Webinar – “Navigating Life Transitions: Working Motherhood”
In speaking with members of our Uncommon community, a topic that often comes up is: “How do I navigate change?” Change can take many forms, whether that’s a career pivot, moving to a new city, loss and, of course, becoming a mother. Like any other significant life milestone, motherhood is a huge life change that can rock every fibre of your being. However, there’s so much about motherhood that we still shy away from talking about.
This inspired last month’s live webinar topic, “Navigating Life Transitions: Working Motherhood”, which aimed to create space for an honest conversation about the good, bad, and messy of working motherhood. We invited Sue Stephens (Regional Lead at Meta and founding member at Uncommon) to join Jude Skipwith (Head of Growth, Uncommon) to explore the realities of first-time motherhood and share actionable ways to navigate this life change.
In this conversation, they shed light on
Their individual experiences navigating new motherhood
The myths about motherhood they’ve had to unlearn
Balancing ambition, children and family
How to come back to work stronger
Normalising matrescence, the process of becoming a mother
There’s plenty of vocabulary for the different phases of pregnancy, from the joyful announcement to friends to the baby showers and the actual birth. But it was not until recently that we even had a term to describe and recognize a woman’s complex transition into motherhood. Matrescence, coined in the ‘70s by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael, refers to the physical, emotional, hormonal, mental and social transition to becoming a mother - and every woman’s experience of it is different.
“The bit after pregnancy was, emotionally, the hardest part for me,” Sue admitted during the webinar. “When my daughter Logan was born, I didn’t feel like a mommy straightaway. At the same time, I didn’t feel like I was depressed or had postpartum depression, but had no language for what I was experiencing. I struggled with feeling like I wasn’t good at what I was doing and didn’t know what I was doing.
So, it’s helpful to know there’s a word to describe this change; that it’s natural and that you’re not going crazy. Frankly, when you become a mom, both you and the baby (once a stranger in your body) are essentially hired to do a job that you’re unqualified to do, at least initially. And so, you’re trying to get to know each other, and over time, you build your confidence and become better at it. It’s only a year after that this new identity as a mom feels as natural to me as all the other identities I’ve built over the years.”
“When you become a mom, both you and the baby (once a stranger in your body) are essentially hired to do a job that you’re unqualified to do, at least initially. And so, you’re trying to get to know each other, and over time, you build your confidence and become better at it.”
“The Middle Sprint”: Career vs. children
For women, or at least women who want children, their career trajectory to seniority has to be a fast one. Even at the beginning of their career, women feel the pressure to rapidly pursue their career goals in the hope of achieving the seniority, stability, salary and exposure they want before taking leave to have children. This has led to what some writers have coined the “middle sprint” (sometimes also called the 10-year-sprint).
For Sue who had her firstborn at 38, she acknowledged that motherhood was something she delayed partly because of a lack of clarity about wanting children, but also because of the great career opportunities she was offered. “I know for a fact that coming back from maternity leave, there’s going to be another runway of me delivering before I get on the promotion track. So it’s absolutely true that there is a sacrifice to be made. But if (motherhood) is something that you feel in your heart that you want, the sacrifice is worthwhile.
I’ll be honest though: it sucked that when I left for maternity leave, my (male) colleagues got promoted. This is not coming from a place of jealousy, but I knew that (I got overlooked) for a promotion even though I knew I could’ve been on the list, based on what I’ve delivered.”
Motherhood bias
In the webinar, Jude raised the fact that there is a difference in the way we treat maternity leave for women and the “reservist” that National Servicemen must undergo in Singapore. There are 10 work years in total, during which NSMen must complete their call-up duties; in every work year, one may be called up for service for up to 40 days. In Singapore, the government stipulation for maternity leave for women is 4 months or 16 weeks.
“When you draw the comparison to reservice, so many men will leave the workforce for three or four weeks a year for reservice. Over the course of years, it’s easily equivalent to a couple of maternity leaves. . Because it’s normalised, it’s not a problem at all. These could be at a crunch state to the business, but teams just find ways to work around them. The more I think about it, the more I conclude that the motherhood bias boils down to what’s normalised. The question is, how can we start making these small shifts in normalising the experiences of women as the experiences of leaders, and not the “other”?”
“The more I think about it, the more I conclude that the motherhood bias boils down to what’s normalised. The question is, how can we start making these small shifts in normalising the experiences of women as the experiences of leaders, and not the “other”?”
The myths of motherhood
From advertisements and parenting magazines to the mommy influencers you follow, the image is consistently the same: the mom who effortlessly and intuitively satisfies her baby’s every need, all while looking radiant. It peddles the idea that maternal instinct is, well, instinctive and happens for all women. According to Jude, one of the biggest challenges of her own motherhood transition is the gap between expectation and reality. (Ali Wong’s Netflix special, where she likened breastfeeding to parallel parking is a hilarious portrayal of this gulf.)
There’s also plenty of science about the changes arising from parenthood and motherhood that are often eclipsed from the conversation. Chelsea Conaboy’s new book, “Mother Brain” is a groundbreaking exploration of the parental brain that delves into neuroscience to debunk the motherhood myths (such as maternal instinct) from realities. In the book, she explains that new parents undergo major brain changes, driven by hormones and the influx of stimuli a baby provides. These neurobiological changes help all parents—birthing or otherwise—adapt to those intense first days and prepare for a long period of learning how to meet their child’s needs. Yet this science is mostly absent from the public conversation about parenthood.
Having become a parent, there are plenty of things Sue wishes she’d been cognizant of. “The biggest myth I had to unlearn and continue to gripe with is this notion of having to be a perfect mom. I'm trying to learn to be a ‘good enough’ parent; being empathetic, validating your child’s emotions, holding space and being a container for your child at that moment. All that extra stuff - that’s what society has put on us.
I also wished I had more of a community of those who had gone before me to share what their experience has been. Most people would only share or show off when everything is perfect. I wish there was more vulnerability in people sharing their experiences of becoming a mom, and the experiences that come after.”
“I also wished I had more of a community of those who had gone before me to share what their experience has been. Most people would only share or show off when everything is perfect. I wish there was more vulnerability in people sharing their experiences of becoming a mom, and the experiences that come after.”
The stigma around maternity leave
Even when mothers make the decision to return to work after maternity leave, the transition to the workplace isn’t so smooth. In a 2021 CNA article, Dr Rajah of NUS Business School shares anecdotes of female employees who delay the announcements of their pregnancies, over concerns of being overlooked for promotions and key projects before going on maternity leave. This is something Jude relates to, having kept her own pregnancy a secret from her manager until she was seven months pregnant. She worked in a team without any other working mothers and worried about being written off for opportunities.
In Sue’s case, being firm about her boundaries was something she learned upon returning from maternity leave. “’As a new mom, there are some things I’m not willing to do anymore. For example, my team knows that I leave on time to pick up (my kid) from daycare on certain days. I’ve worked out that this unavailability needs to be a hard boundary, not fluid.” She initially hedged about raising these boundaries out of fear of looking uncommitted and confirming all the biases about working mothers, but eventually decided to have that conversation.
“In my case, it was liberating to ask for what I needed. However, I acknowledge that despite how supportive and amazing your company is, those worries were legitimate and, to an extent, these biases still persist.”
Maternal optimism, and how to come back to work stronger
But the good news is that it’s not all doom and gloom. While a lot of the narrative around working motherhood is the idea of compromise or sacrifice (which we don’t deny), it’s a one-sided look at how motherhood can impact your career and life. In the book “Maternal Optimism”, authors Jamie Ladge and Danna Greenberg provide research and stories that suggest parenthood can enrich careers. It also challenges our impulse to reduce the work vs. life challenges to a single point in time, because these decisions are anything but stagnant.
Sue wrapped up the conversation by sharing some tangible takeaways and advice from being a first-time mother:
Acknowledge it is difficult and ask for help
Decide which of your boundaries are non-negotiable - and be firm about it
Keep perspective. You are setting an example for your little one
Have a laugh
Find a community of moms you actually like (and not just because they are moms!)
Discuss your emergency plan B
Watch the full webinar here
Catch the full discussion between Sue and Jude below, and check out our list of resources, thoughtful prompts and discussion guide in the worksheet here. Join our monthly Uncommon webinars with thought leaders and experts on pertinent career, leadership and personal growth topics. Subscribe to the Uncommon newsletter and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook to stay up to date.
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Uncommon is a private network for female leaders to connect, grow and thrive. Our goal is to drive uncommon, candid conversations and provide resources that enable members to accelerate their life. The waitlist for our next cohort is now open: apply to join here.