Marketing & Motherhood

I’ve made mistakes in my life but my choice of career was not one of them. I’ve loved every minute of it.  Balancing my career aspirations with motherhood at times left me conflicted as to whether or not I was doing the right thing by my children especially on one fateful day that will forever live in my memory.   

Australia 1997, I was due to attend my daughter’s Mother’s Day Tea at 10:30am. I was delayed by a meeting and arrived twenty minutes late.  When I entered the class room, it was a buzz of young mothers and grandmothers enjoying pink frosted cupcakes carefully decorated with candy pearls and love hearts. And then there was Elle, my daughter, sitting in her floral party dress beside an empty chair with tears streaming down her face.   

I realized how long that twenty minutes must have seemed to her.  The prospect that I might not make it after promising I wouldn’t miss it for the world.  I was so guilt-stricken that I started to cry too. She was five years old and too young to understand that back then I believed the commitments of motherhood had no place in the boardroom. Made worse by the inscription in her card that read how much she loved me and that I was the best mum in the world.

Fast forward three years while in a management role at my company, my phone rang just after 9am. It was one of my senior researchers who was due back for her first day post maternity leave. She was in tears because her daughter had come down with a tummy bug during the night so day care was out. Two days later, she herself came down with the same.  She offered to resign with the belief that motherhood invalidated her ability to retain a senior position. No, the trots are not a career ending offense. She walked in the following Monday for her take two with a dramatic case of pink eye. I must confess we both broke down in a fit of laughter followed by firm instructions from me to go home before she starts an epidemic. 

Neither scenario is uncommon for hardworking mothers trying to balance a career and motherhood. This post was prompted by a dinner I recently enjoyed with a colleague who asked me how I successfully managed a career and motherhood when my children were young. I’m not sure that I did. In fact, there were many times I felt like I was failing everyone and that something had to give but ultimately, I knew that a career of my own was essential to my happiness and as it turns out to my ability to provide for myself in the future.  

My advice is whatever you chose to do, to be, or think is right, don’t question it. Just enjoy the time you do have with your children, it passes by so quickly.  One minute they’re five and the next they’re fifteen. That little girl who was waiting for me is now an independent educated young woman, a marketer, and huge asset to Lead & Anchor. And by the way, she claims to have no memory of that day.