How to juggle work, kids and marriage
You give hubby a peck on the cheek and dash out of the house clutching baby under one arm and shrieking toddler by the wrist, the remnants of the morning’s porridge clinging to your jumper.
You’re 20 minutes late dropping the kids at nursery and by the time you get to the office you’ll probably miss that meeting with the big boss.
Welcome to the glamorous world of the working Mum – she who has it all. Is it really possible to live the dream and balance the demands of work, marriage and babies?
It’s the dilemma confronted in Sarah Jessica Parker’s new movie, I Don’t Know How She Does It.
Kate Reddy (SJP) devotes her days to a demanding job in financial management and her nights to architect husband Richard and their two young children. But when Kate lands a major account that means business trips to New York and Richard wins the job he’s been hoping for, a life spread thinly starts to come undone at the seams.
Says SJP, mum of three: “When I read the script I felt how accurately it portrayed modern parenthood, with humour and a consciousness of the absurdity of things sometimes.
“How can you be all things to all people, as most women are accustomed to being?”
[Relevant: Simple 15-minute stress busters that work]
How indeed. A recent survey suggested increasing numbers of Brits believe the “supermum” dream is impossible. Only 14.2 per cent of women think mothers and their families are happier if she works, the Cambridge University-backed study claimed.
But highflying businesswoman Julia Hobsbawm – author of The See-Saw, about achieving the work/life balance – insists: “There has been an absurd trend for thinking that if we could just stop being so career driven, life would return to some idyll of jam-making. I don't get this idea that women who work are bad for families.”
Among her top tips for how to have it all are:
- Have daily me-time – even if it’s just for a “good cry or gossip”.
- Make time to be alone with your other half
- Never compare your family with other families.
- Ditch something you feel you ought to do but in reality can do without – e.g. cleaning, or networking events.
- Take a step back from your guilty feelings. Is it generalized guilt getting the better of you or is there something practical you can do to put it right?
Top British lawyer Marilyn Stowe also warns women not to succumb to the guilt trap.
She insists woman can and, in fact, do make juggling marriage, career and family work. As she points out, divorce statistics are at a 29-year low, suggesting the rise in working mothers hasn’t destroyed the family unit.
Despite her own feelings of guilt as a working Mum in the 1990s (“Guilt when my baby was at nursery, [guilt] when I took days off work…”), she says: “I appear to have raised a well-adjusted son. We have a great relationship and he is now a law student following in his parents’ footsteps. He can’t have had it that bad!”
So what’s the secret? According to Stowe, number one is having a “genuine agreement between partners to share childcare, work and domestic chores”.
Mums on website babyworld.co.uk agree. “Splitting the housework with your partner” is vital. And decide how much time you want to spend working, arrange childcare accordingly – and stick to it. “Don’t let work creep into the agreed family time,” cautions one mother.
Another notes wryly: “Always wear a sweater over your work clothes until you’ve dropped the baby off!”
*I Don’t Know How She Does It is in cinemas nationwide from September 16
Is Sponge Bob Square Pants hurting your child's cognitive abilities?
