How I Make Work, Work
When the weight of it all feels too heavy, with another brilliant and anonymous friend who is taking a pause from paid work
I cried reading what my friend — mostly privately — endured earlier this year.
She had mentioned the idea of quitting paid work to release some stress and spend some time re-focussing her attention, but I never really knew just how heavy the weight felt until now. And it got me thinking, how many mothers and primary caregivers are walking around with their invisibility cloaks covering their stress and their sadness as they weave their way through the never ending maze of life, paid work and parenting?
And so, I asked her if she’d share her story of taking a pause from paid work to focus on her family. I am so glad she said yes, because there’s been a resounding theme coming through my DMs on Instagram: and that’s that, yes, while mothers are very often the most productive and time efficient hires a company will ever make, sometimes the pressure is too much. Sometimes we fall behind. Sometimes we can’t make work, work. And rarely will you hear the honesty that you’re about to hear.
Here, my brilliant friend generously shares it all: the breakdown that caused her to take pause, and what she’s looking forward to most while she takes a break from making paid work, work.
But before we get into it, it’d be remiss of me not to mention a few things:
Often, a mother who decides to dedicate her time to family life can be seen as anti-feminist or succumbing to the traditional family values that we are trying so hard to dismantle.
But as Neha Ruch from Mother Untitled has taught us through her work, we know that this simply isn’t the case. The friend that you’re about to hear from is a staunch feminist (which is of course, a compliment) who truly believes in 50/50 parenting and seeing women and people in the minority take a seat at every single table.
So, don’t diminish the mother who takes a career pause to anything less than her paid working counterparts.
She’s ambitious, but for now, her ambitions have changed.
Secondly, it would be easy to assume that this person is able to take a career pause because she has grown up with the sort of wealth that sends you to private schools and on trips to Europe and to a university of your choosing. This, also, is not the case and I think it’s important to note.
With all that out of the way and without further ado, please enjoy this deeply personal and moving interview — with some smart pieces of advice thrown in along the way — with my friend who, for now, is saying “f*ck that” to making work, work.
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