Can We/Should We Have It All - CareforKids.com.au®

Let's Just Cut the "Can We/Should We Have It All" Debate
and work out how to practically help the work-life juggle

There's been an on-going debate since Anne Marie Slaughter's article published last month in The Atlantic on her decision to leave her high ranking US government post in order to spend more time with her children and work at the local "Ivy League" university instead"

This seemed to be saying that no, as a working mum you may not have it all, and so the debate goes on as to whether working mums can or indeed should have it all, whether being a high level executive means you simply cannot have a family life and that's simply a choice you have to make.

An article in the Australian Financial Review suggests that "if the general culture is hostile to mothers, including at the highest professional echelons, why not cherry pick from the French, who do not demand maternal perfection?" i.e. can't we just accept that women have babies and they also have a great part to play in our economies as well?

According to the article, French women, who have more children than most in other developed countries, are encouraged to return to work, at a scaled back rate, when their babies are small. They can therefore maintain their working status without having to take large chunks of time off. And most importantly, this is not frowned upon, does not lead to career stalling or the perception that mums returning to work on a part time basis just aren't serious about their career or are just a pain in the backside of employers and colleagues.

France counts one of the highest percentages of women in full-time work in the developed world and currently has as many women as men in governmental positions. It values family, home life and holidays as much as work and deals with it on and like Norway, believes men should be just as involved in parenting as women.

The French system ensures affordable crèches, preschool, after-school care and holiday care, and tax deductibility of nannies, combined with workplace flexibility for parents (that's both mums and dads on an equal footing).

So it's not really a question of whether women can have it all or not. Of course they can, but only if the system allows. Scandinavian countries and France as well as many other emerging markets simply understand that they need women in the workforce and in order to ensure this and maintain a replaceable birthrate, they have to give being a parent and contributing to the workforce equal importance for both men and women. Simple. So there's a lot to be said for proposed schemes such as adding an extra paid 6 weeks on top of the initial 18 weeks paid parental leave, but only if the other parent takes up this leave. It has been hugely successful in Norway and would really bring Dads into the parenting frame in Australia too and hopefully start changing perceptions of working parents on all levels.

So maybe it's time to just forget the debate about whether mums can have it all or not. It's simple reality these days that we need them in the workforce as much as we need to maintain a healthy birthrate, so in order to help them do both, we need to just put prejudices aside, take a little bit of advice from the Scandinavians and the French and start taking mums, both working and non-working, seriously and to look at how to make the best situation possible for all parents.