What resigning from my comms job taught me about motherhood and being my own boss
After resigning from her full time executive comms position, a colleague told Amber Brodecky: 'this is a sad day for women'. Here, she reflects on the lessons learned after trying to 'have it all'.
Last year I was privileged to be appointed as executive director, communications at the Peter Mac Cancer Centre, an internationally recognised brand doing amazing things for the community.
As one of eight women out of 10 on the leadership team, the organisation had an impressive 80% women making up its executive.
After four years consulting while my children were young, I felt I was ready to return to a full time, in-house, senior role. I was notified I got the job on my birthday. I took it as a good omen. As I spent the proceeding months bringing myself across the business, building a strategy for the long term, and cementing a high performing team to work with me; I waved goodbye to my five year old daughter with tears in her eyes in the mornings, not wanting me to leave.
At first I thought my children would go through a transition phase as they became used to me at full time work again, but as the weeks rolled on the transition became harder – not for them, but for me.
I had suddenly found myself isolated from school life and detached from the lives of my kids, I wasn’t able to ferry them to after school activities, hang around in the playground with them on a sunny day, and I barely made it by close to after school care – they were often the last ones waiting for me. When the Christmas concerts rolled around and I had to miss one of them, my worlds started to collide.
Even with a modern, supportive work environment made up of many understanding mothers on the leadership team, the realities of a senior full-time management role meant that the demands of the job required more than I could give.
Mine was not an unusual position to be in as an executive level working mum, and I began to reflect on the literature making headlines.
Working for secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Anne-Marie Slaughter had a tremendously supportive boss, but had still decided to return to an academic career that gave her more time for her family. Her article Why Women Still Can’t Have It All raised poignant and important issues.
I concluded there was truth in her notion that we’ve been raised as modern young girls being told we could have it all – an active family life and a high flying career – but we’ve been told little about the true cost of trying to balance it all, and society needs to better support us, and families in general, if this is going to work.
The reality is the collective ‘we’: modern day society, is biting off more than we can chew. If both parents are to work (and my husband has a highly successful career in which he travels regularly), then something around the expectations of our workforce or our schooling system has to change. The hours are not compatible for a start.
Writer Samantha Johnson, in her article titled When I Became A Mother, Feminism Let Me Down says “in the fight to ensure equality, as we preach to girls that they can – and should – do anything a boy can do, we are failing to prepare women for one of the greatest challenges so many of them will face; motherhood.
“We do this through the promotion of professional progression as a marker of success, while completely devaluing the contribution of parents in the home.”
She has a point. We as a society need to address the question of ‘who’s at home for the kids?’ if both parents are working and we are going to raise happy, balanced children.
There are certainly a rising number of men becoming stay at home dads, and there are some amazing male professionals who are ‘leaning in’ and advocating women’s issues, but we need to consider raising family as a more holistic discussion in a modern day landscape.
Many of the mothers I speak to who are working part time over three or four days so they can be at home with the kids for part of the week, are really working the equivalent of five days. The reality is that where flexibility is being offered, it’s often a full time role condensed into less hours to do it in. The people in those part time roles are getting ripped off in a work–to-pay ratio.
With my executive role at Peter Mac I concluded that to make things work for me I needed to resign and take control back of my work-home schedule.
On breaking the news, a friend on the executive said to me “this is a sad day for women”, because despite all of the leaps and bounds we have made, good women decide to pull out of high level roles due to family reasons.
I’m pleased to say I’ve refocussed my career into one that is far better suited for me. It turns out that what I considered to be a short term stepping stone in consulting may just turn out to be a big part of my life story.
I’m excited to be back doing it, at being appropriately challenged and working with a vast array of clients, most importantly I’m grateful at the balance being my own boss affords me.
It turns out it truly was a good omen that I took the job at Peter Mac, not only did I have the opportunity to work with a strong women-led executive, but I also got to understand more about my own long term needs and happiness.
If we as society continue to work a little harder, to make it a little easier, for working mothers of the future to find their happiness, what a wonderful place it will be.
Amber Brodecky is managing director at Comme Consulting. This piece is an abridged version of this article.
Forgive me if I missed something, but isn’t …
“six women out of 10 on the leadership team, the organisation had an impressive 80% women making up its executive”
….actually 60% not 80%?
User ID not verified.
Thanks for sharing, Amber. I’m at a bit of a crossroads in regards to freelance/consultancy versus an in-house position so it’s been great to hear your perspective. I have also heard numerous stories of women going from 3 to 5 days as they were previously working a full-time equivalent anyway (with part-time pay).
User ID not verified.
Amber is very fortunate in that she also had the financial flexibility (a highly flying husband) to be able to choose to leave her well paid, meaningful executive role. She is very fortunate indeed. No all women have the luxury to be able to choose.
User ID not verified.
Well played Amber, it can’t have been an easy choice to make.
Spare a thought too for the husbands/dads – high-flying or not – who miss so much of their kids’ formative years.
Whether or not it’s right, so often the choice of who is the full-time vs flexible-work parent is purely based on the maths of potential income.
I’m looking forward to the day when articles like this are just as often written by dads as mums!
User ID not verified.
This was exactly my experience. My 3-days was really 5, with my 2 days at home with my toddler daughter constantly interrupted by client requests. It was frustrating in the extreme, so I caved in and went back full time before I was really ready.
User ID not verified.
Well said ‘Dad’. As a working Mum, I really tire of the conversation of the choices or otherwise of the Mum and what she is or isn’t doing, or missing out on. Unless you are a single parent, it should be a conversation about ‘we’ as in both parents. My husband and I both have big jobs, but he makes a sacrifice and is flexible to be present at home, and do I. Without bringing the ‘Dad’ or partner in to the conversation, it does start to become a conversation that only privileged women with choice can make.
User ID not verified.
Great read Amber. I had the exact same experience and insights. I was glad I dipped my toe back in to understand my needs better. It’s always hard to let go because you feel you ‘owe it to yourself’ because you worked and studied so hard to get where you are. I was told by a very senior female exec that I could ‘have it all’, which sent me on a wild, painful ride of discovery and exhaustion! I consider now how happy I am. Sometimes you need to stray far to find home.
User ID not verified.
I noticed that comment as well. But I suspect that the executive includes lower levels of management and exceeds 10 in number so probably no problems there
But I was also wondering how it would read if just two letters were removed “…the organisation had an impressive 80% men making up its executive” and what the response would be.
User ID not verified.
I’m glad that you have found a solution which works for you and your family, but it is such a shame that it is women who need to work their careers around family when there is a male partner who can share the load but is deemed too senior/inflexible.
Maybe after mum has done the first 5 years on maternity leave working part time the father could then reassess his career and let his partner have her chance at excelling in a career. That’s the situation I am in with my partner now who is looking at moving to a consulting role, leaving me as the full-time earner.
Money isn’t everything and dads do get a lot of satisfaction from being present for their families too.
This relies on companies being flexible and open minded for men as well as women – and that doesn’t mean working 5 days in 3 or 4 as is so often the case!
User ID not verified.
Thanks for your comment David, it was 8 out of 10 on the exec, the 6 is a typo, I’ll get it fixed. Appreciate your interest in the article
User ID not verified.
Thanks for your comment, it was a typo and the correct figure is 8 out of 10 on the exec. An interesting question you raise if the sentence was swapped. This article was originally written for International Women’s Day which is why the focus is moreso on mothers, but it’s really important that the role men play in us allone day being able to get the balance right, is also recognized.
User ID not verified.
Hi Christina, I know many women who have gone back to full time roles early for the same reason as you. I think organizations need to better predict the resourcing required for genuine part time roles, it’s fantastic more are being offered but the genuine balance is not there yet.
User ID not verified.
There are so many women in this situation, businesses need to make genuine commitment to part time roles being effectively resourced if they are going to have a chance at meeting the equality targets they set.
User ID not verified.
I agree with you, many women financially struggle to progress other avenues and options they would like to try. Consulting is less predictable in terms of income and work flow, good planning is essential and a second wage certainly helps. It’s much harder for single parents for example.
User ID not verified.
This is such an important point that you make. This article was originally written for International Women’s Day which is why its focus is moreso on the woman’s side of the story, but these challenges are faced by families as a whole, and stem from the pressures we put on ourselves in modern day society. We need to collectively come up with the solutions and it’s wonderful when dads join the discussion. Thanks for contributing.
User ID not verified.
Hi David,
Thanks for spotting. This was a typo, we’ve updated now.
Thanks,
Josie
Thanks for sharing your story Jane, it sounds like we’ve had similar experiences. I certainly agree with having the feeling that you owe it to yourself after the many sacrifices made earlier in life, to enjoy the career that you now can. The irony is that it’s often hard to reap the true reward, so many women have a career change after having children as they can’t go back to what they were doing prior. We need to be better informed when we are considering the right career path for us in the beginning.
User ID not verified.
I love the idea of swapping the focus around for the parents Kate. My husband and I have discussed this a lot and it comes down to timing for us, the priorities for his business and those for the family as a whole all need to play part in the decision making
User ID not verified.
I agree with you Jane, there is a lot of talk about it from the woman’s perspective and not enough focus on this being a whole of community or whole of family issue. It’s fantastic your partner is making the sacrifices with you and sharing the load. My husband was doing the same but for us the load was too great into the long term without bringing in full time help, that was a turning point for me. Thanks for contributing to the discussion.
User ID not verified.
I’ll be in the ABC Melbourne studio tomorrow (Tuesday 20th) at 3pm with Richelle Hunt to talk about issues affecting families in the workforce. Tune in to 774AM to listen, or get involved in the conversation by calling in for a chat. I’d love to continue the conversation with you!
User ID not verified.
Yesterday I was on ABC Radio 774 discussing the issues raised in this article, if you’d like to hear more you can listen to the segment at this link, it starts at 1:06:45. Thanks for your interest on such an important topic for modern day society http://www.abc.net.au/radio/me.....ns/9545422
User ID not verified.