Guilt must not burden women

The balance of being a working mother can inspire feelings of guilt, writes Shelina Janmohamed – but it shouldn't

A finely-balanced mother in the capital. (Christopher Pike / The National)

Guilt is the perpetual companion of the working mother. It’s a common refrain: guilty for not giving the children the time they ought to get. Guilty for being on the phone, guilty for checking messages. It’s guilt galore built on a festival of frustration and expectation. I’ve had enough. The guilt has worn me out, and I’ve decided it’s time to rattle our assumptions of idyllic motherhood and realise this guilt is manufactured to weigh us mothers down.

Of course, you might not have sympathy for working parents. You might say, if you choose to have children, you must make sacrifices. It’s true that many mothers – and a small but increasing number of fathers – decide that this level of complexity in both practical and emotional matters is not for them, and they are happy to focus themselves on their children. I support their choices.

But we have a rose-tinted view that women in the past always devoted themselves saint-like to their children and nothing but.

Women throughout history have worked, cooked, catered, sewed, helped in the community, and had so many other jobs, bringing in money while working and doing domestic work alongside childcare.

And it wasn’t that they rejected working in favour of childcare, but that they were simply excluded from the public space. They simply weren’t allowed to do the kind of work we call “work” today. Those female jobs I mentioned were considered menial, not real work. Nothing that men in real jobs would do.

All of this is far too often overlooked in the romanticised notions we have of full-time motherhood. Childcare wasn’t even about just one mother devoted to nothing but her own children in the way we expect mothers to manage alone today.

Today’s working mums, like me, are just a new iteration of an old story. I’m beginning to wonder if the expectation that mothers are supposed to feel guilty is manufactured. Such an expectation can only arise if the assumption is that the best and historic model of womanhood is to do nothing but tend to the progeny.

I’m not talking about those who respect women’s choices, but personally believe one parent should be focusing on childcare. It’s OK that we have many respectful views about how to raise children and manage family life.

Today, women are increasingly free to participate in the public space if they choose. But they still face all sorts of huge hindrances, such as the glass ceiling and an uneven playing field.

Worse, we are scuppered by obstacles that are barely perceptible and weigh us down instead of advancing our development. Look at how a woman must dress in a particular and uncomfortable way to be considered properly dressed. In a recent case in the UK, a woman had to leave work because she wasn’t wearing high heels.

But guilt is the most fantastic form of control and self-hatred. And the smartest thing about seeding the idea that women should feel guilty is that it can all be blamed on women – that it’s our own fault for feeling guilty.

I’m not trying to be superhuman. I’m trying to live a life of texture, interest, family and self-fulfillment. It’s a work in progress, and that’s nothing to feel guilty about.

I should add, my baby is snoozing comfortably on my chest while I write this.

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf