I’ve been self-employed for almost six years and I just started taking (unpaid) vacations. It has been a bittersweet thing for me. Sweet because hello, it’s a much needed time to recharge with my children. Bitter because I can’t seem to shake the feelings of guilt I have around this. And I know what that is now, especially after seeing Kim Kardashian's solution to success. She unapologetically told other women, “Get your f@cking asses up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.”
Not only does this come from a place of huge privilege and family money, it completely diminishes the everyday lives of moms. Our society praises moms and calls them strong and #bossbabes if they work their fingers to the bone. And there's something seriously wrong with this.
Many of us work, and then we *work*
By that, I mean many of us have careers we are trying to juggle, so whether we work from home or work outside the home, we go to work. Then, we come home to work again by doing all of the necessary things that keep our family and home afloat. And to be clear, a stay-at-home mom is doing no less work than one that gets paid a salary. It's all "work."
There’s the cleaning, the cooking, paying the bills, getting our kids’ schedules straight, staying on top of the necessary appointments, oh, and don’t forget about self-care, because with all of this being thrown at us, how are we going to survive if we can’t take a bit of time for us? Time we literally have to scrape from here and there to accumulate.
We glorify the grind for all people, but especially for moms. There’s no denying that.
We hear things like, “She’s a hard worker because…"
She’s always here on the weekends.
She always returns emails.
She stays late.
She skipped her kid’s recital because we had a deadline to meet for that project.
She can go on no sleep! She’s amazing!
That so-called work ethic is praised and honored
Yet deep inside, it's killing moms. We are drowning. Even if we ask for help, everyone thinks we’ll just figure it out because we’ve always juggled a billion things before.
The moms I know want to succeed in their career. And they also want to make it to their child’s games. They want a restful vacation, and to be able to leave work at the office on their time off.
They don’t want to have to be “on” all the time, nor should they be made to feel like it.
Not everyone can “get their ass up” on any given day
Sure, Kim Kardashian might be able to, since she literally has people taking care of her kids, doing her hair and makeup, setting up her schedule, cooking her food, cleaning her house, and managing her through her next big deal, but that's not the reality for 99.9% of us.
If she wants to cancel or skip something to be with her kids, she isn’t risking her grocery money, a promotion, or not making her mortgage payment.
No one has a job like a mother
They are the ones who take care of everything, they are the ones who make sure everyone else is OK, they are the ones who put passion and life into what they do. They are constantly thinking about all the things: family, home, work, and whether they remembered to call the pediatrician's office to schedule that follow-up visit.
And getting ahead by skipping family functions, not taking vacation and sick time, or always being available is unhealthy and something we can’t sustain.
So let's stop glorifying the grind for moms. Instead, let's applaud moms who have boundaries and a life outside of work. Because let's be real: All moms are working their f@cking asses off, Kim.
