Most mothers with small children work in Russia. Slightly less than half start working before the child is two years old, after two and before six years more than two-thirds of mothers go to work.
Some of them run their own business, someone goes to the office or to another place of work - everyone is united by the fact that they are glanced at because of the next children's matinee or hospital. It is worth complaining about fatigue or problems in the family - they will advise you to work less or stay at home altogether. How did this situation develop and where to find the strength to resist it?
Traditional society
Society does not always have time to adapt to new living conditions. In the old model, children and family are the main priority and the first responsibility of a woman. Such performances remained not only in Russia. Overcoming the traditional paradigm in other countries takes decades. For example, in the United States, studies by the Families and Work Institute show that it took 20 years for a society to increase loyalty to working mothers by 20% (compared to 1977 and 1997).
A still from the film "Trainee". Dir. Nancy Meyers. 2015
Negative stereotype
Society has formed a negative stereotype of a working mother - a careerist, an egoist, or a person with a failure in the coordinate system. It is often not taken into account that for thousands and thousands of women, work is not only and not so much the satisfaction of ambitions, it is a way to provide for a family. Almost half of the children in Russia, due to insufficient family income, are not able to go on paid trips with their classmates, a quarter cannot celebrate their birthday by inviting friends, a third do not have a bicycle, roller skates and the like, and half of families with one child cannot afford yourself durable goods (data from Rosstat).
Manipulation through social advertising
Already many times mothers have protested against the advertising campaign “All in a nanny? Spend more time with your children”(with a single child in the photo). Society reminds the woman again that she cannot cope with motherhood. She spends too much time on the wrong and wrong. The child of a working mother is a miserable and neglected loner. As in a number of commercials, where a happy ending involves the mother abandoning the office in favor of staying at home with her children.
A still from the film "Trainee". Dir. Nancy Meyers. 2015
The problem of critical media consumption
Media can also negatively affect mom's self-esteem. Every day women receive dozens of multidirectional signals on the Internet about what is good for the mother and her baby. The texts often offer only one correct model, recognizing all others as harmful to the child. Suffice it to take a selection of popular texts about kindergartens, where women "hand over" their children. Mothers start looking for an ideal nursery school instead of a good one, then an ideal nanny instead, all this requires additional investments, more work, a vicious circle.
Humanizing motherhood
Surprisingly, the popularization of mindful motherhood also puts pressure on guilt. The conditional ideal mother model does not exclude work, but it over-reminds how vulnerable children are and how serious the influence on the child of every step of the mother is. As a result, another pattern arises: a woman, if she tries, can easily combine caring for children and family with work. Instagram actively offers colorful illustrations on this topic. This ideal requires tremendous tension from women, and its unattainability is another source of feelings of guilt and shame.
A still from the film "Trainee". Dir. Nancy Meyers. 2015
Where to look for support
What about those who are faced with just such a reality? Who cares about being a mom, working, and maybe just singing? There are several resources to help you find the balance. For example, the SelfMama movement, annually holding several public events with tips on how to effectively combine career and family. Recently, a book by Lyudmila Petranovskaya about the life balance in the world of working mothers and their children "Life hacks for a working mother" was published.
Discussing problems with fellow working moms, and gaining support and empathy are also energizing. Finally, you can read Donald Winnicott's Little Children and Their Mothers to understand that a “good enough mother” is able to sensibly assess the needs of the child herself and give him enough love.>