If We’re No Longer Glamourizing “Busy Work” At The Office, We Need To Stop Doing It In Motherhood Too

Motherhood brings unique joys and pains to every mum, and we are better off acknowledging that. In this series called Mum Truths, mums reveal their secret successes, miseries and gripes about parenting in a no-holds-barred first-person recount.

Recently we published an op-ed by a new mum who sang the praises of her helper. In this piece, she gushed how her helper could easily quiet her screaming child and was able to care for his basic needs so she could be there for “nursing and fun times”.

The criticism online was immediate.

The writer was generally attacked for her mothering abilities, criticised for her decision to “have a child but not care for it” and most of all, her refusal to feel bad about doing so. “If she doesn’t do the hard stuff, how will her son know she loves him?” was the general gist of the comments.

For myself, a mum-of-two who got a helper before giving birth to my second, but “went at it alone” for my first, reading the comments triggered my mum-rage.

As a society, we sometimes get stuck in praising "busy work" - meaning work that keeps you busy but actually has little impact on your actual job. Writing reports, staying late, unnecessary emails and meetings, are fine examples. But lately there’s been a shift, even before Covid made it common for us to work-from-home. It’s no longer OK to expect people to show they’re working hard just for the sake of it. Just do your job, do it well, then please go home. As a working mum, coming back to a team where this mentality prevailed was really helpful in keeping me afloat while I tried to balance my professional work and my mum-work.

So if we are shifting the way we view work and the work-life balance that comes with it, shouldn’t we do the same for that unpaid, unappreciated job that is motherhood?

We didn’t have a helper after the birth of my first child, which meant we went into the pandemic and lockdown with limited help. While my husband did a lot when he could, once his short two weeks of paternity leave ended, I had to do every night wake, every pump, every pump wash and of course every diaper blow-out. Even while living with my parents during lockdown, the daily baby decisions were left to me (grandparents are really the ones who are "here for the fun times").

Even after lockdown, it was largely just me, my husband and our sleep-hating baby. She would wake up at 5am ready to start the day, so I would nurse her, play with her and then switch with my husband who would wake around 8am and take her for breakfast while I napped. I didn’t go back to work for a year and I had grandparents around who could take the baby for a few hours in the day – but it was still hard.

Did these early mornings and late nights, dirty diapers and neverending things to clean make me a better mother? I don't think so.

Glamourising the busy work for mums only serves to put more pressure on women who are already trying to do so much, and is nothing but a path to poor mental health and burnout. For me, the realisation that I was headed down that path was when I ended up with trigger thumb in both hands from washing my pump parts so often. The physiotherapist told me I would need surgery if I didn't start asking for help, and oddly enough, that was hard! It definitely wasn't a task I needed to do myself but because it was my pump, I just instinctively felt it was my problem. I also ended up going to therapy – because motherhood had seriously shifted my priorities and values and I needed someone to put that all into perspective for me. One thing that came up time and time again was the importance of putting my needs first.

So when we got pregnant a second time – I made it my prenatal mission to hire a helper. It didn’t happen quickly, and I believe we got really lucky, but when we welcome Yati* into our household, it honestly felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. When, after a few weeks of living with us, Yati successfully whisked my clingy child off to play in the morning, giving me a good two hours of extra sleep, I knew this was going to be far better for my mental health.

Now as a mum-of-two, juggling work, baby music classes and toddler swim classes (not to mention preschool germs), I am really grateful that my second born, who spends a lot of her time in Yati’s care, is so well looked after and loved by so many people. I could say much like Serena Yeo, I am also mainly around for “nursing and fun times” because I work full-time. But at the end of the day, it’s still my household, my family and most importantly – my choice in how things are run.

Do I ever feel like my kids will forget who their mother is? I used to wonder, but honestly it doesn't seem like they will. I still feel connected and bonded to them. But I also love the work I do and while changing multiple diapers is not going to make me a better mum, spending time on something I love, that’s just for me as a person and not a mum, will make me a more fulfilled and happier person, and studies have shown that having a role model as such is good for kids in the long run.

So I don't feel guilty about outsourcing mum tasks. If someone offers to do the diapers, or put the babies down for a nap, I willingly accept it while knowing at the end of the day, the care and wellbeing of my kids is still 100% my job.   

I always repeat to myself (during good times and bad) “motherhood is a marathon, not a sprint,” and that goes for your relationship with your child. Does letting someone else soothe him or change his diapers mean he won’t form a bond with you? Maybe, if that means you’re also going to get someone else to soothe him when he stresses over his PSLEs or friends in school, his first girlfriend, his first breakup and potentially his first redundancy. There are many milestones as a parent that are opportunities to bond with a child – and the most constant person throughout all this, will be me. I’ve only been a parent for three years and there’s a lot I don’t know, but I am quite confident about this.

Karen Fong is a new mum to two young girls and is surviving motherhood by applying a wry sense of humour (and a lot of eye-rolling and complaining) to the weird and wacky situations that come her way. DM her at @karentanfong to commiserate about party goodie bags, sick babies and travelling with a billion pieces of luggage (but she doesn’t have her kids on her account because this.)