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Guest post: ‘I felt viewed as a mum first and an employee second’

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MumsnetGuestPosts · 04/03/2015 12:48

I felt like it was my first job and I was 16 again. I'd laid my clothes out the night before, I'd agonised over what colour to paint my nails. I got there with ages to spare, my already soggy sandwiches crushed in my bag. My hands shook as I opened the door.

When I walked into the room, I knew I needn't have worried. They were all much younger than me. They hadn't lived, travelled, truly worked, or loved. They hadn't any experience and their working lives were managed by YouTubing the things they didn't know how to do. This was a new world, but one I shouldn't have feared.

It was my first day back at work and the twenty-somethings were in charge. I, meanwhile, was the walking cliché of a mum returning to work. My clothes were too smart, I didn't know how to use their content management system, and I constantly checked my phone for updates of how my children were doing without me.

On that first day, I didn't walk in as an award-winning senior journalist known for front page leads and agenda-setting exclusives. I didn't walk in as the mentor I'd been to young reporters, or the leader I'd been on the nights when we literally held the front page. I walked in as a mother.

I felt viewed as a mum first and an employee second. I was asked about my children before my career. But I didn't want to be just the mother returning to work. I wanted to be the new hire. I didn't want to be the parent who'd negotiated flexible hours around the nursery run. I wanted to be the employee who made every hour count.

As stay-at-home mothers we are constantly battling stereotypes. We are the women who apparently struggle to shake the baby brain phenomena. We are the women who choose to walk away from the corporate ladder. We are the women whose priorities have changed.

If we return to work, we must battle these assumptions and also grapple with the anxiety that comes with wondering whether we can ever really do our jobs again. We must learn how to leave our children behind and give everything to our careers again. We must work out whether we can still do that and finish in time for the nursery run. We must work out whether leaving on time instead of staying late for no overtime pay will mean we’re overlooked for the next promotion. We must work out whether we need to get home to our son when his temperature has hit 40 degrees, or whether we should first go to the meeting we've been preparing for all week.

My return to work began with last year's Workfest conference. It came at exactly the right time for me - my daughter was 11 months old and my son was two-and-a-half, and we could no longer afford for me not to work.

Three years earlier, I'd left a much-loved middle management position at a national newspaper. But since then I had moved across the world and had two babies. By the time I went to Workfest, long after I'd stood up at my last news conference and pitched my last front page, I felt out of touch with the world of work. I'd just stopped breastfeeding and not yet bought myself new bras without nursing flaps. I had kept no office wear and on my shoulder was a change bag holding nappies.

Workfest was just what I needed. My CV was torn to shreds - but constructively. I was inspired by the women I met - they were either determined to return to work or leave the workplace behind and establish their own businesses. They filled me with confidence.

In other ways it wasn't an easy day. I smarted at the suggestion that I should volunteer in order to update my CV. I hadn't spent over a decade pushing my way up the echelons of a competitive industry to be told to go and volunteer at the bottom of the pile, I thought, and my pride was bruised. I also huffed and puffed when I was told that someone already doing the job might get picked over me - an out-of-work mother. I knew these things were true, and perhaps that’s why they hurt.

Returning to work wasn't going to be easy, that was clear - but were prepared to fight for it. I felt certain too, surrounded by women who were just as determined as me, that we would do it, and we would do it brilliantly.

As much as I worried myself sick about the new employee I was going to be, it didn't take me long to realise that all of those years of experience counted. They meant I was still good at my job and I knew what I was doing. Once I figured that out, I started to enjoy it again. I settled into a mix of different roles for different companies. Among them are brilliant employers who don’t mind me completing my work at 11pm.

I'm not yet back to where I was before I had children. Freelancing has given me the flexibility I need - although not necessarily the security I would like. But it works for me. I'm still not sure whether most employers are really equipped or willing to welcome back working mums. I've had to sidestep industries, and I've not been convinced that employers truly live up to the lip service they pay to flexible working. There are many painful realities about the world of work which are hard to swallow for returning mothers. But I am still a capable employee. I've not forgotten how to sub-edit or write in shorthand or run an editorial conference. I just hope that’s enough.

To find out more about Workfest and buy tickets, click here.

OP posts:
sportinguista · 08/03/2015 01:40

Not a returning mother, but more a casualty of the world if work. I've newly entered the freelance world. While not as lucrative its in a way more empowering. You have to rely on your wits, it's far harder than employment. I've got far mor boldness than some 20 something's. Mothers are far more vauable than they seem, employers need to wake up!

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