Guilt of a working women : Six steps to make peace with your dual status.
Once a young lady, probably in her thirties, came up to me and asked ‘Maam how did you manage both, your family, as well as your career and do justice to both? I always feel that I am not doing enough for my children while at office and when I am at home, I feel that I am short changing my job, as I don’t always work extended hours, like my male colleagues’.
She was not the only one. This question has been asked by several young ambitious working women at various forums. As an experienced woman leader who was on the agency side, I always had tight deadlines and lot of travel. I started my corporate journey pretty early in life and continued working for 25 years without a break. Even during two childbirths and the growing years of my children, ‘break’ eluded me.
Most of the women in workplace have been tormented by this emotion and this emotion is ‘GUILT’.
Women feel guilty on two accounts:
that they are not good enough mothers or home makers and
that they do not contribute like other team members in the office
Invariably this ‘guilt feeling’ puts them on the defensive both at home as well as at the work place, thus paving the way for failure.
Guilt is a negative emotion and feeling guilty all the time, is stressful!!
During the initial phase of my corporate life, I had frequent bouts of guilt and would have continued to feel the same till I thought through and made peace with my dual status i.e. Home maker and an Executive.
Let me share my self-developed Six Step process which helped me and would probably help all Working Women to get rid of this ‘Guilt feeling’.
Step 1: Identify – What is Guilt ?
Guilt certainly makes one feel bad, but if you go deeper it is also gives lot of information about beliefs, our standards and values. You start feeling guilty when you start believing that you are not meeting your internal standards of an ideal mother or an executive. Albeit, these internal standards are what you have set for yourself unknowingly.
Step 2: Understanding these standards and the values.
What are these internal standards / benchmarks? Are they fair and justified?
These standards could be : Attending every school function, cooking delicious, novel, nutritious food daily for family, feeling responsible for care of elderly, being with your children every time they face an emotional crisis etc.
At office it could be: being with the colleagues all times, staying beyond office hours and work extended hours or accept extra work on requests, participate in every conversation or attend every meeting etc.
Guilt also gives an insight of your ‘values’ and ‘beliefs’.
Guilt tells you that you value your family and you care about your children’s growth. You believe not spending time with them would probably hamper them from becoming smart responsible kids compared to their friends.
While at work your value of being a conscientious worker comes in the forefront. You believe in order to do that, you need to give more than 100%, go beyond your responsibility, pull one’s weight on the project etc . You believe that to do so you need to spend ‘more than required time’ in the office.
Step 3: Identify and recognize the ‘value’, examine the ‘beliefs attached’ and question the standards.
Do all children of working mothers turn out bad? or Do all children of women home makers turn out as super achievers?
The answer to these questions basis your observations of the society would definitely eliminate lot of these faulty beliefs.
Do all office colleagues who stay back at office work as efficiently during the day as they should? Are the executives who complete their work within office hours not regarded as good workers or not put on fast track or considered inefficient?
Occasionally working late for a project or meeting a deadline is expected but working extended hours regularly tell a different story about efficiency.
One needs to ask oneself ‘am I giving my best and carrying out my responsibilities sincerely, diligently and efficiently? Am I adding value or delivering or going beyond my responsibility and helping others as and when required? If the answer to all is Yes, then why should one feel guilty?
Interestingly this ‘feeling of guilt’ has a positive perspective too. It indicates that you feel responsible for your family, work, colleagues and that is an excellent trait indicative of a good human being.
Step 4: Are you the only one with these issues ?
When you are wallowing in guilt it makes one myopic and you see only your own problems. Look around you, each one of your colleagues ( male and female) have similar issues with slight differences. Remember no one is perfect. Once you realize this it brings in an opportunity to help each other to solve without feeling guilty.
Step 5: What value do you bring to table because you are Working Women ?
Think of the additional values which gets imbibed in children/ family on account of you being a ‘working executive’ and simultaneously the ‘value add’ to office colleagues on being a family-oriented person?
Children and family members become more adaptable, better problem solvers, more independent and more responsible and share household work. These are great qualities.
While at office, colleagues learn to respect each other’s time. They ask for help on time and plan better and there is advanced planning; preponement of interdependent tasks and well-defined team responsibilities.
The team becomes more empathetic and cooperative during crunch time which eventually proves to be a very big advantage for the team members and to the whole organization.
Step 6: Establish Communication clarity and develop rituals which are needed to do justice to both the roles i.e. ‘home maker’ and a “working women’.
Many working mothers develop rituals for their children which are valued and are create fond memories. What are the ones you have created ? Communication of important occasions, events in advance enables expectation setting from each other like attendance at parent- teachers meetings or scheduled office travel etc. Planning accordingly becomes possible thereby reducing the probability of missing out on important occasions thereby minimizing the resultant agony & guilt.
If every Working Women can actually go through each of the above-mentioned steps then, I am confident her relationship with GUILT would change.
She will learn to enjoy being both WORKING and a HOMEMAKER without any guilt !
“It’s not wrong to be passionate about your career. When you love what you do, you bring that stimulation back to your family.”
Allison Pearson
