Articles From the Team

Can women really have it all?

Apparently six out of ten women feel having children is bad for your career. I was surprised at this as thought the figure would be lower, it is 2017 after all but it got me thinking….Can women really have it all – the family, the (clean and tidy) home, the successful career?

Looking around the school gate at all the moms on the school run on the one day this delight is my job, the majority of moms I see are those that stay at home and choose not to work. I am clearly the minority but that is a choice I willingly made.

‘Flexible Working’ is the saviour for all us wannabe working moms! With flexible working, more and more women are able to juggle work with looking after a young family although I’m sure if you are anything like me or my ‘working-mom’ friends, you will still spend much of the time in a state of anxiety that something vitally important has been forgotten, be it work or that you’ve forgotten to arrange a mom-proxy to attend the parent session at your child’s school! Working parents (not just moms!!) know all about breakfast clubs, after school clubs, summer holiday clubs, the juggling acts of who is picking up who, who needs what for when, the non-negotiable attendance for numerous school activities…the list is lengthy. My non-working mom friends have no understanding of the organisational and logistical issues us working parents face every single day; that most of us have accomplished spectacular feats before even getting into the office. It is stressful, it is exhausting, but do we regret it? Would we want to change it? No way!!

Thankfully, here at BCL Legal we fully embrace flexible working with many consultants being able to work from home, amended hours, 4 day week etc. Many law firms have also embraced flexible working which certainly makes the family / work juggling act a lot easier to deal with.

Everyone is looking for the win/win - the work/life balance which we all need and strive for. The thing is, you can have it ‘all’ but what we perceive ‘it all’ to be might need to be modified periodically; we need to work out what having it all means to us. We can still be the moms we want to be AND be successful in our careers, AND be happy!!! If your employer is unable to offer the flexibility you need now you have the extra demands of a young family, give us a call as many of our clients would be only too happy to accommodate.

So, having had two kids, I speak from experience – you can most definitely have the career and the family but forget about ever having a tidy house again…well at least until the kids have left home!

For more information contact Joanne Lack at BCL Legal.