Why Do Professional Women Lose Their Identities When Babies Come?
I’ve talked with women all over the US about the loss of identity that often occurs when professional women have children. This feeling seems to be common among executive women that I speak to who usually range in ages between 30 to 45.
For example, I once interviewed a woman who was previously a partner in a very large law firm in Washington DC making over $.5 Million per year. Prior to deciding to start a family, she was the major breadwinner for her family. Once she and her husband embarked upon becoming three, they decided her husband’s career would become the focus and hers would take the back seat.
They left DC and relocated to the Midwest where he settled into a lucrative lead position in a prominent company. She got pregnant, had a baby and started consulting. At the time of our interview, she was a bit lost and although she was doing great work and award winning research, she felt uncomfortable charging for her services. Why is this? It is certainly a phenomenon I see in many women once they off ramp from their high powered careers to care for their children. It’s like our identities are so tied to success and the path that planned for ourselves that we don’t know what to do once we take a detour. What’s up with that? Do we feel guilty? Are we just confused? Can it be that we have tied our self worth so deeply to our salaries that we don’t know what to do once we take a different path? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic so please post your comments and let’s discuss.
Very interestingly and conversely though, women just a few years younger and still without children, can’t imagine this being an issue. Last Friday, I had a discussion with Ginger, Founder of Girls Just Want to Have Funds , a 20 something women’s finance group in Washington DC. Ginger posed the question of “Why Do Professional Women Lose Confidence?” to her blog readers. These readers are a few years younger, well educated and most do not yet have children. They are likely the Six Figure Moms of the future. The responses indicate that this group of educated, young ladies feel they will not experience this same emotion once children enter there lives. Hmmm. I’ll be interested to watch them and to understand whether a younger generation is better equipped to deal with this juggle/struggle. It will be interesting to watch their responses over the next few days.
What do you think? My bet is, as sorry as I am to say this, that unless they’ve been able to build a flexible career for themself already, they’ll be dealing with the same issues that you Six Figure Moms of today are. What CAN we do to help create a different path for them? Well, for one, if you are in a supervisory role, think about what you can do to make change. If you have power, you can be a change agent. What’s stopping you? Your image? Shame Shame ladies!
9 Responses to “Why Do Professional Women Lose Their Identities When Babies Come?”
Please Wait
Good observation!! When I think about it, I want to say that there’s a generational difference that plays into how one may be “programmed” to feel about motherhood after a successful career.
Most of us are Generation X/Y, not sure if your readers/members would be more baby boomers? If so then our generation are moreso taught that we CAN have it all, within balance and reason of course. We are told that we can be supermoms, superwomen and given the tools to do so through sites like Brazen Careerist, Cafe Mom, The Nest and the like.
Maybe the women here have been told they should choose one in stead of the other and are caught in between the two. A generation they see having the choice and taking on both, but struggle with old attitudes. It’s like the evolution of Motherhood 2.0 still battling with old management styles of the 80s telling women they need to make a choice or stay home.
I truly think that the women who actually DOUBT their ABILITIES are doing so because of old styles of thinking and lack of acceptance for their positions as mothers.
Hi, I don’t think anyone can project the impact a child has on your life, your identity and well, absolutely everything. What can we do?–offer flexible schedules and believe they will make it work, because they will.
I know I experienced something similar after having my twin daughters. After doing some personal introspection, I became aware that my definition of “success” had been very “outer” focused prior to having children. As a result, this caused an internal tension and unrest for me. Once I did the work to really get clear on my own new personal definition of “success” for my life, it really helped me to release alot of expectations of myself and others and to also redirect my focus and energies on the key things that matter most to me at this stage in my life in a way that supports my new definition for a successful life.
On Twitter @amymiyamoto
very interesting problematics
As a 30-something Gen (um, X? I am not sure) WAHM, I can relate to both thoughts you mention. Before I had kids, I never thought this would be an issue. Just like the 20-somethings described above. I bravely dove in to MBA career, kids, WAH consulting… and am now having all of the problems, doubts, and more that are also listed above for the post-kid set. I don’t think it’s generational. I think it’s associated with life stage.
Being a mom brings up much more uncertainty than one has before little lives and their future success are under your guidance. And there are many more complexities and logistical issues that you just don’t have BK. I don’t actually feel less sure of myself – just have learning to do about how to manage this much more complex reality with much less framework provided than I had in the corporate world. ALOT of learning!
At this point, I am preparing to return to corporate life. The kids are old enough, and hubby is now able to switch his career to be more flexible. Wish us luck, I sure have my fingers crossed tightly!
I have to respectfully disagree with the assumption that all professional women lose their identities when kids come. I didn’t. But, here’s why I think it could happen. Because of past conditioning. There is a script running in those women’s minds that has been planted that says in order to be a “good” mom, you have to “give up” your life and dreams so that you can be there fully for your kids.
So, they have kids, the voice kicks in and the deed is done.
However, I believe that if a woman is fully self-expressing herself with kids or without, she will be her happiest, most fulfilled and able to give her kids the most and best love and guidance possible, because she is being honest and loving with herself.
Thanks for the thought provoking post.
Hmmm Im following the responses here and I was emailed a response that isn’t posted here. I wanted to respond to Leah’s recent comment.
Author: Leah Kulakowski
Comment:
While I have managed to pull off the work-family balance fairly well, I do find younger women somewhat naive about the challenges they will face as working mothers, just as I was back then. I remember thinking at 22 that I would take a few years out of the workforce and get back in when my children got older. Then, I started to realize that a few years out of the workforce could have dramatic a dramatic impact on career success and earnings for years to come. I I taught an undergrad class just a couple of years ago, and the 18-22 year olds were put off by a video that I showed them depicting a house husband. This man’s wife continued her executive career and let him run the house while he worked from home as a freelance graphic designer. The female students all said they could not imagine letting their husband perform the role she thought she “should” perform. But, almost all of these same young women expected to combine work and family. My challenge to them to think critically about how they would really pull this off was met with a lot of denial about the challenges that they had in front of them.
When we talk about losing identities, I think we have to first explore what we identified with before having children. If we defined ourselves as our careers, then it’s very reasonable to expect that once we release said careers, we’ll experience a disorienting loss of self.
I think motherhood brings with it a powerful opportunity for us to deeply examine what “self” means to us. There is no other transition in life that changes us so thoroughly, and I think this is a GOOD THING. In this opening, this vulnerable transition, we have an opportunity to consciously choose who and what we want to be, moving forward. We have new priorities that cause us to question our values; question how we spend our time. It’s all up to us to decide how that is going to play out.
After all, we want the best for our children, and I think we all know that the strongest way to influence our kids is by modeling a vibrant, fulfilling, happy life.