Turns out I'm the same person I was.

Do parents need to add value in the workplace?

Adding value everywhere we go.

It is hard to return to work after you’ve been away, this is true whether it was a choice to be away – holiday, conference, perhaps less arguably a choice – parental leave, or if it wasn’t your choice – caring responsibilities, illness. I spent most of my 20s worrying about the impact of maternity leave on my career, made it clear I would only consider motherhood if my husband shared the leave 50/50 and figured I had nipped that potential impact in the bud (haha). One of the benefits of a twin pregnancy is you quickly learn that parenting is entirely unpredictable, and really bloody hard – by the time I went on maternity leave at 34 weeks I required several supportive pieces of furniture and cushions just to sit down and spent most of every morning napping after not sleeping all night. To not have to be at work was a huge relief, and of course when I then had newborn twins it could not have been further from my mind – it wasn’t hard to forget about it for those early months.

I went back to work when they were 6 months old, way before anyone in my antenatal group and it felt like a voyage into the unknown, the familiar suddenly unfamiliar and before it happened, I couldn’t really believe it was going to happen. These feelings have applied to lots of scenarios in parenting since then – dropping the twins off at nursery, leaving them overnight for the first time – I committed to it and kept putting one foot in front of the other, I don’t think these things are possible to be “ready” for. I felt lots of things about going back to work at that time, sad, tired, overwhelmed, excited but many assumed I had been forced into the timing of my return by academia – didn’t consider that their Dad might be doing some parental leave, or that I might have chosen to come back at that time, and that was and is a hard assumption to challenge. There seemed to be an implication I was abnormal or sometimes even not in love with my babies as much as other people to decide to come back to work “so soon”. Now, I have three years of loving and caring for my two to lean on, but when I was pregnant and planning this parental leave and people kept telling me my plans would probably change, and to remember I can always extend my leave and so on, I spent a lot of time wondering if either a) I wasn’t “maternal” enough to be a Mum or b) these two tiny humans would spark some kind of fundamental shift in my priorities and values and the career and work I had spent years building would suddenly not matter to me anymore – kind of a lose/lose situation. Turns out I’m the same person I was, and of course my priorities and values have entirely changed in that I have two big new ones which is a challenge, but pre-twins Clem made the right choices for post-twins Clem because we are largely the same person.

I have been thinking about all this because the idea of “added value” as a parent in the workplace has come up in a few different spaces I have been in. This discussion often starts with a long list of strengths, skills and attributes that you have to develop when you are a parent – time management, conflict resolution, emotion regulation, organisation and so on. I completely agree these skills are helpful in parenting, and many many more besides. I also agree they are good ones to have as an employee; academic, clinical or otherwise. I just bristle a bit when these two scenarios are linked, particularly when the aim seems to be to sell “parent employees” to managers as an asset to the team, or workplace. The key thing for me is firstly, whenever this list is in front of me, usually drawn up organically by a group of parents, who of course represent many differences and experiences, my eye is drawn to the many identified parenting skills I don’t enjoy developing AT ALL e.g. anything involving arts & crafts or the ones I fail at all the time e.g. cooking. The list is usually very long, because of course parenting is hard and parents are a diverse group of humans. I think the standards this sort of exercise reflects are totally unachievable – manage every conflict by being calm, prioritise play and yet also get them to structured activities and feed them nutritious food approx. 8 times a day and make sure you find time for yourself. The idea that we all develop these skills as parents, just doesn’t sit comfortably with me, what if you don’t? What if you get through your parenting journey with terrible time management or just don’t create a life where something is prioritised because you don’t like it. I think that’s okay. I think it’s helpful for our children to see our likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, because they will have them too and where you’re parenting as part of any team – including childcare settings, play to your strengths and let others play to theirs. Of course, the intention behind this list being drawn up isn’t for it to be exhaustive or one-size-fits-all but in today’s hyper-critical society if you write “Parenting Skills” at the top of a PowerPoint slide and fill it with things then people are going to see it that way.

An alternative angle behind this list, seems to be reassuring parents that they are still valuable in the workplace, and in fact perhaps even more valuable (not less) due to having children. Even if you move past the inherent assumption that a parent is viewed as less valuable than other employees and we need to challenge this (sob) then you are still left with the idea that parents need this reassurance, that they themselves are feeling less valuable. Eurgh, this makes me sad just writing it. If thinking about all the skills you have developed as a parent helps with this, then brilliant, because there are many. But I also find myself thinking about how much about you probably hasn’t changed, your skills and strengths in the workplace are still there, it may be trickier to show them off due to sleep deprivation or time constraints placed by childcare, but these are things a workplace can help you navigate if they are willing.

The other thing I think about when I look at the list is how sick I am of having to deploy all these skills – enough emotion regulation, conflict resolution and time management and the last thing I want is for a workplace to expect me to do these more when I get to work. PLEASE can I just not be responsible for anyone for a little bit, even myself feels too much sometimes – my responsibility bucket floweth over. The idea that a manager would be thinking “ooh great, this employee is a parent so they can really help the team work on their emotion regulation, problem-solving and conflict resolution” honestly makes me feel tired and ill, tired doesn’t quite cut it actually – the idea of doing it more when I get to work makes me feel exhausted. Now, I appreciate this may be a personal limit I have reached, and many parents out there are itching to try all their new parenting skills out on their employees and colleagues, I guess what I want is to be able to choose, particularly as a lot of these traits have historically been associated with women who already pick up a lot more of the mental workload at home, and I am sure at work too. Valuing those skills which might overlap with parenting– interpersonal skills, managing difficult conversations, time management is important wherever we see them. As a clinician and line manager, I have responsibility for others at work, I found this much harder to take on after the twins and have made some decisions accordingly. Once you get beyond the absolute sense of responsibility then of course, managing someone in a workplace or engaging someone in therapy is a different kind of relationship, crucially when the other person in the working relationship is an adult the responsibility is shared, which helps.

Parenting (particularly the difficult bits!) should not happen behind closed doors, children should be seen and heard, and so should the people who look after them. I think the value of having parents in the workplace is that it ensures that voice is present in the team, and the culture. I see this clearly in my areas of work, mental health and research, but as we have learned many times, diverse teams in all fields are more resilient and achieve greater success. I don’t think parents need to add value with their new skills, hearing and understanding their challenges adds huge value to the workplace, particularly where they are being supported to be present despite these challenges.

On an individual level, I think knowing and believing in your worth is so important for success at work and as a parent, both situations are so hard when you are doubting yourself and I have felt and seen the consequences of this many times. This is why we need to celebrate each other, in sometimes lonely professions like academia where so much is placed on individuals and in parenting where 99% of the work feels unseen and in the 1% that is visible your child thumps another child over a toy train or refuses to sleep at your in-laws’ house. I think finding that value in ourselves does include acknowledging things you’ve learned and do differently now, but a lot of it for me is thinking about pre-twins Clem, and how she really isn’t so different from post-twins Clem and still brings the same strengths and weaknesses to work and now parenting as well, and that’s okay.