THE TROUBLE WITH WOMEN

We’re told we can have it all – but at what cost?

If you have children you’re expected to sacrifice but also to bounce back. If you don’t people question why. If you work full time you feel guilty for not being there enough. If you stay home you’re asked when you’ll get back to work. If you want children but can’t have them you carry that pain in silence. If you choose not to you’re told you’ll change your mind. Whatever choice you make someone always has an opinion as if your worth is up for debate.

A woman’s peak earning years are the same years she is expected to have children but society isn’t built to support either. She is told to build a career but also to be available. She is expected to be financially independent yet childcare costs more than rent. She is told to wait until she is ready for children then criticised when time runs out. She is expected to return to work as if nothing has changed when everything has. Whether she is raising a child, longing for one, or choosing a different path entirely, the weight of expectation follows her everywhere. And that is THE TROUBLE WITH WOMEN.

I’ve learned to give myself a break but I don’t think I can ever really be happy unless I am being productive.

We are expected to do EVERYTHING. Have kids, career, a house, a husband, look and behave perfectly.

Once my youngest was at nursery I had to do something for myself.

What feels most challenging is living in the gap between what I want most and what my life actually allows.

There’s the expectation that you can't break, you can't say I have had enough for today. The constant pressure of being the ultimate mum.

You're expected to go through hell and be at baby groups and in perfect mum routine in seconds. I felt like I could no longer speak to anyone about any struggles as it painted me as an awful mother so kept it all to myself.

There’s something very humbling about being a mother that makes everything else in life feel less important.

My biggest challenges have been work related. Before maternity leave I was worried about how a child may impact my career. I thought I'd want to go back and feel guilty about childcare arrangements — but funnily enough I couldn't comprehend how much a small human would actually need me, and I them.

I know that one day I will look back, thinking these were the best years of my life...

I find it hard to accept not being successful in my career, and that I find parenting exhausting and boring.

I hate the expectation for mothers to work and to send their babies to nursery and that there’s minimal to no support for them to stay with their child. My daughter made me who I am and I want to stay with her and parent her

Accepting that things I dreamed of for myself might never come true. I got pregnant in my final year of uni. I quit all work when my 19 month old was diagnosed with cancer.

There's the expectation that by a certain age you should either have children, or be confidently child-free; either settled, or self-sufficient and unbothered. I'm neither. There's a fear that if I don't become a mother, I won't fully become who I'm meant to be.I want something deeply human, but the conditions of my life keep pushing it further away. And I don't know if that's a personal failure, a societal one, or just the reality of being a woman right now.

Why do I have to earn money to cover her nursery where she has to spend her time with stranger ? Why I can’t have a choice to raise my daughter at least until we both are ready ?

The hardest part is doing it all, constantly, but still feeling like I'm not doing enough.

I’ve left behind the person I was before but am still clinging onto her even though it’s futile. I feel like I’m treading water. I find in the chaos of life it’s easiest just to see myself as a mother but I know I’m more than that.

Work has become non-negotiable. It's how I survive, how I stay independent, how I prove my value, to myself as much as to the world.

The sheer amount of time and energy required to raise a child with autism means you're regularly asking for special dispensation for things. You're also emotionally and physically tired, leaving less mental capacity for work. You feel completely outside of the work dynamic — being available for socials is totally out of the question.

Being 46 and without children, I feel almost like an alien.

We are sold a false dream; that the goal is kids, marriage and a home. That if you commit fully enough, it will fulfil all of you. What we're not told, is how much it costs to find out.

I wanted the stable partner, job and kids. But I struggle between feeling grateful that I have a healthy happy family, and then resentful for feeling so trapped in the monotony, the noise, the stress.

I wanted to keep my own interests and goals but they seem to be lost at the moment.

I love my children and want them to be proud of what I do in my work life. But then I think, does that really matter to them right now?

I pick my son up from school and then have to tutor my students online while he watches TV. I always have biscuits and sweets beside the laptop in case he wanders in. Sometimes he wants to sit beside me while I work and hold my hand. Last week I told him he had to go to after school club because some of my work had moved around, he said "next time just tell them no."

It feels like there is an expectation to continue as I was before becoming a mother but I have no idea how to do that.