What being a mother has taught me

Well the children go back to school today after seven weeks at home. I speak to some parents and they say that the holidays have dragged and I speak to others who say that the time has gone in a flash. I do enjoy spending time with the children and being “Mum”. As I am self-employed I am flexible – I can work at night and in their “chill-out” times or when they are doing activities or meeting friends. It means that I can still meet deadlines and they are old enough not to have to be rushing about organising child-care on the days that I am away in the holidays. There has been lots of debate in the media about whether giving a fair proportion of your time to motherhood and working around parenthood rather than the other way around makes you a good prospect or candidate for a top job. Well here are the things that motherhood has taught me:

You can be up all night with a child with toothache which thankfully has gone by the morning and still be able to deliver a powerful presentation to a board of directors;

You can put the negotiation and team building skills that you have learned to good use in the workplace;

If you can run an parent-teacher association and learn the empathy and collaboration skills required they can be useful in any business or political interaction;

If you can organise the timetable for a family of five then you can organise any activity, business or organisation;

You only get back what you put in. If you are one of life’s takers then life will never hold enough for you. Conversely if you are one of life’s givers you will receive more support than you ever dreamed possible.

If you worry, you waste valuable energy.

You have to lose the odd skirmish in order to win the campaign. You need time (even five minutes) to be still and silent so that you can centre yourself, rebalance and refresh.

Your work career belongs to you and is measured for success by your parameters and not other peoples.

You only walk this road once and if you don’t stop to enjoy the moment then you miss out on so much.

Meryl Streep is reputed to have said “Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.” So true.