THE PLAIN TRUTH: Stop fooling yourself, you can’t have it all

Have you noticed how women who seem to have it all, the Sheryl Sandbergs of this world, outsource their lives outside the office? I have. These high-flying career women who seem to have attained love, career and motherhood success have tens of people in their employ to keep their private lives running smoothly, or one of those liberal husbands who have no qualms about taking on the primary caregiver role so that the woman can smash glass ceilings.

Now, being able to succeed in all areas of your life sounds like an utterly fulfilling thing, but for the average Kenyan women who has one house help and three kids, this notion of striking that perfect work-life balance is an absolute fantasy.  It sure sounds good on paper, but it isn’t practical. It isn’t even attainable.

Striving for work-life balance is like waiting for Godot. As numerous women, among them media giant Oprah and author and commentator Anne-Marie Slaughter have discovered and proclaimed, you can’t have it all; at least not all at the same time.

Today’s woman has to decide which area of her life she wants to give precedence to. That’s why some women put childbearing on hold and give preference to excelling in their careers, while others choose motherhood over everything else. Others still put their careers on the back burner to concentrate on other pursuits.

THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED

The one thing all these women have in common, are the anxieties about having sacrificed one thing for another.

Try having it all as a woman, and you will soon discover that the system is rigged. As if the workplace is not unfair enough to women, things get worse when motherhood checks in.

A woman’s career takes a hit when she gets a child, because she has to juggle work with child care. It would be easier to find a balance between the two if she got support from her employer, but look around you and see whether you can count the number of companies that have day care centres for their employees on the fingers of more than one hand.

The workplace is so unfriendly to mothers, and mothers are afraid of asking for necessities like a nursing mothers’ room or even flexi-time, for fear of reinforcing the negative stereotypes about women at work, and particularly working mothers.

Even that woman who manages to get a semblance of balance between motherhood and career has to give up her social life.

If you are always dashing to the office or to the house, you will surely have no time left for a drink or a cup of coffee with colleagues or friends. Seeing as trying to achieve that balance is an elusive pursuit, we should stop trying and accept that there is no such thing as “having it all.”

This realisation will save us from feeling like failures for not having all our balls in the air and from feeling guilty for giving priority to one area of life at a time. The kind of feelings that come with the quest to have that perfect work-life balance, an idea which is a myth in itself.