healthmedicinet

Tabitha: Overwhelmed By Both Roles

I do make a mean apple pie!

I met an amazing woman (let’s call her Tabitha) at a school auction recently. She is a career mom in the financial industry. She was telling me that she doesn’t know any moms at school and has no time to do anything.

“All I do is work and fail to try to keep up with my kids’ school stuff. It’s a nightmare trying to remember and do all the things we have to do as mothers. Tuesday they need field trip forms, Wednesday they need snow boots!”

Tabitha talked about her company some too. She is the only mother and works with 35 men. “I had two kids since I started there and the guys I started with have had four each. They both made partner and I didn’t. I was told it was because I had kids and took the maternity leave with both kids.”

Combining the motherhood and career is tough!
This has to have an impact on women’s emotional health. Tabitha admitted feeling anxious, depressed and overwhelmed. She said she didn’t feel like she was doing either role well. By the way, I love this book by Allison Pearson titled “I Don’t Know How She Does It”. The movie sucked but the book was so funny. My favorite line was when the main character, a working mom,  was up at 3 a.m., trying to make her store bought apple pie look like she baked it for a school event. She said something like, “We used to fake orgasms and make apple pies, now we have orgasms and fake the pies.” Amen, sister!

But what is the solution?
I have another friend who left her corporate consulting job in her late 20s to have kids and stay at home. Then her husband found an internet girlfriend and left her with four children, one who has special needs. She hasn’t worked in 15 years so she’s starting over at the bottom of the salary rung. Her retirement situation doesn’t look good at this point.

What’s a girl to do? I wish I had all the answers. My colleague, Joyce Marter is writing a book about these issues and I can’t wait for it to come out. But until then, here are a few tips:

• Get support. When I told Tabitha about my blog and what we are trying to do to encourage women, she was so excited. Her constant going and doing keeps her isolated from friends and other women who can ground her and support her. Therapy or counseling can help with this too. In my experience with working with women, their therapy appointment was really the only thing they did all week that was about them.
• Watch those societal messages. Tabitha was clear that she feels like she isn’t doing either role as well as she could. Unfortunately, she sees herself through a lens that is colored by the American expectation that she “should” be performing at an insurmountable level.
• Practice self-care. It’s important in all of your decisions. Tabitha needs to make sure she is treating herself compassionately, getting as much mentoring as possible at her job, and taking some time every day to do something for herself. She is doing a wonderful job managing a tough situation but may not know it or take time to acknowledge it to herself every day.
• Form an alliance with other women at work seeking work-life balance reform. If you are at a job with other women, forming a group and advocating for work-life balance is smart. There’s strength in numbers. Start with a weekly lunch, brainstorm and go from there.

The takeaway:
For my friend who is left holding the pie, I hope she doesn’t regret her choice to stay home. Luckily, she has a college degree and a work history. This kind of life thing could happen to anybody. One needs to be in a financially independent position in case these unexpected life situations occur. You have to have a degree or training that you can fall back on if you are taking a stay-at-home mother career path. Despite being married, I have always made career decisions based on the possibility that  if things change someday, I can always support myself. Life has a way of throwing us curve balls. Gotta be ready for the pitch.

Take care,  
Cherilynn

Cherilynn Veland is a therapist living in Chicago.
She also blogs about home, work, life and love
at www.stopgivingitaway.com. Follow Cherilynn on Twitter.

 

Picture by jessica wilson {jek in the box} via Compfight cc” target=”_blank”Compfight

 

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And they are apparently too stupid to realize how easy it is to ensure they are called out for their bad behavior.

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    Last reviewed: 26 Feb 2014