Success wears many hats

As a working parent, success takes a whole new meaning.

Voluntary Childlessness

I was ‘today years old’ when I realised that voluntary childlessness is an actual term.
Until well into my thirties I was unbelievably sceptical of motherhood. I cared about building my career, becoming a better horse rider, being unapologetically independent and having zero responsibilities. I did NOT want children. In all honestly, the thought of it made me feel very uneasy, almost queasy. I couldn’t appreciate on any level, why someone would want to be a parent. Retrospectively and given that I consider myself emotionally intelligent and in tune with other people’s feelings, it was a little odd. I didn’t even like how it sounded when somebody referred to me as “Mum” when talking about the dog or my horse. I loved them dearly but I was their owner, not their mum.

And then something changed. Lots of things in succession, actually. New career path, new relationship, new home and new mindset. I had gotten to a point in my career where I felt successful. Crucially, I will say that success is subjective. My version won’t be exactly the same as yours. I work in software sales and was exceeding financial targets, had a fun group of work friends, I felt respected and appreciated in the workplace, and I was a high earner by most people’s standards. That was my personal version of success at the time.

I was one-half of a happy couple and undeniably in love with my partner in crime, my now husband. With friendship at its core, our relationship was passionate, filled with travel and adventures, and we were future-focussed. It was a very exciting phase of life.

The icing on the ‘happy couple cake’ was that our first home together seemed grown up. A characterful and cosy Victorian house which felt safe, homey and conveniently spacious compared to one-bed-flat living for so many years. It was a perfect family home … aside from the cockroaches, but that’s another story.

Cue a monumental mindset shift. I was ready to turn our duo into a trio; to expand our wonderful little team.

Successfully sentimental

Despite being a complex person emotionally, I didn’t take my first pregnancy very seriously … until it ended. To begin with, I suppose we felt a bit smug and giddy about having conceived on our honeymoon, and I had an “I’m going to be a super-chilled mum” state of mind. Fellow introverts might understand this more than others, but I was also embarrassed to be pregnant given how emphatic I had been (for all time) about not wanting children. It was a true 180 degree turn.

Alas, that pregnancy ended in a silent miscarriage. We had been for an ultrasound scan the week before and reassuringly seen a tiny, beating heart on the monitor (for the second time). Sadly, one week later we saw nothing but a static, grey image.

I knew immediately that our first baby had left us. For me, it was heartbreaking in an unexpected way. The romantic vision of the future (I’m a daydreamer by nature) had been snatched away and despite thinking I wasn’t very maternal, I felt a choking sense of grief. It still surprises me that nobody really talks about miscarriage. It hurts in multiple ways.

After that, I really, really wanted to fall pregnant again. I wanted that version of success. Being able to carry a baby and do it well. And lucky us, a few months later we conceived for the second time with our rainbow baby. I cried tears of joy and relief when I saw those two blue lines.

And so, my version of success pivoted once again, this time to being a good mum. Being present, ensuring my baby felt an abundance of love, teaching her right from wrong, to be kind yet strong, and being the best role model that I can be. And protecting her! Protecting her was top of the list.

After she was born, my first instinct was to keep her with me and ensure she felt safe. I might add that it was the beginning of a whopping great global pandemic and we were about to be plunged into a three-month lockdown (yawn). I’ve since been told that I was overprotective when she was a young baby. But fundamentally, that’s not possible; you can’t protect a newborn too much. It’s perfectly natural to instinctively want to protect your children, especially when they and you are so vulnerable. I’m proud of feeling that way.

Women who have just given birth are the most vulnerable they’ll ever be, both physically and emotionally, but we’re also about as badass as it gets. It’s an age-old, successful survival technique. We’ve all cheered at the tv screen during a wildlife documentary (we love you, David Attenborough!) when against all odds, a mother animal opens a can of whoop-ass on a predator trying to take her baby. With motherhood comes beautiful determination.

I’ll never be a ‘baking cookies and tying hair in a pretty plait’ sweet kind of mum. Though we do attempt those things, I’m a mediocre cook at best and hair isn’t my thing. My husband (lovingly) says that my eldest has inherited my scarecrow hair, if you catch my drift. So, aside from doing my utmost to ensure my children enjoy life and cherish the moments that matter, that they are safe, happy, healthy and feel loved immeasurably, whatever the weather, my ambition is to be the person they trust most in the world. To me, that would be the ultimate success.

Trust and respect are very closely linked. Like non-identical twins. They look a bit different but come from the same place at the same time. And I realised only very recently that respect is the thing which empowers me more than anything else. R.E.S.P.E.C.T (Aretha Franklin playing on my brain radio) is foundational to my confidence. It instils balanced self-belief, and elevates my sense of contentment. When another human makes me feel that way, I’ll naturally trust them more and tend to reciprocate their respect. Whatever way you look at it, that is a successful relationship – personal or professional.

Scared of stunting success

It’s embarrassing to confess, but in the past, I didn’t respect women who chose not to go back to work after having children. I thought of it as a cop out. I’m ashamed of that now. For those who subscribe to ‘stay-at-home stereotypes’ like I did, WOW, looking after children all day long is hard. Really hard.

Being a perma-entertainer and safe-keeper, never EVER switching off, and the sheer monotony and thanklessness of housework is so much harder than ‘work work’.
Even playing is arduous. Fumbling around in the attic of your adult mind for the dusty old imagination you stored away many years ago. The definition of child’s play is “a task which is easily accomplished”. I’m here to tell you that playing with children is not child’s play. It’s exhausting!

Importantly, being a stay-at-home parent comes from a place of love (or financial necessity because childcare can break the bank). It’s not laziness or lack of ambition. People who are hugely ambitious, creative and brilliantly smart still choose to stop working whilst their children are young. They sacrifice or delay professional success for the sake of their family. They choose love. It took me 36 years to figure that one out.

My children are without a shadow of a doubt, my greatest achievement. So, having recently welcomed baby #2 who brings me unadulterated joy, why don’t I feel successful any more?

“Many of us define our success based on what others think of us. Or more specifically, our assumptions of what they think. Will people be suitably impressed by my accomplishments, my job title, my salary (or indeed envious of them if one’s ego needs a stroke)? If yes, then bingo, we feel successful”.

But people aren’t usually impressed when women have babies. Sure, it’s a wonderful thing and it expands our hearts, but those ‘at home’ looking after their children are not held in high regard. It’s not something that society particularly respects. It should be, but it’s not. Why isn’t raising the next generation to be decent humans, considered the most important job in the world? Instead, the cloak of invisibility is draped over us for a while, until we re-enter the world of work … where our success status can be reinstated.

I’ve worked a four-day-week since having my first child and therefore have the additional challenge that “part-timer” is a dirty word (*rolling my eyes*). But let’s face it, that’s a whole ‘nother conversation.

And therein lies my current problem. No matter how snuggly baby cuddles feel, how perfect baby giggles sound and how scrumptious baby smiles are, I still miss feeling successful. And in turn, rather unceremoniously, that makes me feel guilty. Guilty because I’m not at work, bettering myself and earning a crust, and guilty because my children don’t have one billion percent of my attention. Oh, the joy of being a ‘warent’ (a working parent).

Success wears many hats

“Something we all need to acknowledge is that actually, success wears many hats. Professional success, financial success, parenting success, relationship success, family success. Sometimes it’s just ‘keeping your sh*t together’ success”.

What matters is how we define our own success, and in turn, respecting each other’s unique versions. If I’m wearing a baseball cap today, that doesn’t mean you can’t wear a trilby”.

For me, there are three key components to feeling successful. 1) A sense of accomplishment. I’ve always thought of it as having earned a glass of wine at the end of the day. 2) Respect (that old chestnut). Is anybody impressed enough by me that they will raise a glass, figuratively speaking? 3) Appreciation. Have I made a positive impact and is anybody grateful enough to pop the cork and pour the wine (maybe even buy the bottle)?

Achieving all three is a metaphorical magnum of top notch champagne (though I prefer Prosecco … ssshh!). That’s when you feel like a (tipsy) superhero.

Right now, rudely interrupting my marvellous motherhood moments, is the fact that somehow my sense of accomplishment is diminished. I don’t have the opportunity to impress anybody and truthfully (though I have an appreciative husband), I question myself ALL the time. Am I adding enough value … to my family, to our bank balance, to my employer? I feel like I’m in debt.

… Plus, my kids don’t drink wine 🙂

Realistically, it could be some time before I get a return on my emotional investment, even when I’m back at work. The nature of software sales means it can take a long time to build a pipeline for success. Throw in the fact that I’ve spent many months using a whole different part of my brain for ‘babying’, a dose of mum-guilt and of course, sleep deprivation and … Hello imposter syndrome! How are you, old friend?

Aside from the daily circus that is warenting, I struggle to feel successful whilst on maternity leave and indeed for a while afterwards. I cast aside all the other hats in my success wardrobe, in search of my ‘professional success hat’. The hat that people admire the most. But it doesn’t fit me right now.

I find myself at a crossroads. Despite having fire in my belly and craving professional success once again, I’m scared. I’m not ready to leave my baby yet; I want to be a present mum … but, I’m also afraid of the alternative. Of having already stunted my success, of being left behind and of missing out on opportunity to be professionally brilliant. I really want both. But we can’t wear two hats at exactly the same time, can we?

As the saying goes, “We expect women to work like they don’t have children and raise children as if they don’t work”. I am feeling that. But it’s not other people making me feel that way, it’s me. It’s what I expect of myself. I need to shift my mindset.

I’m one of many siblings and my youngest is my mother’s 15th grandchild, no less. After a lovely but taxing family day out recently (it started at soft play, which I’m pretty sure is what hell sounds like – if you know, you know!), my Mum told me that she had looked around at us that day and thought to herself, “All of these amazing people come from me”. She said it with a twinkle in her eye and genuine pride on her face. I realised in that moment that WE are her success.

My heart tells me to focus solely on our chubby little bundle of joy. Somebody recently told me, “You will never regret spending more time with your kids”. Even on the most difficult of parenting days, we are blessed with our children and surrounding myself with love and this unbelievable family we have created is a HUGE, everlasting success. A hat that I’ll never outgrow. I know that.

But, my (annoying) head tells me I need to get back to work and back in the game, because … what if it’s too late? My professional success hat has been sitting around in the wardrobe so long that it’ll be moth-eaten by the time I take it out and shove it back on.

So, I’ve taken a step back to properly look at myself. To open every drawer of my mind and rummage through my collection of hats.

Turns out, I’m just insecure (story of my life) and probably a little bored.
I tried my ‘stay-at-home success’ hat on for size, and I like it. It’s one of those understated, comfortable pieces of clothing that you’ll never throw out, so I’ve been wearing it for a while … but it’s not in vogue. From time to time, I put my more impressive ‘professional success’ hat back on and walk around the house in it to make myself feel busy and important (I’m wearing it as I write this). And when I get bored, I try on every single hat in the wardrobe and end up with nothing but ‘hat hair’. Not a good look on a human scarecrow.

It seems obvious now, that my ‘family success’ hat will never, ever go out of fashion. The others are perhaps more seasonal.

“Here’s the most important thing I’ve figured out. Self deprecation is the opposite of success. It has literally no useful purpose. It’s a paper hat when you’re out in the rain. Self-respect is success in its purest, most impressive form. It’s a frickin’ bejewelled gold crown, sparkling in the sunshine”.

I will take pride in the fact that my body, my attention, my energy, my existence, is for my family right now. We need each other and that makes me happy. It’s not something to be embarrassed about. It cannot erase past success and it doesn’t have to limit future success. Clearly, professional success ranks highly on my priority list and it will bounce back (all in good time) because I’ll make damn sure of it. In the meantime, I respect the path I have chosen to take. And respect is my thing! … So, hand me that sparkly crown.

For those of us ‘warenting’ our way through life, impossibly striving to be perfect parents AND perfect professionals, remember that success belongs to YOU. It’s yours to define. Own it.

For now, I have redefined my version of success. Because it’s not a static, grey image. It’s a beating heart.