Why do women have to balance family and career all their lives?
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “microscopic Story” (ID: xianweigushi), Author: Cana sauce, Editor: Zhang.
As mothers, what did we do wrong?
24-hour nanny, career interruption, disconnect from society… The anxiety of full-time mothers is obvious to all, but how many people can feel the same?
Sanlian Life Weekly launched an online poll entitled “Do you accept yourself as a full-time mother”. 11,000 people voted, 80% of whom chose “If you don’t accept it, women also need to have their own careers”;
But due to various pressures, the number of full-time mothers in the city is increasing day by day.
According to relevant statistics, the percentage of full-time mothers born in 1995 has exceeded 80%.
There is a saying: “May you run away for half your life and return as a teenager.” For mothers who have left and returned from the workplace, all the glory of the former workplace seems to be cleared, and everything needs to be restarted;
Are you a full-time mother? What have you experienced?
Do you have a colleague who was a full-time mother by your side? What do you think of their return?
This issue of microscopic stories focuses on the living conditions of full-time mothers and shares their path to return to the workplace. Among them:
Some people choose half-paid jobs in order to take care of their children;
Some people are from poor families, returning to the workforce just to kill time, but their negligence makes a big mistake;
Some people used to be white-collar elites before bringing their babies full-time, but after returning to the workplace, they became “little white rabbits” slaughtered by others;
The following is their true story:
After three years of resignation, he became a “little rabbit” after returning to the workplace
“The most terrible thing is not being away from the workplace, but the humble self-denial”
Ms. Huang’s marketing planner is 36 years old
I am the mother of two children, the oldest is 5 years old, and the youngest is 3 years old.
When the second child was born, the elderly in the family began to complain, saying that they couldn’t bring two children with them. I had to quit my job as a marketing manager and become a full-time mother.
The old man can also understand the complaint. When the second child was born, they were close to 70 years old, and it was when their bodies were going downhill. So when I was at home, I bought groceries and cooks, cleaned, and brought my baby.
After resigning, there are still a few well-connected former colleagues who will send WeChat to care about me and ask what I do. At that time, I was a little embarrassed to say that I did nothing and brought my baby at home.
I still remember a colleague’s gathering one year ago. A colleague heard that I was still bringing a baby at home and showed a particularly pitiful expression, saying,
“No way, it’s been a long time. If you are out of touch with society, people will be abolished. Back then, the heroic and brave career women were willing to be yellow-faced women.”
In the words, regrets are clear, but sarcasm is true in secret, and the essence of the play is fully exposed. My self-esteem and heart were broken, it was extremely uncomfortable, and I was very unwilling.
When I got home, I wanted to talk to my husband, but he was tired from working overtime that day, and fell asleep when he got home, so there was no time to manage.
In the second half of 2019, my second child started to go to kindergarten, and I had more free time. After discussing with my husband, I started to look for a job and took a lot of “marketing manager” positions.
In mid-October, I finally waited for the first invitation call. After an hour and a half away, I went for an interview.
Sitting in front of HR, I felt uneasy and felt that everything was strange. After 3 years away from the workplace, my self-confidence was wiped out, and my trivial life also made my brain muddy. I wondered if I could return to the workplace again.
After just 15 minutes, I staggered out of the company, and HR’s words still echoed in my ears-“After 3 years away, do you know what the requirements of the marketing manager are now? Do you think you are still suitable? Is the market manager in this position?”
I can’t answer because I really don’t know what’s happening in this world.
“There are 20 people in the marketing department of our company. Do you think an airborne manager who has been out of the workplace for 3 years can convince the team?”
I cannot promise, nor dare to promise. If I were an employee of the marketing department, I would not be convinced that a mother who had been away from the workplace for three years would be my leader.
This interview woke me up severely. In a society where knowledge is iterating rapidly, no one wants an old antique that cannot keep up with the times.
I interviewed a few more companies, and vaguely felt the sympathy, regret and even contempt hidden in HR’s politeness. Later, I never updated my resume, and even developed a deep fear and rejection of the interview.
A former subordinate told me that the company has a planning post, let me think about it.
She said: “You might as well start at the grassroots level. After all, you have been away from the workplace for too long, and many companies will not charge you for management.”
I knowShe asked me to bow my head and struggled for many days, but I still went.
After I joined the company, I discovered that Xiao Su was already the deputy manager of the marketing department. When she introduced me as her former boss, my colleague showed a meaningful look.
My former subordinates are now in a higher rank than me, and I feel very awkward.
The colleagues in the group are young and fashionable. They love to gather together to chat about makeup and gossip about entertainment at noon. I try to avoid this situation because I can’t get in a word.
One month later, I gradually adapted to the rhythm of work. I was constantly asked for help from colleagues every day, and I had endless work.
In early December, my colleague sent me a WeChat message telling me that Xiao Su said something yin and yang in her circle of friends, and asked me to check it out. As a result, I opened her circle of friends and found that I was blocked.
My colleague sent me a screenshot of Xiao Su’s circle of friends, which read: “Feng Shui takes turns, my good days are coming. Without you, there would be no me now.”
After this incident, I stayed at the company for another 3 months, and the workload became more and more heavy. I never joined that small group. I blacked Xiao Su on WeChat the day I left.
Now I started to submit resume again, still looking for a job as a “marketing manager”.
This experience made me see some people and things clearly. In fact, the real scary thing is not being away from the workplace, but the humble self-denial.
Returning to the workplace after five years, I was said to be inferior to an intern
“Family has many chores and frequent leave, negligence at work makes big mistakes”
Mr. Liu Investment Department is 34 years old
Speaking of the workplace mom, there is something that makes me feel grief.
I work in the investment department of a real estate company and have been in the managerial position for six years. In July 2018, the leader stuffed a resume into my hand and said: “Look at this person, who is arranged above, and he will join your department in a few days.”
I looked at the resume of this “relationship household” curiously: Yang Xiao, college degree, married and childbearing. I worked in administration for two years from 2011 to 2013, and the work experience in the back was blank.
After reading my resume, I secretly groaned in my heart. I didn’t seem to be able to fight, and I felt like I was just looking for a secure job.
She came to report a week later, and I found her shy, timid, confused, and ignorant of investment.
It turns out that for the past 5 years, she has been raising children at home and her husband is doing business and living a good life. Now that the child is older, I want to go back to the workplace to find something to do.
I am both envious and heavy. I envy her for having a husband. I don’t have to worry about her livelihood or her sense of responsibility. Does she just treat the workplace as a toy to kill time?
We are engaged in project investment, and when things are complicated, we are all human beings, and we really can’t live without 18 martial arts. With such a subordinate, I am really afraid of making mistakes.
But there is no way, I can only use the person arranged by the boss first. I asked Yang Xiao to be a department assistant, working with a senior assistant little sister, doing some chores such as drafting documents, organizing meetings, and organizing reimbursements.
One month later, the assistant sister vomited bitterness to me, saying that she fished in troubled waters for three days, printed the contract with typos, and also stuck the invoice awkwardly, “I find an intern better than her.”
In addition, Yang Xiao left on time after get off work, and never attended department meetings after work. She often asks for leave. She asks for leave when her child is sick, asks for leave to attend a parent meeting, and asks for leave to accompany the elderly to the hospital for examination…
I called Yang Xiao to the office to learn about the situation. She also felt that she was not doing well, she looked like a little white rabbit.
I also have a family, and I understand her very well, but every time I see a fake post, I still struggle with it. I hate iron and steel and helpless.
Without waiting for half a year, Yang Xiao still stabbed Lou Zi.
At that time, my colleague Xiao Chen was anxious to go out to visit, and gave her a draft contract to follow up-this is the contract renewal of the consulting company that we have been cooperating with all the year round, paying more than 600,000 consulting fees to the other party every year.
Because it is a routine operation, everyone did not take a closer look. When Xiao Chen received the final stamped paper contract, he ran to my office in a panic and threw the contract to the table.
The original contract amount has been changed from 630,000 to 680,000, and the finance has been paid. I called Yang Xiao to the office. She admitted that it was her own omission, and kept apologizing, crying into tears.
Later, we negotiated with the consulting company, and the matter was stabbed to the leader. I explained for a long time, and finally deducted me the hat of “the leader is responsible for making mistakes by subordinates”, and the bonus for that month was gone.
Later, Yang Xiao was finally transferred away.
After this incident, I became even more afraid of my mother who was related to my family and returned to the workplace to pass the time.
I sympathize with the hardship and difficulty of taking care of their family and work, but this cannot be an excuse for making mistakes at work.
If you are not ready to return to the workplace, no matter how hard you try to catch up, you will not be able to fill up the ability gap in a short time, and it may cause disasters for others.
Two marriages, one child, half-paid single mother
“I once hoped that my son will become a dragon, now I just ask him to grow up safely”
Ms. Xu’s consultant is 38 years old
After graduating from university, I became a preschool teacher, and later switched to curriculum development. After working for 5 years, I was promoted to deputy R&D manager, and my career went smoothly.
Marriage has made me stumble. I have had two marriages. In the first marriage, my husband cheated and left in less than two years without children.
In 2011, I walked into marriage for the second time, but I did not expect to live a widowed marriage-my husband was in a curtain business in a foreign country and did not see each other once in six months.
I got pregnant in the second year after marriage. But my husband’s parents are no longer alive. My mother is in her 70s and is in poor health and cannot take care of me.
When my husband came back and stayed for 5 days at the time of production, he left, and then transferred me 20,000 yuan on WeChat.
The moment I received the money, my heart was filled with bitterness-after more than two years of marriage, my husband paid almost the same amount.
At the end of the maternity leave, I was very upset and wanted to go back to work, but no one took the baby. I complained to my husband several times on the phone, but he simply prevaricated me and let me take care of my children at home. The money he made could still support me.
Several years of tossing, gathering less and more separation, the relationship between my husband and I has worn out. When my child went to kindergarten at the age of 3, I found a part-time job and then divorced.
After going around and around, I became single again and a single mother.
Half a year before my child went to kindergarten, the teacher often complained to me, saying that he was naughty and loves to grab other people’s toys. I don’t believe it, I think the teacher didn’t teach well. After several complaints, I found an opportunity to squeeze into a local public kindergarten as a teacher and voluntarily cut my salary by half.
As a result, after the child was transferred to me, I realized that it was as active and stubborn as the teacher said. Once in order to grab a toy, he scratched a child. In the end, the parents came to the house, and I paid the medical expenses.
In later days, I felt like a 24-hour personal nanny every day, always worrying about whether he would get into trouble and hurt other children.
I took my child to see a doctor. The doctor said that the child did have ADHD. For this reason, I even spent money to buy a lot of medicines, but they didn’t show any effect. My son still can’t sit still for a while. Broken and bad things are commonplace in the house.
This situation continued until he went to elementary school. Every half month after school started, the elementary school teacher said the same thing to me and asked me to take the child home, saying that he could not sit still and go to the playground during class time.
“If one day we don’t pay attention to running down the street, we won’t be able to take the responsibility.” The headmaster of the elementary school later sent words to let my son drop out.
After listening to this sentence, my grievances over the past few years have spewed out, and I even argued with the principal out of control, shouting: “Don’t force me, I won’t live anymore.”
Being a full-time mother for so many years, I have given up all my life and career. I only hope that he can grow up healthily. But I never thought that my child was so stubborn that it made me live like a jailer every day, taking care of prisoners.
Seeing that I was being pressed, the principal did not dare to continue to beg me. In the end, the teacher, the child and I reached a consensus: let the child play with his own, but don’t go around and don’t influence others.
Now I find time to sneak to the playground every day when I go to work, just to see if my child wanders during class.
I don’t have any idea to make myself better in my career now. As long as you become a mother, everything is involuntary, but it’s too late to regret everything.