Women are more empowered now than they have ever been throughout history.
While this has been cause for celebration, this “have it all” mantra can put tremendous strain on women who are trying to balance a successful career and a fulfilling family life.
Is society causing inadvertent pressure for women to “show” everyone that hard work, dedication, and superhuman organizational skills are perfectly achievable goals? Because behind those Instagram accounts, Pinterest, and perfectly framed smiles, these uber-moms might be stretched to the breaking point just trying to maintain this facade.
Mother-of-three Sarah Buckley Friedberg is a microbiology manager for a medical device company. She is also a dog owner, loving wife, and many other things. But she has just had it pretending that she’s been breezing through motherhood and that “having it all” is a piece of cake. She vented her frustrations in a now-viral Facebook post that details just how crazy society’s expectations of American moms have become.
Her concerns may not get as much traction in Europe though.point 179 | The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
oecd.point 5 | org/els/soc/PF2_1_Parental_leave_systems.point 46 | pdf">conducted an analysis of maternity leave
in 42 countries and found that the top 10 most generous countries in this regard were all in Europe.point 168 | Laws allow women to take dozens of weeks of paid leave.point 213 |Many of these countries also offer compulsory paternity leave, too, helping new mothers decrease the levels of stress that comes with balancing a career and a new family member.point 149 | Many of them, such as Denmark, even offer heavily-subsidized childcare when both parents are ready to go back to work.point 280 | 1
In contrast, the United States was found to be the least generous member of all industrialized nations. Working women are not guaranteed any paid maternity leave and individual employers are left to decided how much to offer.
Part of her post went:
At the time she wrote the post, she had been having a particularly rough day.point 63 | “I had a really hard and long day working and the kids were tired and cranky and it was one of those days they everything just felt really hard,” she explained.point 197 | “Some days I feel like everything is going well, I’m keeping everything going.point 267 |
Thursday was not like that.point 23 | After the kids were in bed I sat down and wrote a very quick rant about life and society’s expectations for working moms.point 124 | I did not plan on it taking off as it did!”point 159 | 1
“The reaction has been amazing. It is so great to see that it resonates so loudly with so many people. It goes to show that I’m not alone in feeling like it is hard.”
But Sarah was lucky because she received maternity leave for all of her 3 children. “My company is much better than most in the US and I am grateful for the time I had,” she said. “I can only imagine how hard it is for the parents who have much less time. However, as a whole, the US can do much better to support new parents.”
“My husband is wonderful. He does more than half of the childcare and housework. But if the kids are sick, and the school has both of our phone numbers, they call me. The doctor also calls me to schedule their appointments. My husband gets a medal for taking the kids out in public.”
Speaking about her post and all the reactions to it: “Instead of saying yes to absolutely everything, and being the one who handles and plans everything, I need to be mindful about priorities and not listen to societal pressure to have the perfect house/ body/ yard/ etc.”
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