unrealistic expectations and burnout. So we have the two. We're over here cracking on with our career, living in this mo bubble of a successful woman. This is what her career goals are. This is where she's wanting to achieve. And then we become a mother and we have this explosion of, oh my God, this is what it means to be a good mother.

And the sheer weight and responsibility of that, and that for me was something that really tipped me into crazy, crazy overwhelm when I became a mother because of a sense of responsibility that  I'm responsible solely for this child was too much for me and for many other women. It can cause lots of anxiety and feelings like we're failing because we cannot live up to the unrealistic standards and unachievable standards that are set.

So then when you have the two, you can then see we individually, these are unachievable, un unobtainable standards. So then when you put them together. It can be an absolute explosion of overwhelm burnout. So we can see that the women that have forged on in their careers, perhaps after having children, the models that we have seen, we often hear this, they are achieving at high levels, but yet they are burn out, overwhelmed and exhausted because.

Of the modern models of what it means to be a good mother, a successful woman, and we  also have the background of. Patriarchal society on being a woman in general. We often feel judgments or hear judgments even. We don't always even necessarily just feel them. We hear them from other people judgments about our decisions, about whether we are going back to work or not going back to work, or how we return to work, or what our new working pattern looks like and what we want now.

So we are constantly bombarded by all of this. And the place of work is, as I said, is not set up for women that have caregiving responsibilities that will more often than not have a partner that has a job full-time. So we can see that these models of work culture do not fit, so women are left believing.

They're less ambitious when they become a mother  because they don't want the same things anymore, because they're looking at this potential career path ahead of them and thinking, well, if I do or do that in that way that a man has done before me who had a partner at home that was looking after everything, I don't have that.

I don't think I want that anymore. So then we internalize it. Blame ourselves and think there's something wrong with us. Think that we are unambitious, lazy, uncommitted, and just that we don't want any of it anymore. So again, leading to turmoil, and this was very much my story. I returned to work after maternity leave and there was a big part, there was a big part of me that was looking forward to that return.

Because I wanted to be challenged. I wanted my brain to be challenged. I wanted to feel like I was good at something because becoming a mother had been really painful for me, and I felt like I was failing. Now I know that that was the  unachievable expectations that I was putting on myself, but nevertheless, I didn't know this at this point, and I returned to work thinking, okay, I'll just, you know, set, settle back in.

I've got my childcare sorted. And let's sort of crack on and and go with the flow and it'll all sort of work out. And then months and months went by and I just didn't feel any different. Actually, I felt worse because I was almost trying to hide myself because I thought people are going to just think, oh, there she is, just another mother coming back from work and it can't be bothered.

Just wants to be at home with her kid and doesn't want to be here. So. Lots of tears from me, lots of overwhelm, lots of blaming myself. Um, and then it wasn't until I found my crescent and studied this and understood about this and then started looking at myself and my career goals, that I realized that it's not that I wasn't ambitious or determined or had big hopes and dreams, it was that everything that I'd previously wanted no longer worked for  me.

And actually I had adopted. Career goals that probably were never right for me because as I said, they were set in a time when, um, workplace was predominantly men and they had a wife at home looking after everything. When I got clear, I realized that I could choose. So being guided through this and coached through this, I started to uncover what no longer worked for me.

And the things that I wanted, the things no longer work for me were people pleasing. Being a good girl, self silencing, not speaking up, and not saying how I really felt hiding parts of me that made me, me putting that mask on of everything's okay, not being too emotional at work, making sure I look professional and.

All of those things that come with the  condition that we have in our society. Not complaining, not speaking up, not questioning anything. And once, once I realized this, I couldn't stop seeing it. Once I saw it, I could no longer ignore it. I

really, really examined all of it, all parts of my life. Um, but specifically in this example, the parts of my life. That related to career and fulfillment in that arena of what I wanted to achieve professionally. For me to challenge my brain, to make a difference in the world, to do something that I was passionate about and helped people and helped other women and mothers and communities.

And I realized that all these hopes and dreams were coming outta me and spilling out of me. And once, once they started the things that no longer served me. Just really felt so alien to me, and again, once I saw them, I could no longer  ignore them. It gave me a laser focus on what was important to me and meant I could let go of the things that no longer served me.

I wrote my own version of success and I'm still writing it now. It changes as I change and grow as my daughter changes and grows and things in my life look different. But things like being present with my daughter. I went to her sports day yesterday, being here for bedtime for her in the morning. I want to see her every day, morning and night.

I want to be there for those important things at school. Amongst other things, just some examples there for you, but what's right for me isn't necessarily right for you. Perhaps you, you want to take that promotion, which means you get to travel more and your partner is the one that takes on more of the  caregiving at home.

That's right for you. Somebody else might decide that actually they want to step away from work completely and have a period of time where they are fully at home with their children. Somebody else wants to change their hours, somebody else wants to go into completely different industry, and that is the beauty of Trence.

When we are fully supported and fully understand what it is and what is happening to us, we get to choose. Nobody else knows what's right for us. We can have guidance on things that are coming up for us. What does this mean? But you are the only one that can find the next steps for yourself that are right for me, being able to be myself, bringing all of myself to work, not holding parts of myself back.

That was a big part of. A dream of mine because I had spent so, so long at work not really being  the person I was, and really I lost confidence. I just wasn't sure of myself anymore. Work lost its meaning, and it was quite a tumultuous time for me. But when I realized that I get to choose, it changed everything.

It absolutely supercharged my ambition, my determination. All of it. I really got clear on what I wanted and what was right for me, and when I also got clear on what I wanted and what was right for me and let go of people pleasing, being the good girl and not saying how I really felt. I realized that I hadn't had many boundaries, and when I did have boundaries, I didn't uphold them and I let people break them, and then I would disappoint myself, and that would be a pattern of not trusting myself.

This has been a huge part of my mares essence and understanding how this works and how this works at work as well.  For me, being clear on. I want to be in that meeting. I'm not working on that day. You need to change the meeting. 'cause I'm a fundamental part of that meeting, speaking up, saying how I feel, not being afraid, not apologizing for wanting to take that time with my daughter, not apologizing for not being in the office every single day.

Because for me, my values were aligned differently and that was okay, but knowing that that was okay. The main last point I want to make is actually about value and the value of caregiving. So in our societies, whilst we are telling women that to be a good mother, you should be fully present in your child's life 24 7, you should be the one that is giving all of yourself to your child.

You should be the one being the full caregiver. You should be the one where the burden lies. But then we also do  not value acts of caregiving. So the hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of hours that we put into looking after our children, raising our children, those acts of caregiving. The love that we give our children, the cuddles that we're giving them in the middle of the night, making them feel safe, tucking them back into bed.

Or the physical acts of caregiving, buying them new clothes, making sure they're eating nutritious food socially. Play dates, parties, taking them on trips, immersive experiences, holidays, travel language. Emotional development, supporting them with their feelings and all of the things we know about raising healthy children today, and all of her, I've only mentioned a few there, those acts of caregiving are not valued by society because they can't be monetized in the capitalist society that we live in today.

In the western world, especially in the uk, United States, many parts of Western Europe and other places.  We don't value the role of the mother or even the father as well. Other people that may have involvement in raising a child, those acts of caregiving are not valued. So when we understand these contexts, the context of modern mothering, the good mother, the successful woman, the lack of value that we put on caregiving, when we are clear on all of this, we get really clear.

On what's right for us, what are our values? And you can articulate your value 'cause you know and understand that it doesn't lie in you sitting at your desk for 12 hours a day when you know that you want to be picking up your child from school or taking them from school. And again, if somebody does want to be doing the 12 hour work days, or I appreciate that.

Many people do have to, doesn't mean that that is wrong, if that is what you want to do.  But it's understanding that if you don't want to do that, it doesn't mean that you're not ambitious or it doesn't mean that you can't have a career of your dreams and of your goals. It just means that it will probably look different to how you initially thought.

I want to add one more thing in here that we don't have time to talk about today, but I'll come and do another episode on this, and it is about the mental, emotional, and visible load that women are carrying. We are doing more of the domestic work and raising children than their partners, and that takes its toll on the energy that we have to think about other things.

So we'll come on to talk about that in another episode, but that does have a factor in what we think is right for us next and what we believe we were able to give. So what's your space for that? I want to finish on the reasons that I'm so passionate that women understand that their ambition  doesn't disappear when they have a baby or when they become a mother.

It looks different. I am so passionate about this because women deserve to reach their full potential, of course, number one, but number two, we are losing brilliant women. An alarming rate, and it's still happening. Despite flexible working policies, which again, I'll come and talk about, which are a sticking plaster over the bigger picture, we are still losing brilliant women from the workplace at an alarming rate, and that is, aside from the women that are still staying in the workplace or in jobs that aren't right for them, feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, exhausted, because.

Society doesn't tell women or doesn't show women because they believe that there is something wrong with them, that they are lesser now, that they're a mother, that they're not  worthy. They're not worthy of dreams, and living a life and having a brilliant career alongside having children, we are losing brilliant women.

They are left feeling unfulfilled, resentful, and under challenged. And as a society, this is huge because this means that businesses are losing money, which also means that our country is losing money. From these women not reaching their full potential in roles that make a difference, that make more money for their families, for themselves, for their companies.

We are losing the ideas of brilliant women because they are not supported in the ways that they need, because they're stepping out of the workplace and stepping down from high level roles. They're stepping out of cultures that aren't that. Are toxic and not supporting them as a mother, and we are losing brilliant ideas and innovation.

We are also losing women in positions of leadership because again, many women are stepping down to lower  positions because the demands of these leadership roles are unachievable or obtain it when they have caregiving responsibilities at home. Where they're taking on more than their fair share of caring responsibilities and domestic responsibilities.

And they're stepping down. So we are losing those brilliant leaders, those empathetic leaders, and then we are losing role models. So the cycle perpetuates. I've loved doing this episode today and would also love to hear your thoughts on this and whether it's showing up for you and whether this has thrown any light on how you're feeling.

I know so many women feel the same, and that's why I'm passionate about doing the work to show you that's becoming and can supercharge your career and that you can achieve beyond your wildest dreams. If you open yourself to the  beauty that is matress and letting go of what no longer serves you and following the right path for you, see you next time.