This morning, I was given the choice to pick between my son’s soccer game and doing some work. Considering I was backed up with late deliverables, and the limited amount of time I, like other working moms, get, the proposition was pretty tempting. Maybe I could even fit in a few pages of that book I’ve been trying to finish for weeks…As I was about to slide open my laptop, something in me made me reconsider. At first, I thought it was typical mom guilt rearing its ugly head yet again to make me doubt myself as a mother. But really, it wasn’t. What it was, was the unusual clarity one gets after quite a few years of struggling between ambition and family. This clarity that (gently) punches you in the stomach and reminds you where your unique, personal priorities are…For me, it was about knowing that in reality, I don’t have to choose between career ambition and family.
I was always ambitious. I also apologized for it a lot. I still do, every now and then, but I’m getting a lot better at catching myself. When I was single and mingling, it wasn’t too much of an issue. As I became a mom (which by the way is a constant process of becoming), things changed (of course they did). To be more specific, it all became more of a struggle. One filled with seemingly tough choices and life-altering decisions. Do I stay at the job that pays me less and leaves me unfulfilled in exchange for more time with my kids? Do I quit the exciting job that requires me to be away from my family more often than I can bear? Do I work from home and miss out on the face time that may be instrumental to my career? Or do I make peace with the fact that the babysitter is really raising my kids and not me? And these are only a few of the questions that everyday working moms ask themselves day in and day out…
The struggle between ambition and family is real for working moms. We may call it mom guilt, dress it as motherhood penalty, or commiserate at how unfair society is. Yet, the reality is that we’re still left with the remaining pieces to put back together and deal with ourselves. As much as we may be tempted to blame corporations, businesses, our partners, leaking diapers, and society as a whole, it’s a fight we still have to wage on our own. One that taught me to trust and develop the clarity I needed to make the right choices for me, not anyone else’s…
If I may share, here are a few of the principles which have made the difference for me, as I struggled between ambition and family:
- It’s not a dilemma. It’s a gift.
For many working moms, struggling between ambition and family is a dilemma. A headache-inducing, life-altering dilemma. Hence our self-imposed need to choose between the two. So we settle for not being all there as working moms, or not being all there at work, whether it’s in unfulfilling positions or by abandoning the career ship altogether.
Yet, studies have been revealing that contrary to public opinion, kids benefit from having imperfect, flawed working moms. That after all, we don’t have to make ourselves miserable by forcing ourselves into choices that kill us. It’s actually a gift to nurture our ambition as working moms and still be able to love our families. It’s also a gift that we leave to our kids without us having to say much. What if we could simply reframe what we view as a dilemma into the gift of having options instead?
- It’s not about sacrifice, it’s about fulfillment
Sacrifice, a word I’ve come to dislike, especially after becoming a mom. Sacrifice implies negative feelings and emotions. Sacrifice implies negating oneself, at the risk of offering a diminished version of ourselves to our families and the world at large. Sacrifice leaves a sour taste in our mouths, infiltrating our hearts with an insidious, albeit silent, seed of resentment and entitlement.
I don’t want to tell my kids about how much I sacrificed for them. I don’t want them to feel like they owe me, like they now have to dedicate their lives to paying me back. I want them to know that welcoming them in my world and raising them is a privilege and a source of fulfillment and joy. That I remained true to myself not in spite, but because of them. That although there were challenges, that these made me stronger, closer to the best version of their mom that I could be. And that I didn’t have to choose between my ambition and them, because ambition manifests in different ways, one of which is to honor my first job as a mom.
- The time will not come back, but the work will be there when I get back
Lastly, whenever I find myself caught in the quagmire of parenting decisions, this is the one mantra that brings me clarity: “The time will not come back, but the work will be there when I get back”. The time to spend with my family, to witness their milestones, watch their sports games, laugh at their jokes, will not come back. But the work, even my most ambitious, passionate, and fulfilling work, will be there, after I put them to bed, during early mornings, and in between errands.
The promotion will be there, not because I gave up on being a mom, but when I’ve grown into the version of my own brand of working mom that will receive it, and receive it well. The business will flourish, not because I’ve missed bedtime stories and soccer games, but when the time is right for this working mama. In the meantime, I’ll be a mom and I’ll continue working, in the imperfect, flawed, and fulfilling way that works for me.
And that morning, I did end up shutting the laptop down and going to my kid’s soccer game. He scored two goals, I nodded for a half-minute because: tired, and I still got to write a couple of blog posts in the afternoon and answer a few work emails while dreaming about the best way I could pay someone to wash and detangle my ‘fro….It was a good day.
Do you struggle between your ambition and family?
The Corporate Sis.
