Mommy, Why you didn’t tell me – Photo credit: jiyobefikarwomen.com

My mother always worked. She was always the busy, well-dressed career woman climbing down her high heels after work to rush into the kitchen and fix us a hot plate. It’s through her that I learnt the meaning of work, and all that being a career woman represents. From the struggles to get promoted, to the unsuccessful yet hurtful sexual harassment attempts from male colleagues and superiors, not to mention the passive aggressiveness of fellow women at work. I saw it all, absorbed it all, and…wished it all upon myself…Except my experience was going to be better, easier and much, much more successful…After all, doesn’t each generation make better, more informed decisions? And aren’t women progressing so much more now than before?

Yet, what I didn’t realize, as I gathered all my hopes for career and life success, is that I may have missed an important part of the picture. The internal part. That secret, inside part of every woman’s struggles, that unfortunately we tend to shield our children, and especially our daughters from. I missed the down, dirty truth about what my mother really felt about her career and life…

Until I faced my own struggles at work, gave birth to my first child and witnessed the death of my most profoundly ingrained beliefs and assumptions about life. Until I asked my mother what the heck was happening, and she finally told me about it all…All of it…

All of it, from the exhilarating feeling of achievements, to the fear to disappoint, the gut-wrenching pain at leaving our children to get back to work, the push and pull between tradition and modernism, family and work, ourselves and everyone else. When the strong facade fell, and words of wisdom, pain and ultimately victory, started rolling, I understood and started forgiving  myself…

Are we telling our daughters the truth about being a woman at work and in life? Or would we rather shield them under covers of private education and women’s empowerment speeches, leaving them to fend for themselves when reality hits? And does it hit hard…

Mommy, why didn’t you tell me it was ok to choose myself? Why didn’t you say having children would be considered a career mistake? Why did you shield me from the realization that it was going to be hard but oh so rewarding? Why, why, why….

It may be time to start telling…

The Corporate Sis.