Speaker 1At Harmony Bank, we believe that better happens together. We're a locally owned bank built on relationships and personally committed to your success. Our community bankers are ready to make quick decisions. No big bank bureaucracy, just a custom approach to help you thrive. From business loans to mortgages and everyday banking needs, Harmony Bank provides a secure, modern experience with a touch of Texas hospitality. We're Harmony Bank, where better happens together. Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up
Speaker 2Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Now, before we start the episode, I want to make a quick note of a few things that I've been thinking about. A plea, a request for all of you who listen to this podcast regularly, and also for those of you who have joined us for the very first time. If you enjoy the advice that you get from the podcast, if you find the tips helpful, by rating the podcast, by reviewing the podcast, you help other parents, other caregivers, other nannies, other grandparents, aunts, uncles, anyone else who's involved in supporting and raising resilient adults. You help them find us, because that's how the podcast platforms work. They show and make recommendations, different podcast shows based on ratings and reviews. So, if you could spare just one minute, two minutes to follow the podcast, to rate it, and to write a little review, that would help enormously. It would help enormously build, that bigger tribe that I would like to build of parents helping parents. By following the podcast, what that does is it means that each time a new episode is released, which is a Monday and also a Thursday, it gets automatically downloaded to your feed, however you listen, whether that's Apple, Spotify, or any other medium, and it's ready for you when you want to listen to it. So, you find it all in the right place. You don't have to juggle through and find it. So, I would just ask you to do that. Thank you so much. Eternally grateful. Back to the episode. And this episode, juggling motherhood and a career is genuinely a heartfelt gift from me to you, advice that I've learned over the years, and also in terms of the practice that I've had over the past 20 years. And it was prompted by a conversation that I had in the studio yesterday with Amanita Kamara, specifically around, how do we juggle motherhood and a career? And that could be any sort of career. It might be a returning career. Maybe you've just had a child and you're going back. Maybe you're returning full-time. Maybe you're returning part-time. Maybe it's a career that is aspirational. Maybe it's a career in the process, whatever it might be. It is the reality that as women, we still do the lion's share of the childcare, whether that's the physical piece or whether it's the logistics piece. Now, this is not an anti-fathers episode. I'm not addressing the issues and the challenges that fathers have. They have their own unique challenges. And I know that a huge number of fathers are really stepping up and really looking within families. The dynamic is genuinely shifting to a proper sharing of that parenting responsibility, not just the actual logistics of it, but the physicality of it, the worrying, and all of the rest of it. We're seeing more and more families where actually it's the mothers that are returning back to work full-time and fathers are taking gaps in their own careers and looking at being full-time in terms of parenting. So this podcast is not about trashing or talking about inequality in that perspective. It's simply about my view of placing a context in the background. And it is still that women do the lion's share, that women, it's not just the physical piece, it's the logistics piece, it's the worrying, piece, it's the anticipatory piece, it's the planning piece. Now, before I sort of do a podcast, I always do a bit of research. And I was sort of having, I literally Googled juggling motherhood and a career. And there was an article that came up and this article was pretty much like you can have it all. I'm really sorry, but I believe that articles which say you could have it all, socials, which are filled with happy, glamorous cliches, they're not helping. Please just move away from that propaganda. Now, of course, that there will be times when we feel we have it all. But most of the time, we feel as though we're barely getting by. And that's super, super normal. What I want to share in this particular episode are five things that I think are worth considering. Some of them are practices, some of them are mindset, some of them are around logistics. Of course, there's a whole load of things that we can do. But I want to share with you five things that we can do around planning and other things. But in my experience, these five areas that we can work on, these five strategies are all about being much more compassionate with ourselves and also changing the way that we frame this notion of having it all. I'm not trying to take away anything from aspirations and goals and the bigger pictures of what we want. But I guess what I'm trying to do is set us up as mothers for success rather than set us up for a lifelong journey of constantly beating ourselves up. So the first thing that I would say, and this I would say probably is quite a crucial thing, and it will be an ongoing process, is as women, we need to build our tribe. I talk about the fact that it takes a village to raise a resilient adult all of the time. And I also think that part of raising that resilient adult, of course, is the village that surrounds you in order to do that. And it's very much around the child being the focus. When I talk about building your tribe, I'm talking about you being the focus. Your tribe that may well be part of the wider village that raises your child, or may not be, but you are not this isolated island. You are part of a community and you cannot, be the optimal person and show up as your best self for you. That comes first. And then you can show up as your best self as a parent, and then also within your career. And that all rests and all pivots on the tribe which surrounds you. So what do we mean? What is this tribe? Well, in the same way as if you listen to episodes that I've done that talks about friendships and helping children with their friendships, it's an understanding that friendships naturally evolve, they change, and who we have those deep connections with evolves over time and the types of friends that we have for different reasons and different seasons. Our tribe is the same. It's about surrounding us with people, surrounding ourselves with people who have our best interests at heart. And part of that best interest at heart is the ability for us to be honest with them about the challenges that we're facing, the difficulties, how we genuinely feel, and knowing that these are people that we can have conversations and say, do you know what? Right now, I'm not enjoying being a parent. Right now, I'm not enjoying my career. Right now, I feel my children are getting in the way of my career. Whatever it might be, that we can have those honest conversations. So your tribe will evolve, your tribe will change, and you will have multiple different tribes for different things. But it's understanding your tribe does not need to be filled necessarily with other parents, doesn't necessarily need to be filled with others that are pursuing a similar career. It's about what do you need at that stage of your journey, but really keeping at the heart of it, the center of this tribe is you as an individual for which your role as a parent is one role, and we'll talk about that. So it's this idea about building that tribe and understanding that your tribe is a collection of people that are there for you in the same ways you may well be showing up for someone else in their tribe for them. Let's not underestimate this. I think so often we end up feeling that the tribe that we create, the center of that tribe is our child and what our child needs. I'm talking, when we talk about juggling motherhood and a career, about a tribe that focuses in around us. So that's the first thing. The second thing is about placing our role as mother in the context of the many roles. It is just one. And some of you might kind of prickle at that when I say just one. It's not that I'm saying that parenting is just one. It's just one. It's just one. It's just one. Of course it isn't, but that's one role in many, many, many roles that you juggle. You juggle a partner, you juggle being a sister, an aunt, you juggle being an employer, being an employee, being a chauffeur, being a cook, being financial director of your home, whatever it might be, we juggle multiple roles. And it's really important that we need to remember to place that role as mother within the context of many. And I say that because what often happens is the moment we add motherhood to our list of roles, it's almost as if we ignore all others and then elevate motherhood into this top spot at often the expense of others. Or we put motherhood there with career and then we're constantly feeling guilty that we're not doing either effectively. What's important about remembering the many roles that we have is that we're able to understand, and we'll talk about this a little bit more, is about that it is one of multiple ones and actually who we are as an individual is made up of these multiple roles. And if we don't attend to or give time to or nurture these other roles, we do a disservice to the person that we are. So you think about the things that matter and some of those roles that you have may well be, if you love, if you're really into your physical exercise, it's a really important part of who you are, then that is one role that you have. It could be athlete, it could be runner, it could be weightlifter, it could be cyclist, it could be rambler, it could be gardener, it could be cook, whatever aspects that make you who you are a part of the roles that you have. And when we overemphasize and we over elevate one aspect of who we are, of which motherhood is. One, we do ourselves a disservice. And then even more so, if we get caught in this narrative of being the best mother that we can be, we do our children a disservice because we don't demonstrate to them the importance of nurturing all the different dimensions of who they are. I'm much more likely to do what they see than what we say. So if we demonstrate boundaries, if we demonstrate nurturing the various dimensions that make us who we are, nurturing our interests and our hobbies beyond our immediate family, then we're setting our children up for the same value system and helping them nurture and develop their different various multiple dimensions too. So the first one is about building our tribe. The second one is about remembering that motherhood is one of many roles. The third is around managing your expectations. There is no such thing. Genuinely, I don't care what you see, blog posts or podcast episodes. I do not believe there is any such thing as a work life balance because that suggests that in some way we can have a seesaw that's perfectly in balance. It simply doesn't exist. It's not possible. Not just for mothers. It's just not possible. But by accepting, the minute we accept that that isn't possible, that takes a huge weight off because we then don't keep beating ourselves up for not being able to juggle, not being able to achieve this work-life balance that we so often get told about or that we see through socials or we read about. It's about counterbalance. When this role requires lots, lots from me, this one of 20 roles that I have, I know that I need to accept that this and this and this role will be impacted at this particular time because I cannot expend my whole time. It's like trying to work out, you've got a finite amount of sand and you've got one role that requires 80% of that sand. You've got 20% left. You can't thinly spread that. Across your other 15 roles, because let's say you need at least 20% to be able to complete a role. So now we've got a situation of counterbalance because we have to say, right, well, this role is requiring 80% of me at the moment. So I know I can't show up across these 15. Yeah, I've got 20% left. Which role am I going to apportion that to? Because for this particular day or this particular week, there is nothing else left. So it's really, I think when we have a role that requires 80% of me, I know I can't show up across these 15. Help ourselves reframe this sort of notion of having some form of perfect balance. It just simply doesn't exist. There will be weeks or even days, or even if you're lucky, months where you feel that you have totally nailed it. I can do this and I can do that. I can make time for my friends. I can progress my career. I can show up as best happy, engaged mummy. Enjoy that. Accept that. Love it. Flourish. In it. You know, wade in it. You know, bathe yourself in it. But then don't beat yourself up when there is a period of time where you don't have it. And equally, if you're listening and saying, Mary Han, I never have that time, then also accept that that is actually probably much more honest and probably much more how it is for most of us. We don't get weeks of thinking we've got it sorted. We often get days and sometimes even just moments. So it's really about managing our expectations. So build your tribe. Remember that this is just one role. Manage your expectations. Number four is expect wobbly days and plan for them. So often, you know, it's not that I'm trying to sort of focus in on things in a negative light or over planning. But if we expect that parenting is going to be easy and sort of think that we're doing something wrong if it isn't, if instead we accept that actually parenting and motherhood particularly is messy, that motherhood and a career is even messier, and actually I should expect that it's going to be messy most days, then that isn't about viewing life with a negative slant. That's just looking at life with a realistic. If I am juggling multiple roles and I expect things to juggle perfectly, I think that is actually unrealistic. If we're looking at much more as a I'm juggling multiple roles and I know I'm not going to get it right and that there's going to be pinch points throughout the day, then what then happens is when we review our day, we're much more likely to take it from that slant of, oh, well, I thought it wasn't really going to work out brilliantly and I was going to have all sorts of challenges, but this worked well and that worked well and that worked well, rather than setting ourselves up to expect everything to work perfectly. And then beating ourselves up when we don't get it right. So expect wobbly days and plan for them. I'm not talking about micromanaging, but more a case of if this happens, then I will do this. So for example, I've got to get out of the house for a flight for work. My child is probably likely to wobble about me being away. So how can I factor in a little bit of extra time so that when they have their wobble, not if, when they have the wobble, let aside this to be able to support them. And I generally find that when we do that, when we expect wobbles and we factor in time or factor in resources, because it may well be, we don't have the luxury. We've got to get a flight. It's a ridiculous time. We get to see our child for a brief moment. And so we don't, we can't factor in lots of time, but when we factor in resources and we have all of this in place, I think it energetically we feel much more prepared. And I think it means that what typically happens is these big explosions, these big wobbles, these big challenges don't usually present themselves because we approach that situation feeling like we're, we're on top of it. Now that isn't to say that we can always plan for those wobbly moments because we can't. A, we can't always anticipate. Children have a habit of coming up with something from left field. And also life is not this isolated bubble. Something might come at you from a completely different direction, from a completely different role that you haven't anticipated, but it is about how we frame things. And if we expect there to be wobbles, if we expect there to be a wobble with us, our children, or for plans to not necessarily go as they're meant to, then we give ourselves that opportunity to preemptively think of, well, if this is plan A, do I have a plan B? How can I put that plan B into place? And then that actually helps us feel energetically in a better way. very different place. So it makes it so much easier. So build your tribe. Remember, this is just one of many roles. Manage your expectations, expect wobbly days and plan for them. And number five, which is probably the most difficult, but it's something we need to practice is it's okay to say no. It's okay to put in a boundary. It's okay to say yes to something with work and know that you're not screwing up your kids. So let's not get caught in this sort of ever mountain building mum guilt. I can't take mum guilt away from you. It's just something I think is like branded on us. The moment we birth or our child is given to us, it's something that we can't get rid of. And I think in lots of ways, it makes us intuitive to things, but it doesn't have to dictate. We must be everything to our children and not be able to say, no, I can't do that. I can't come to your sports day. I can't take you with here. I can't pick you up from there. Whatever that might be, it is okay to say no to our children. It is okay to say yes to our friends. Yes to our career. Yes to opportunities and know that we're not screwing up our kids because by saying, no to things that are not part of that counterbalance alignment in that moment, we're saying yes to ourselves. We're saying yes to renewing our energy for ourselves, recharging ourselves, giving ourselves space, allowing us to be that multidimensional person that actually means that we're more present and we're more authentic. We're the best version of who we are for our children. So knowing that, is really crucial. And that's where these all sort of feed into each other. Because if you've then got your tribe, your tribe are then saying and reminding you that it's okay to say no. Your tribe are reassuring you that you're not screwing up your kids. Your tribe can be your accountability to you maintaining that multidimensional aspect to who you are. So let's just recap these. It's about building your tribe. It's remembering that motherhood is one of many roles, as well as your career is one of many roles. It's about managing your expectations, expecting wobbly days and planning for them, and knowing it's okay to say no to your children and yes to opportunities, knowing that you're not screwing up your kids. Now, this is a massive topic area. I could have included so much more, and I'm sure I will revisit this topic again. But I hope that this has landed with you at a time that you've needed to hear it, that you're able to take just one of these five things and really focusing in on what you're doing, what you're doing, what you're doing, what you're doing, and doubling down on that so that you can reduce that feeling that you have to be perfect at everything and that you have to manage everything at the detriment of who you are. So as usual, these five things will be part of a checklist with gaps so that you can make notes. Maybe you are going to work on just one. Maybe you're going to work on a couple. Maybe you've got one nailed already, and you can give yourself a gold star. Whatever it might be, it's a really great reference. point. And as usual, you can get that from my free resource library, which is drmaryhand.com forward slash library. There's a link there to download the free resource. You just need to put your email address in and you'll get instant access, not only to this week's resource, but all the free resources across all my podcast episodes. As ever, if you have enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you can rate, follow, and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time. Thank you.
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