With three children, aged between four and ten, Head of Group Legal at SUSE, Boudien Moerman has forged a high-flying law career in the white heat of early motherhood. She discusses the expectations, pressures and realities of women as they try to negotiate the demands of family and work life — and why the phrase ‘working mother’ should be consigned to the equality bin.
Did you have any expectations around what it would be like to combine a family and a career?
When I became a mother, I was working in private practice and I remained full-time as I felt going part-time wouldn’t necessarily mean my job would become a career. The term work-life balance was often mentioned to me and with positive intent. And what could I say? I was competing with people who could stay in the office until 3am, which obviously was difficult for me with a baby/young child at home. I was dedicated and committed, but I was also dedicated and committed to my growing family and I admit it was difficult to balance. On the one hand, we are told by society to strive to have it all. But is that realistic?
Do the challenges change and is it easier as a senior leader to do the work-family juggle?
I’m in a more senior position now than I was when I had my children and due to this, I am not as accountable for every moment of every day, provided my deliverables are met. I work early in the morning and late at night, when my children are sleeping, to accommodate single motherhood and full-time work. This is more difficult if you are in a junior role, as your schedule is more determined by other people. To those in this position, my message would be ensure you communicate openly and honestly with your team and manager to enable them the opportunity to make it work for you and your family.
Do you think society is honest about how hard it is combining motherhood and a career?
We are not honest about how hard it is. And the thing I’m still feeling to this day is guilt. There is a lot of guilt imposed by society, on how you parent and how you bring up your children. We are made to feel guilty for going to work after having a baby – the messaging is your baby/child needs you. Yet I also see the value in my children realising that I am forging a career as a woman. While there are many different models of a family unit, one where the mother works is equally as valuable as one where the mother is at home.
There is also the ‘mental load’: I feel the onus is on me to get the uniform ready, get the school slips back and coordinate the things that my children need. I find it difficult being a mother in the workplace because of that mental load and having to compartmentalise, going from home life, then shutting that off completely to go full-throttle at work, then recalibrating again for home and kids’ bedtime before going back to finish working at night.
How do you stop from burning out?
I have two diaries — a work one and my children’s one. And if something’s in my head, I write it down there, so that I can stop thinking about it. I find this vastly effective in reducing my mental load and managing my time and commitments.
Is levelling the playing field for parents something both genders need to lean into?
I have yet to come across anyone who is referred to as a working father, whereas I often hear the term working mother. People ask me, ‘How do you do it as a working mum?’ and I sit there and think, ‘Well, just like most other people in my place of work’. So why am I the ‘working mother’? What are people thinking when they say this? I also sympathise with the working fathers in the work place. Society doesn’t seem to be giving them an equal opportunity to be with children. There are a lot of men at my work who also have three children and most have never been in a meeting and said, ‘I’ve got to go because it’s my kid’s sports day’. They should be able to do that, and having male senior leaders actively modelling this would be a good thing.
Parental expectations start right at the beginning and parental leave is so instrumental in that. If you have shared parental leave with non-transferable periods for fathers as you have in Scandinavian countries, there would be much more engagement and contact between dads and children and that would then carry through to parenthood generally as well. It also would benefit workplace equality because hiring managers would know that every individual was equally as likely to go off for a period of parental leave.
How has motherhood enhanced your career?
I’m much more organised than I was before I was a parent. I don’t procrastinate as I have a limit on my time. And there are other things you learn by being a parent that you can apply in your work; I’m more empathetic since being a parent, for example, and able to mentor people in a more effective way than I did before. I give people the benefit of the doubt and apply structure and routine more, having learned from my children the benefits of knowing where you stand and what to expect.
What advice would you give to junior employees around motherhood and career?
I wish I‘d known that it’s never going to be perfect. But if you want a career and a family, you’ve got to go for it, otherwise it’s definitely not going to happen. Sacrificing one for the other is never going to make you feel fully yourself. There are days where I feel like maybe I’m sacrificing too much of my time with my children for my job or vice versa. But on the whole, my children have benefited from me working full-time because they see what you achieve by dedicating yourself to something and that their father and I both work.
What can help ensure the workplace supports women to maintain both parts of their life?
Openness and transparency. You have to be brave enough to say what’s going on. If you’re feeling ill in your pregnancy, it’s much easier for the person you’re reporting to deal with that if they have full disclosure. And tell them if you feel that you’re being side-lined because you’re pregnant, because they might not be doing it intentionally. And be honest; if you can’t make that meeting because you’ve got your kid’s school play then say that, don’t give false excuses because that just causes stress. I know openness doesn’t always work out for everyone and I’ve heard stories of people struggling as a result of the information that they’ve revealed but the law is there to protect against that. And in a sense, if you don’t speak up you won’t ever understand the situation fully — and what you might need to do about it.
