Challenges of being a Woman and a Mother and both – Balancing the personal and professional tightrope!
Parenting is challenging gender no bar! However being a Woman sometimes it becomes very difficult to strike the right balance between work and family. Most women I know, myself included are always feeling guilty about either loosing out on better career opportunities or not being able to do enough for the family. Trust me, being on the guilt trip all the time is not a very good place to be. However there is very little that we can do about it. We women are engineered to keep ‘others first’ and hence we operate from our heart. Driven by our emotions we have a hard time manoeuvring the professional battle ground where the Diplomats rule. We get too sentimental and too attached to our work and end up either hurting ourselves or others in the process. We also have this weird fascination of keeping everyone happy that is practically impossible and hence we end up getting frustrated on either work or personal front all the time. It is not that society demands us to be perfect (not that it doesn’t btw) but we ourselves have dug this voracious pit for us that eventually becomes all consuming.
Coming back to home, the scene isn’t very pretty either. We constantly hold ourselves responsible for our kids and families behaviour, needs, issues and even the lack of it. This constant struggle between choosing either one leads us to making compromises both at work and family front. The job that you deserve and want gives way to the job that is feasible and doable. The position and the respect you can demand gives way to the obligations of the peers and seniors. That better position in another city gives way to the comfortable one near your home. We even go to lengths of changing our career paths for our families. Nowhere saying that there aren’t enough men who would do that but the sense of guilt that we hold is incomparable to theirs. Giving birth from our flesh and skin somehow conditions us to believe that we should hold ourselves responsible for everything our child does or doesn’t do. If that was not enough we women in our constant struggle to win or be the best in our both roles somewhere end up pulling down other prospective women employees working with us. Well most of them. At least, I have come across and closely work with three such in last two years. The funny thing is these women aren’t cold hearted or villainous, they are simply drowning themselves and are threatened by a new species of their kind who could or would replace them in the long run and since they are all walking on tight-rope balancing so many things at a time they look at a change as a challenge. They become redundant to any kind of change be it positive or negative and hence put all their might in pulling down other women at work who in turn do the same to when they are in the position and the cycle goes on. I somewhere read you need to feel confident and self sufficient about yourself to be able to treat others better at work. But Is it possible to feel that confident and self sufficient with so many sacrifices made at both work and family front? Is it possible to be guilt free and embrace yourself with all your shortcomings? To bring about the growth mindset and be open to learning even from your juniors or people from younger generation? The answer lies in realising the problem and become more accepting of yourself and your choices.
You can not make a choice and deem it a sacrifice regretting it all your life that you could be at a better place. You are here today because you chose it and prioritized it consciously or subconsciously you gave this enough importance in your life to become your ‘Present’ Now that you have it rejoice it without regrets. Embrace yourself with all your personality facets and stop hiding behind the facades of societal pressure. Weather you are a homemaker, a part-timer or a CEO of a company, embrace all facets of yourself. Weather you choose to breastfeed, or pump breastmilk or resort to formula feed, embrace your choices without feeling any guilt. Yes you are a woman who chooses to go to a night out leaving your two month old at home, Yes you are a woman who chooses to work part-time because you want to give more time to your family, Yes you are a woman who is a teacher and also a travel blogger and can manage both beautifully. Take pride in yourself first. Take pride in things you can do and things you give up on because of prioritizing as not enough men can do it. Do not let the world boggle you down by criticizing the choices you make both on personal or professional front. If you own up to your conscious choices and decide to rejoice your ‘Present’ there is possibly no one in the world who can put you down. Be the flag bearer of ‘Women who Choose happiness’ not of the ‘Women who sacrifice’ of ‘Self-love and self-recognition’ and not of ‘seeking validation’ Embrace yourself, your identity, your persona, your strengths, your weakness and your priorities without any self doubt. At work, be the woman who stands up for a woman in crises, who gives a hand and pulls other up not because someone else might do that for you but because you want to spread love, happiness and kindness. Because you want the vicious cycle to stop and start a new cycle. Only a Happy Woman can make Happy Work environment and Happy Homes. The key is with you. With all of us. We just need to realise this and on time!
