Working mums are battling to keep plates spinning
Managing work-life balance when you’re stuck at home is a new challenge for working mums. With the usual daily structure up-ended, it all leads to one conclusion.
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Working women with children are among the hardest hit by coronavirus lockdown measures, with homeschooling and domestic demands skyrocketing while normal support systems disappear.
Whether they organise the kids before heading to the office or drop them at school and then run a business at home, racing through tasks before the bell rings, the usual daily structure has been up-ended.
It leads to one conclusion – stick to a routine but dial back expectations because this condensed family time is precious and freedom will be on agenda again.
It’s a point not lost on mother-of-three Tara Lamond who has a business, Mandala Living, selling luxe Australian-made, eco-friendly yoga and meditation products and yoga retreats. With retreats suspended, Ms Lamond now organises her online store with the entire family working under one roof.
“Ava is 15 in Year 10, Louis is 13 in Year 8 and Toby’s 11 in Year 6. Three different schools, three different technologies,” Ms Lamond says.
“The biggest issue for us is that Toby didn’t have a device, so he and I are sharing a computer and I have to negotiate time with him.”
She says many of her working mum friends are battling to keep all the plates spinning — especially those with younger children.
“I’ve got girlfriends who’ve got seven, eight-year-olds, and they’re trying to work as well and they can’t, particularly while they’re homeschooling because the kids need to be helped with each bit of work that comes through.
“Normally my boys would be out playing sport and surfing for hours on end. You can get them out for a little bit but our battle now is screen time. I just lose it. I lose it like a crazy woman. My neighbours probably don’t think of me as ‘retreating’,” Ms Lamond says.
A survey by Humaniti, a personal finance app that rewards users for participating in research, asked how parents were coping.
More than 15 per cent of mums working from home answered ‘‘Not too well’’ or ‘‘Not at all well’’, revealing a significant proportion are suffering. Humaniti CEO Ben Dixon says with 41 per cent of Australians now working from home, working parents of both sexes have a greater challenge.
“They face the difficult juggling act between their day job and home life. Sixty-five per cent of non-parents are coping well under the current situation, however this number drops to 54 per cent for those with children at home,” Mr Dixon says.
Many mums currently commiserate via Zoom, Houseparty and #virtualvino sessions, trading jokes about self-medicating with sauvignon blanc. But for every mum sharing hilarious clips of her costumed family bopping to pop songs in their loungeroom, there’s another mum looking for reassurance and practical advice.
One working mum with two boys under 10 said she confessed on Messenger to other school mums that she was struggling, but the awkward silence meant she quickly followed up with lighthearted banter about baking with the kids. The thing to remember is that none of us is in this situation forever.
Rebecca Klodinsky, founder of IIXIIST — formerly Frankii Swim, the swimwear label beloved of celebrities from Hailey Bieber to Rihanna — says running the business from home while juggling her young son is hardly glamorous but rewarding nonetheless.
“It’s really hard. Instagram and a lot of the stuff you see at this time and some of these influencer mums, it’s just rubbish,” Ms Klodinsky says. “Life isn’t what you see: it’s a messy house, crying, the toddler’s running around everywhere, Weetbix for dinner and then I’m having UberEats in bed at six o’clock, absolutely ruined. We’re doing everything which is crazy.”