Combining motherhood and a career is no easy task. Sadly, many women end up having to choose one or the other: some hire a nanny and are tormented by guilt towards their child, others give up their business and career for the sake of their children. Let’s look at why being a working mother is so hard — and whether you really have to choose between business and motherhood.
The case of Olga M.,
35, Moscow, businesswoman and mother
Olga has her own business renting out wedding dresses, suits and other formal wear. Like many mothers, she works from home. Although “works” isn’t quite the right word: the thing is, her five-year-old son simply won’t let her.
None of the four nannies Olga hired to take some of the load off lasted more than a month in the family. The main reason was that nobody could manage the child.
For example, he throws a tantrum before going out because he wants to go outside in his pants and vest, even though it is winter. When the nanny tries to calm him down, the boy screams even louder. Naturally, his mother can’t work with him screaming, so she comes out into the hall and joins the nanny in trying to persuade him to get dressed.
At this point Olga shouts at her son (who is also shouting), puts him in the corner, scolds him… But it still doesn’t work. The result is endless guilt towards her son, a constant backlog at work and a feeling that she is a terrible mother and that combining a business with a child is impossible. To understand what to do about it, Olga came to me. When we started to look into the situation, it turned out that she didn’t have to choose at all. Living both roles in harmony is perfectly possible if you resolve the inner conflict behind it — which turned out to be anything but obvious.
It emerged that Olga had problems with boundaries in her relationship with her own mother.
For instance, her mother calls to say she’ll bring a bar of chocolate for her grandson when she visits. But the boy is allergic to chocolate — he literally breaks out in blotches and itches so badly he can’t sleep.
Olga M.’s story is shared with her permission.
Her name has been changed.
Olga explains this to her mother, but her mother doesn’t listen and arrives with a bar of chocolate “for tea”. And so the same thing happens again and again: the grandmother hands her grandson the chocolate, and when Olga forbids him to eat it, she is terribly offended.
Situations like this — where the grandmother oversteps boundaries and takes offence when Olga tries to defend them — happen regularly.
And each time the guilt is tossed from hand to hand like a hot potato:
If the daughter tells her mother either not to bring chocolate or not to come at all, she feels guilty because her mother is offended.
If the daughter doesn’t want to feel guilty, she lets her mother visit with the chocolate. But she is angry and resentful that her mother doesn’t listen to her. This way the guilt lands on the mother.
The grandmother finds the guilt hard to bear, and in return she takes offence at her daughter: “So now I can’t even bring my grandson a bit of chocolate!”
The guilt in this relationship keeps “wandering” because neither woman can bear it — it is much easier to toss it back and forth.
The same thing happens in Olga’s relationship with her son.
When she works, she doesn’t close the door or keep the child away, and even the nanny doesn’t change the situation. If the boy wants his mother, he goes into her room and plays right where she is working.
She seems to behave like a good mother, but unconsciously she blames her son for getting in her way. In other words, the child ends up being guilty of his mother not getting her work done today.
A child can’t bear guilt like that, so he starts behaving badly. In every possible way he shows that Olga is a bad mother — that it is her fault he is bored, unhappy and has no one to play with. And of course Olga takes that guilt upon herself.
She lets her son do whatever he likes in order to be a good mother, but she is angry with him and blames him for what she doesn’t manage to do.
Working with a psychoanalytic coach can help stop passing guilt down from generation to generation. By understanding the inner conflict and strengthening her boundaries and inner support, a mother becomes stronger and learns to bear the guilt and the feeling of being “bad”. And this is exactly what can break the vicious circle.
