Women in Financial Services
Juggling a career in finance and motherhood
Tina.Freed / 27 Sep 2018
An Investment Banker has this advice for working Mothers – don’t neglect your children or your work.
Juggling the demands of a family and a career in finance is tricky and requires a lot of organising, time management and effort.
When considering a family whilst climbing the career ladder entails difficult decisions. The ideal scenario would be to focus on one thing at a time, however, once children become involved mothers don’t have that luxury and multi-tasking is the way forward. You can’t resign from motherhood, however, the amount of time you devote to you career is in your hands.
How successful a mother or a career in finance can become is dependent on how you manage to divide available time between the two activities. Motherhood and career building aren’t mutually exclusive, however, managing both roles involves a huge learning curve. Most career professional Mothers are well organised and use their time very carefully. People who have difficulty with time management struggle with the demands.
Mothers and multitasking:
Women who juggle motherhood and a career successfully are usually more effective than males. Mothers are usually better at multitasking in the work environment than male counterparts, as they have had more experience in doing so. They tend to ‘think out of the box’ and do not have to take expensive courses to teach them to think laterally – they do so every time they go home to their children.
Young children do not care whether Mum has had a hard day at work; they typically are very selfish and self-centred. So once at home, Mothers are forced, to think about things that are different to the issues that have occupied their focus at work.
For example, many children have requirements that are important to them immediately which necessitates a very steep learning curve and the Mother is stretched in ways that they probably wouldn’t have achieved on their own. It is in this manner that Mothers are forced to become a more balanced person and probably are also better at their jobs.
Is the discrimination towards Mothers changing in the City?
The criteria by which women are judged have been established by men. Some of these are unfairly discriminatory to women and although attitudes are changing, there still is a long way to go. Given this inherent discrimination, why would any woman climb the career ladder?
The top answer is job satisfaction.
The second answer is that while a career in finance can require at least 60 hours a week, there is usually some flexibility. In the early years of motherhood the flexibility is in time, possibly being able to work at home when a child is sick or being able to watch that all important football match. Further down the line as the children grow older, the kind of flexibility that is important is often of a financial nature.
The third reason for climbing that ladder is that once a mother succeeds with the parenting part, children usually leave home eventually so what do mothers do when their children have left?
While mothers who have had careers do not escape the empty nest syndrome, at least they are occupied and stimulated.
The hours spent at work need to be balanced by being able to spend time with the family. The thought of a balanced existence does have a nice ring to it, however, it is tricky to bring significant job satisfaction or promotion, in a highly competitive environment.
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