The Parent Project

The Parent Project: Going on maternity leave

2010-08-13T09:57:00Z

Stepping away from something that's so important to you can be a traumatic experience.

A friend confessed to sitting on her sofa and crying for the first three days of her maternity leave. In advance, I wondered whether stepping away from much of how I define myself into something as yet unrealised would prove equally traumatic.

The front of my large shiny card from the office says: ‘You’re leaving (leaving – UGH) to have a baby’. Inside: ‘No ifs, no buts, no might, perhaps or maybe. You’re leaving and we wish you well; now go and have your baby!’ Messages range from the completely illegible to a one-word incitement to ‘PUSH’. Other contributions include ‘you’re too posh to push; ‘my friend says hypno-birthing is crap: stick to drugs’, and, memorably, ‘enjoy your six months holiday’.

I promised myself I wouldn’t be the last to leave the office that day, but after an indulgent cake, tea and speeches and endless sorting I found myself wandering through our deserted floor at 7pm breathing in the details, like you do when you move out of a house. I stared intently at the offices and workstations and wondered what would change while I am away. When I announced my pregnancy, our CEO advised against starting to plan too soon: much can change in six months, he said. Time has proven him right, so the same must also be true for the period until my planned return in another six months.

I sent a text: ‘It feels like the end’.

A reply in seconds: ‘No. It is the beginning’.

I passed through reception with my Lehman-like box of office oddments and was pounced upon by the ebullient Ali, who manages our night security. He was delighted to see me: he’d missed our evening chats as I hadn’t worked late for weeks, and was thrilled to send me off with blessings and enthusiastic well-wishes about the joys of children. He delightedly recounted the birth of his daughter and urged me to relish every moment: ‘They grow up so soon’.

As I tumbled through our front door and unloaded my treasures, I was surprised by how right everything felt. The hormones had done their job: I was happy to let go and move on.

My boss’s wife said that the best weeks of her life were between finishing work and her first baby. I was surprised and delighted to discover she is right. In 15 years I have never had such an abundance of unstructured time to meet people for lunch, tea, walks in the park, have hair appointments, cook vats of lasagne, make new friends, book massages and overdose on yoga. It is wonderful.

It’s only when our NCT group’s ‘Alfie/ Jemima/Sophia has arrived’ emails started flooding in that the enormity of what we were embarking on slammed home. It reminded me that the lovely wriggling thing inside me would soon be a noisy, demanding reality that will change our lives forever. There are moments when it all does seem a bit much. Not helped by Dr Miriam Stoppard (First-time Parents) citing ‘a senior position at work’ first in the list of factors that make you more susceptible to postnatal depression. So, for all the thrill of what is to come, perhaps that sofa weeping is on its way yet.

The Parent Project: What not to do when you're pregnant

2010-06-24T16:46:00Z

I noticed a massive variety in what pregnant women allow themselves, and others, to do.

Take food. The NHS provides a pretty concise and sensible list of what to eat and what to avoid during pregnancy. Having been inundated with various other bizarre and conflicting rules, my advice is to stick to it. Definitely steer clear of books written by Americans and stay-at-home pregnant women if you want to retain a broad diet - which you will need if you're going to show up in boardrooms around the world and be able to eat enough for you and your crazy hormones.

A few observations on national traits: the Serbians want you to eat soup and will provide it for you at all possible occasions; the Americans won’t let you eat lobster tail (and much more besides, but the tail seems a special sticking point; since it wasn’t on my NHS list I ate it anyway) or get within sniffing distance of a glass of wine; the Italians and Spanish are pretty relaxed about cheese, the French worry about the toxins on fruit and veg; and everyone agrees that anything goat-related is a bad idea. I wonder what Heidi’s mother ate (did she die in childbirth?).

Tummy-touching is also controversial. The British are very negative about it; quite a few women have told me that The Worst Thing about being pregnant is people thinking it’s OK to touch you. Rubbish. There are so many worse things. Being sick. Not sleeping. People staring at your with pity.

In Spain, Portugal and Italy lots of people touch you and I’ve come to be quite open to it. In the UK, if you run into an old friend or a colleague, they light up and stretch out a hand towards your tummy. But they invariably pull back abruptly, afraid of invading your space. Why? Surely it’s less personal than the double cheek kiss. Those who do touch seem to do it instinctively, with real fascination, and use it as a way to connect with you and the baby. The most surprising people overcome their hesitation and, in my experience, offer it as a gesture of interest and affection. Let’s lift the tummy-touching ban.

Activity is equally contentious; there are endless theories about what you supposedly can and cannot do. My pregnancy yoga group is surprised by my work and travel schedule. Yet our teacher says that the more active women she works with have the most energy and fewest complaints. I’ve certainly found that with my friends. At nine months gone, I was still attending my regular non-pregnancy Iyengar yoga class every week (including shoulder stands) despite lots of people telling me I shouldn’t.

There are also the boundaries which other seek to impose on you from the bizarre (‘NEVER go through the electronic swing gates into the tube’) to the inexplicable (‘don’t paint your nails, have facials or use deodorant’). People also tend to frame their questions to the heavily pregnant in negative terms. Are you feeling dreadful? Are you exhausted? Can you bear the waiting? Does the kicking drive you mad? Perhaps it’s a bit evangelical, but I react strongly. It is such a privilege to be well that it would be quite wrong to suggest anything else – not to mention disrespectful to those who are having a bad time of it.

A friend is my cause célèbre. She worked and cared for her daughter throughout her second pregnancy, during which she also cycled to work and back until her balance got too precarious. When she went into labour, she pushed her daughter’s pushchair over a mile down and back Chiswick High Street for lunch with friends. She relaxed at home in the afternoon and said the pain was entirely manageable until the midwife insisted she went to hospital. Then she got stuck in transition stage in the back of the car in a traffic jam, and ended up being carried into the maternity suite by two men who jumped out of their white van to help her husband when he parked up. But she delivered twenty minutes after arriving, and was on the phone effervescing with joy a few hours later.

I didn’t know if I’d be anything like as positive and in control in the midst of labour (let’s face it, not a bloody chance). But I celebrated the positive: I felt happy and healthy; the baby would come when it’s good and ready; daily exercise ensured I sleep pretty well; and feeling my baby kicking and wriggling was one of the greatest simple pleasures I have ever known.

The Parent Project: Planes, trains and queue-jumping

2010-05-26T11:30:00Z

Foreign travel when pregnant can be a mixed bag. Sometimes it's great; sometimes it's a nightmare.

On one occasion I arrived at Lisbon airport, running, running. A security guard stopped me, babbling questions in Portuguese. After thirty years of flying, my brain was telling me one thing: Be Nice To Security. I smiled. ‘Baby’ he said, pointing. ‘Come with me’. He took my bags, and led me through a side door to a queue-less security point where I was sent around the scanner. My mind cast back to the anaconda-queue through Terminal Three the day before, when the BAA security guy blanked my anxiety about standing for so long. Although it’s not just BAA – looking back, that was the only time in perhaps twenty or thirty flights when my pregnancy was obvious that I was shown around a queue.

On that same flight out of Lisbon, the BA air cabin steward confidently sat down next to me. ‘So they told you about the meals then?’ Apparently they were short of meals in business, and I had been ‘selected’ not to get one. I had not been told. I clarified that they had specifically ‘selected’ the pregnant lady. All the other business travellers were male. 'Well obviously... had I known... oh dear.' He faltered, his earlier assurance crushed. To my shame, I was overwhelmed by tears; too exhausted and too hungry to be polite (I'd been up since 5am).

Eventually he says I can have the pilot’s lunch. But a hungry pilot strikes me as a worse idea than the sobbing pregnant lady in 2C. Meanwhile the other passengers were mortified; so much so, in fact, that a kind man donated his lunch to me.

By contrast on another BA flight, this time to the US, the BA head of cabin services came over to introduce herself. She asked when I was due, adding with a conspiratorial smile, ‘I’ve done all the training... just hoping not to have to try it out tonight’. She was very warm and made sure I had kind and attentive service.

During my final work trip, my colleagues and I got off the Eurostar in Paris to find (as usual) an enormous taxi queue at Gard du Nord. We hesitated for a moment, wondering how late we were going to be for our meeting, when I was pointed at and summoned to the front by a man in uniform. He pushed me into the first taxi in the queue and my colleagues scuttled in behind me, suddenly thrilled by the perks of travelling with the fat lady.

There are two things I do notice. Nobody on planes ever helps with my bags. I don’t object: if you’ve signed up to travel, you must be able to manage your luggage. More importantly, it’s not because my fellow passengers are impolite: if you load on and off planes frequently you do so in invisible bubbles that protect you from the anxious hordes bustling around. You have to, if you want to stay sane.

I also notice that, despite the requirement of a medical letter giving you permission to fly after 28 weeks, no one ever, ever asks for it.

The Parent Project: Identity Opportunity

2010-05-19T11:57:00Z

Motherhood isn't a crisis of who we are. It’s a chance for a rethink and an expansion.

When we first become mothers, we undergo an imperceptible transformation. We might not realise it, particularly at first, but with a baby to care for, the centre of our universe moves and things we might once have taken for granted as our most important goals become, suddenly, inconsequential as we try to get a handle on what our priorities need to be.

Research has demonstrated this too: according to findings from Dr Lynne Millward Purvis, women – particularly working women – undergo three ‘identity shifts’ when they become mothers. Before giving birth, we begin to feel increasingly invisible and undervalued as we prepare to go on maternity leave. After giving birth, we are forced to acquire a ‘mother identity’, which causes our goalposts to move. And as we return to work, we find we need to redouble our efforts as we seek to revalidate ourselves, both as employees and as mothers. In my experience of maternity coaching, women approaching maternity leave see these coming and find it helpful to discover others feel the same.

Findings by Professor Daniel Stern are more challenging. He rocks the self-image of the ambitious, self-sufficient woman – deciding instead that new mothers are preoccupied by three internal conversations: with herself, with her baby and with her own mother. Stern says a new mum is more concerned with women and less with men, more with her emotional growth and development and less with her career, more with her ‘husband-as-father-and-context-for-her-and-the-baby’ and less with her ‘husband-as-man-and-sexual-partner’. In short: more with her baby and less with everything else.

It is only after crossing the irreversible bridge to motherhood that most of us recognise or accept this. There are good biological and societal reasons why it might work well for many of us to adapt in this way. Our job is to accept that, for a while at least, we’ll be spending most of our time focusing on the growth and survival of the baby, our relatedness to the baby (including living up to social norms – even where we don’t buy into these), establishing suitable support for ourselves and, crucially, allowing our identity to adapt to all of these.

And it doesn’t last forever – the baby takes centre stage for 12 -18 months, then our usual set of themes swims back into view, with career moving back up the list. But while the transition lasts, here’s how we can be kind to ourselves:

• Establish a support network of other mothers, and accept the need for this. If we have a male partner, recognise we may be looking in a stressfully inappropriate place (for both of you) for the support we need if we lean fully on him. Other mothers are vital, and it’s a while before some of us tap into this, especially at work. What can you do next week to develop your support network of mothers at work and outside?

• Accept the normality of how harshly we judge how we’re doing at nourishing our babies, and at loving them. We tend to have a built-in fear of failure, but we thrive best if we recognise both that the pressure we feel is deeply normal, and that ‘good-enough’ will do – and is more successful than perfect.

Dr Lynne Millward Purvis, the Transition to Motherhood in an Organizational Context is available from Ingenta, while Prof. Daniel Stern’s the Motherhood Constellation: a Unified View of Parent-Infant Psychotherapy is available from Google Books.

The Parent Project: The new rules of commuting

2010-05-10T14:21:00Z

When you're pregnant, travelling on public transport becomes a study in complex sociology.

The first few months are the worst. There’s no outward sign you’re pregnant, but you feel vile and dread the Tube. You feel a fraud asking for the ‘less able to stand’ seat without a bump – despite feeling sick, dizzy and tired. Wearing a badge that says ‘Baby on Board’ is not possible for so many reasons, the obvious one (apart from misplaced vanity about wearing a stupid badge) being that colleagues don’t know yet. One morning I was fighting dizziness when a man, perhaps in his 60s, gazed over for a moment thoughtfully, before getting up and saying quietly ’You need this more than I do’. I regretted not being able to express the depths of my gratitude.

As the bump starts to show, women are more likely to move for you: they are better at spotting the signs (and more willing to take the risk that you might be just fat). When nobody can mistake it, young men leap to their feet and insist you sit even if you are only going one stop. Particularly young Indian men – we must thank Indian mothers for their being so beautifully brought up.

During the middle stages, a subtle game of Top Trumps is played to select who takes a free priority seat. Elderly lady versus pregnant lady (how pregnant, how elderly?). Man in a neck brace versus pregnant lady. What about two pregnant ladies? What about a sweating man with a foot in plaster, carrying a large bag?

What’s really interesting is that somewhere beyond our conscious thought we have a code for this. Sociologists can probably give you a precise list. Eye contact is exchanged for the briefest of seconds, and a deal is struck.

Towards the end, as you commute London carrying an extra 8 kilos, swollen ankles and a powerful internal travel radiator, you feel more entitled to your irritations about the failures of London transport. You HATE the DLR for its lack of seats and design that ensures everyone can avoid your eye. The platforms don’t even have seats. When it’s 90 degrees and you give up on the stairs, you realise that the station lifts are perfectly designed to mimic the kind of dark hole where a sick cat would choose to die.

By contrast, you can forgive the Jubilee line anything for its good connections, the loos at Canary Wharf, and generous travellers who always do the right thing. Even if you sometimes wonder whether it’s because everyone is watching. Before you get pregnant, you don’t even notice most of this stuff. Afterwards, the world has conspired to form a complicated obstacle course – without, in reality, a single detail changing.

The Parent Project: Who am I?

2010-04-12T17:11:00Z

If you're worried about losing your identity by having kids, seek inspiration close to home.

At some point around week 30 I found myself having some sort of identity crisis: I felt keenly that my professional sense of self was slipping – and the alternatives that presented themselves were not working for me.

The first was inspired by my mother who emailed me a link with a nappy changing bag she wanted to buy me. It said ‘Yummy Mummy’ on the front. Crikey.

At the other end of the spectrum, a colleague was telling her birth story. Towards the end of labour things had slowed down, and the midwife suggested she try sitting on the loo ‘like she was going to have a poo’ (her words). The tactic was successful and she eventually gave birth on all fours, completely naked and (her words again) ‘yowling’, her bottom sticking out of a teeny bathroom cubicle with three midwives and her husband crowded in the doorway poised to catch the baby. I visualised myself in a similar circumstances and was confronted by the realisation of our base human function on this planet. Not something my day job usually calls for.

So, director of an international ad network, yummy mummy or animalistic biological reality?

This led me to wonder how I would define myself in future. So I had a think about successful mothers. Oprah comes up in Google but doesn’t qualify. Madonna; not sure about nicking African babies. Angelina; can’t get over that Billy Bob vial of blood business (and anyway, too early to say). Anna Wintour – The Devil Wears Prada. Margaret Thatcher – Mark Thatcher. Michelle Obama – yes... but. Cherie Blair – well, maybe.

On a trip to America during my pregnancy I attended a training course, and the most enlightening thing about it was the connection that the baby establishes between me and women who have combined motherhood with senior roles. These women are keen to tell me about their experiences, and universally express their positive feelings about being a mother and a professional being. The lack of British cynicism (‘Oh mine’s 21 and still causing me trouble’) is a relief and hugely empowering. As is their sense of the bigger picture; the ‘having a baby’ stage is only a fraction of the experience. Most of these women have teenage and older kids, and they speak passionately about how their lives are enriched by these deep relationships.

It strikes me that looking to celebrities is completely the wrong approach. You simply have to look at the (previously amorphous) army of inspiring, interesting and successful women out there who are combining their career with their family. For me, a beautiful photograph of Cilla Snowball, who runs our UK operations, receiving a CBE in the company of her three kids was the perfect reminder of this.

The Parent Project: Embracing Maternal Leadership

2010-04-06T17:01:00Z

Women who return to work after maternity leave can be more effective, more confident leaders, says Jennifer Liston-Smith.

Is motherhood the source of all of women’s power, or our Achilles heel? Generally, we understand both these positions. But somehow we’ve focused recently on ‘supporting’ new mothers at work - rather than embracing their return as if from a prestigious, high-powered sabbatical. Whenever I try out the concept of Maternal Leadership, people recognise that the transition to motherhood can be viewed as a developmental step, bringing new capacities of value to employers. It’s not just a regrettable career break, or a challenging time that needs to be accommodated.

This shift in focus powerfully struck psychologist Margaret Chapman, author of the Emotional Intelligence Pocketbook. Margaret saw that while the women she observed spoke of a loss of confidence and (potentially) competence in their work roles, they also felt empowered as women - in a way that didn’t seem to have found its voice in their working presence. In our joint paper at the Equal Opportunities International Conference in July 2008, she observed: “These findings suggest that motherhood (referred to by one woman as the “black box”) holds great potential and is an example of accelerated learning”. As Liz Hall, editor of Coaching at Work, put it: “Female leaders are discovering that the ‘mothering’ skills they acquire on maternity leave are also distinctly new talents critical to successful leadership”.

So how do women balance this sense of empowerment with their need for renewed confidence as they return to work under new conditions? Here are three options.

1. Take (and retain) a series of mental ‘snapshots’ of your needs and challenges at different points during the transition. These can help link who we are with who we have been, and who we are becoming. Sit down and identify your main aspirations and values:
- During pregnancy (before maternity leave)
- After giving birth, while still on maternity leave, and
- Following return to work.
This can provide continuity and stops you forgetting the bigger picture amid the overwhelm of new motherhood.

2. If you find you’re focusing on deficits and losses in relation to your work performance (like telling yourself you're less likely to gain promotion if you’ve negotiated part-time work), why not instead notice things that are actually going well, and have changed for the better (I’m better now at focusing on the top priorities during my shorter working hours).

Using Positive Psychology can help. Research suggests that individuals are happier and experience fewer depressive symptoms if they identify, on a daily basis, “Three good things” that have occurred. Take the woman who leaves home before 6am, delivers baby safely to well-chosen nursery, arrives at office with suit still clean, carries out smart business deals, makes phone calls to rearrange nursery pickup when late meeting proves unavoidable, arranges to teleconference late meeting the following day to make up time with her child - then explodes in a unforgiving burst of self-reproach when she remembers she has forgotten to buy crucial organic veg on the way home. She could try writing down three things that went well each day - and why - every night for one week.

3. Now look at how your repertoire of leadership styles is expanding. Is the new mum better at multi-tasking, because she’s willing to enable others to perform for the sake of getting things done in the smartest way? Do we have, as Christine suggests, a more mature sense of self and our own authority? Do we bring to work the deepened sense of connection with other human beings that mothers often report (a bit like Christine’s private club)? If so, are we more likely to be in that group of effective leaders able to operate from at least three different leadership styles (e.g. Coaching, Authoritative/Visionary, and Affiliative)?

It may seem a small start. But reclaiming the leadership potential released in becoming a mother is made up of what we choose to notice in these small, momentary shifts of focus.

References
Liston-Smith, J and Chapman, M. A (2009). Keeping Mum in the Workplace: Female leaders are discovering that the ‘mothering’ skills they acquire on maternity leave are also distinctly new talents critical to successful leadership. Coaching at Work. Volume 4, Issue 1, 2 January 2009.
Liston-Smith, J and Chapman, M. A (2008). Managing Maternity in Global Financial Services through Group Coaching – Unlocking the Potential Encapsulated Within ‘A Black Box’. Presented at Equal Opportunities International Conference, July 2008.
Seligman & Steen (2005). Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions. American Psychologist.

The Parent Project: Officially Too Fat to Fly

2010-03-29T09:45:00Z

My job involves a lot of travel. Giving it up during pregnancy was much harder than I expected.

Giving up travel was a difficult moment: doing the work without getting to deliver it is like training for a race you never get to run.

The midwife having banned flying, my last foreign trip was to Paris by train. By that stage, if I'm honest, it was exhausting - and my ample tummy barely squeezed behind the little tables that flap down so you can eat dinner. Yet, I still struggled to let go when I read the following email on the Eurostar home:

'We are busy going through the process of ensuring we get short-listed on South Africa’s biggest pitch this year. Can we get you out here for the pitch to demonstrate our commitment, and you get to work off that IOU? Have no idea when pitch will be, probably next month.'

I owed them because I’d postponed an earlier trip due to morning sickness. I reluctantly replied: 'Would love to but officially designated Too Fat to Fly. If you put it off til February will bring Junior for his/her first taste of Africa.'

When I got home I unpacked my travel bag. It was like the end of the sixth form: you know you’ve been through a lot, but you don’t know what you’ve achieved, and you sure as hell don’t know what comes next. I put away the adaptors and the travel pillow; chucked out the tiny bottles of shampoo and toothpaste; stashed my washbag in a remote cupboard and cast my passport into the documents drawer. It felt good, but strange – like I was letting go of a piece of myself. I still don’t know where and when my next business trip will be.

That night I slept for 13 hours. In the morning I lay in bed with my husband and giggled about my lopsided tummy (at this point our baby was wedged firmly on the right hand side). We talked about cots and prams and car seats, and I started to reconnect with the wriggling being inside of me.

By way of consolation, when I went back to the office the following Monday, I found three copies of Serbian Playboy waiting for me – including a half page photo (no, don’t even think it) along with a three-page interview on the downturn’s impact on different groups of European consumers. There’s lots of comment about this PR milestone, mostly involving the line ‘Men only buy Playboy for the articles, you know’. Pregnant and in Serbian Playboy. Not a line I ever expected to appear on my CV, but it brightened up my first non-travel week.

The Parent Project: Bad dreams lead to travel sickness

2010-03-19T16:29:00Z

When your subconscious starts playing tricks on you, maybe it's time to cut down on the travel...

I woke in a panic, reaching for my husband. I had dreamt I’d had our baby in the morning and then gone to the office for the afternoon, before popping by UCH on my way home to pick the baby up from a tetchy nurse. It was detailed and cinematically vivid; when I woke my heart was racing hotly. But my husband wasn’t there. I was at the Intercontinental in Dusseldorf, alone. Well, not entirely alone; our baby kicked suddenly. Perhaps to register its objections on being born to such a crap mother.

I read on babycentre.com once that sleep expert Mary O'Malley says: "Dreams reflect your emotional reality. Pregnancy brings up positive and negative feelings that you'll digest through your dreams." Hmm. In the morning, I shared my dream in light conversation with two close German colleagues, who were shocked. When will you give up work, they ask. When will you stop travelling? Perhaps the dream sensitised me to their suggestion that I was already pushing it a bit. Perhaps the imminent airline requirement of a letter of permission from my doctor to fly was also a clue. Or perhaps it was the kindly taxi driver the day before in Amsterdam who, with the directness the Dutch are famed for, suggested I cancel my meetings and head straight home to rest and ready myself for my baby.

Unlike their more southern neighbours, the Germans tend not to directly comment on the bump. When introduced to the large group I was to present to, no mention was made of my state and I felt no compulsion to raise it. I sailed through the presentation; imminent motherhood had inspired me with a confidence that age has thus far failed to deliver. A robust debate followed, and people came by afterwards to discuss and clarify points. The leader of a local account asked if I would present to her clients. “Only if they come to London,’ I replied. She nodded and smiled, but neither of us voiced the reason why.

At the very end, as the room cleared, the oldest woman at the meeting came towards me. We hadn’t been introduced. She thanked me for the presentation and then paused, locking her focus onto my eyes: “But this, this, is the most wonderful - and important - thing you will ever do... Take care to enjoy it” she said, reaching out and all but placing her hands gently on my stomach.

I packed up and headed out, the guilt all working mothers talk of starting to seep through my veins: Tracy Hogg (The Baby Whisperer) says “Guilt is the curse of motherhood.” Considering this I decided to actively reject the guilt of motherhood and, as I flew home, allowed my mind to focus on revising the slides for the following weeks’ presentations in Geneva and Boston.

Even then, long before our baby arrived, I knew this particular resolution would prove futile.

The Parent Project: Motherhood - a private club

2010-02-17T15:58:00Z

Having a baby is a bit like joining a secret society: other women offer advice and support like never before.

In Boston I see a presentation about the success of the Pampers/UNICEF alliance - Pampers donates money for vaccines for newborns around the world when you buy a pack. The insight behind the campaign is that there is an unspoken connection between mothers.

The insight clarified a thought that had been rumbling: I’ve become a member of a secret society. Women offer advice, empathy and support when you are expecting a child as they never would normally. A gulf is bridged by your pregnancy and their experience. Time and again in airports, offices and public places I am surprised when women confide their intimacies: pregnancy stories, parenting disasters and the occasional (sadly very occasional) orgasmic birth. A woman I work with, who I like very much but only know a little, tells me that she had had postnatal depression: ‘If, at any moment, you even start to think you may have it, you call me straight away. I promise I’ll help you.’ American mothers are particularly supportive; the serious can-do demeanour many hold is dropped in talk of families.

My PA shouts: ‘Portugal wants to know if you need anything special for your visit next week’. A loo every 45 minutes, food every two hours and a quiet hotel, please. By the time I arrive at the office the women have already worked it out, and share their delight enthusiastically. One confides she is a few weeks pregnant, information her boss shares with me many months later as breaking news. I don’t have the heart to tell him it isn’t.

Over lunch the best management coach in the business, Pat Watson, demonstrates the breadth of her wisdom without any prompting. 'There will be times when you wake up at 3am absolutely certain that there is something very wrong with your baby. You will be sure of it. And you will be wrong. The baby will be fine.'

While dropping off a form at the hospital first thing, I overhear a woman pleading for a new scan because she is sure that something is wrong with her baby. She can’t really explain why, but says it hasn’t been moving today. The receptionist is not taking her seriously and the woman is becoming upset.

She’s too early in her pregnancy to have realised she is joining a club that will help her and keep her sane. When she meets her NCT group, the unacknowledged meeting point of professional women who are pregnant, she will start to realise she is connected to something bigger. When she finds her Pat, the night frights will have met their match.

The Parent Project: How to plan maternity leave

2010-02-10T09:52:00Z

Don't get sidelined in the planning of your own maternity leave. Make your preferences clear!

At some point, you need to talk to your boss about how you're going to manage your maternity leave. There is no ideal time for this conversation, and it may well happen unintentionally. But you can think ahead, and try to remember two or three points when the moment comes. Prepare to be influential!

What needs planning?
Ask to set another specific meeting time to discuss handover, your role in it, communication during your leave, any Keeping in Touch days [See Kitted out for maternity leave] and your plans for return (if you’re ready to discuss that). It’s surprising how often this conversation just doesn’t happen. Research shows the pregnant woman, despite being the expert on her own job role, is often side-lined in the planning of maternity cover (Millward, 2006).

Hearing people start to ask: ‘Have you had your ‘Pre-Maternity Leave Review?’ in global law and financial services firms has been one of my joys as a maternity coaching consultant - even if we did have to give it this compellingly formal-sounding name to make it happen! A forward-thinking HR/ Diversity team can put together managers’ checklists for this, and for a Post-Maternity Leave Review. It can also serve as a performance review check-in, which can otherwise become fuzzy following maternity leave. Where your organisation has no such formal check-in, can you take responsibility for raising some of these points with your manager?

Put yourself in their shoes
Whatever you ask, try to see how it looks/ sounds/ feels etc from where they are sitting. They may be avoiding the conversation not because they don’t value you, but because they feel embarrassed to ask, or because they fear discrimination claims if they start prying into your plans for return. What, do you think, is your manager’s top concern right now about your leave, and how can you help them manage that? How can you help your manager deal with the impact on – and questions from – the rest of the team? What’s the business benefit of a more planned approach to the handover and return?

Do it on your own terms
And what about your point of view? Once you’ve shaped responses to the concerns you think your manager has, get clear about what you need. What’s the bottom line for you in terms of communication during maternity leave (as little as possible, or lots? KIT days, or just a quick phone call?). Have you some hopes for how your return will be? (A phased return to flexible work in 12 months or just four months out and straight back in?) Plans may change, but if you want to have a talk like this, it will almost always be you who starts it.

There is a handy new set of general guides for new parents and employers on Returning to Work, sponsored by Working Families and NCT, written by Liz Morris.

The Parent Project: Empowered, or irrelevant?

2010-02-02T10:06:00Z

Does having a baby make women better leaders? Or is it the greatest barrier to gender equality?

In a feminism class during my Politics degree, I remember our lecturer explaining once that there are two feminist view of pregnancy: one is that it is the ability to give birth that is the source of all of women’s power. The other that it is our Achilles heel; the factor that means we will never achieve equality with men.

The first rings true: there is something startlingly empowering about being pregnant. You become slightly mystical and remote. Others treat you differently. In every country I visit pregnancy has a special status: like marriage, it is universally celebrated. And the cocoon I have with my baby gives me distance; more perspective perhaps. As long as the baby and I are OK, it doesn’t seem to matter very much what anyone else thinks or does. I find myself more decisive, more sure and certainly a more confident leader. I am far less intimated by the wisdom and experience of others. Carrying a child immediately denotes that you are an adult and should be taken seriously.

But I can’t help feeling that the other viewpoint is also valid. In the workplace you are aware (and others allude to the fact) that you are a declining asset. Some are unafraid to suggest you are a drain on the business; others are afraid to say so but fail to conceal that they think it. Your time is limited before your maternity leave. And no one is sure what will happen afterwards; will you be back, and when? You could become irrelevant or, at least, less relevant than now.

Perhaps I should write to my lecturer and tell her that, in my experience to date, the feminists are all right.

Except the one who confidently predicted that in ten or fifteen years (i.e. now), everyone would have their babies in the equivalent of fish tanks to avoid the downsides of childbirth. Not that this is an idea without merits.

The Parent Project: How pregnancy translates abroad

2010-01-18T15:21:00Z

Different nationalities respond to your bump in very different ways, as I soon found out.

At a two-day digital course outside of Paris, I arrived late to a crowded meeting room to be greeted enthusiastically by (statue-handsome) Stefano, who manages one of our Milan operations. “Christina!” he surveys me, “you are pregnant!.. It is mine??!” Delivered with the perfect balance of delight and camp, mock horror.

In Germany, hardly anyone comments. In America, service people always do: the doormen, waiting staff and taxi drivers gush about their kids and express their enthusiasm. The professional classes ignore it unless you raise it. The Dutch and French acknowledge it without drama. The Portuguese are excited and thumb their iPhones to share pictures of their kids and suggest names. The Spanish are completely baffled that we don’t know the gender; despite explaining that we’ve chosen to wait, they cannot conceal their suspicion our health service is medieval.

The professional American men I meet are the least moved. While a few enthuse privately about children, most seem to prefer the subject to be kept remote from the real business of business. Which makes me wonder if there is some link between this and the lack of maternity pay or support structures for working American women who, I am told, instead qualify for some sort of disability benefit. The American-written baby book a friend sent me has a chunky chapter dedicated to food restrictions and meal plans, but also notes that women who work in offices can safely continue to do so until they go into labour. Some of them are back at the office in a couple of weeks. Reflecting on my three years working in the US, it strikes me now how few senior women I knew had kids and how many of my contemporaries chose to step out of our business when they did, either to stay at home or to do something more compatible with family life. Some of the most driven women left conception late and chose to adopt from overseas.

One American CEO I met during my pregnancy asked how long I’d be off work. When I said six months, he was aghast: “Please God, tell me no one pays you for that”. He reminded me of an American CFO I used to work with, who was famed for exploding at the mere mention of maternity benefits.

At the other end of the spectrum, when a CEO from our Portuguese operation realised I was still working a month before my due date, he was appalled and happily told me I was completely crazy. Similarly Germans and Scandinavian colleagues are very concerned to hear I am 'racing' back to the office.

It’s a broad spectrum. In America there is a commitment to separate corporate business with the insanity of biology. Whereas in many European countries, having a family is considered to be too important to confused with work. Inevitably, Brits seem to sit somewhere in the middle and, maybe as a result, seem to me to feel the most guilty about the whole business.

The Parent Project: The day I saw my future in a fridge

2010-01-11T15:27:00Z

The thought of going on maternity leave is frightening. But the alternative is no more appealing.

How the hell do you process the potential impact of a child on your career? Everyone who has kids tells you that the child will be The Most Important Thing in Your Life. On one level know you that they are - they must be - right. But when you are waddling around with a bump and a hypothetical baby timed to arrive at some unspecified time in the middle distance, you cannot reframe your life to such a hypothetical change.

So reviewing the impact of the baby on your job is very scary. For me, the much-publicised Fawcett Society report that concludes that being a mum has a devastating impact on earnings is not reassuring. I’ve decided against reading it, but assume that it concludes in equally negative terms on progression, advancement and career-satisfaction.

Initially, as I wrestled with my fears, I was drawn towards certainty. I focused on plans for when I was on maternity leave. No one else seemed to think it was worth addressing in months four and five, but I booked several hours with another director planning how we might structure the team. I was nervous about the meeting; consciously at war with the thought of letting go. You spend so much time building a team and establishing work patterns, it’s frightening to think of walking away from it. The meeting went well until she said thoughtfully: “You know, I might move some of the team into your office.” I had a vision of our office with all trace of me removed; my body seemed to lurch; I said “NO” far too loudly. (The meeting ended awkwardly.)

As I pondered this overreaction, I was reminded of a visit, years ago, before I met my husband, to the home of the most successful career woman I knew. Glamorous and in her early forties, she lived in the kind of elegantly appointed apartment you dribble over in The Sunday Times Style. As in the magazine, the artfully battered period features were nestled cosily with shiny gizmos, highly-feminine antiques and agonisingly-arranged objects of beauty and curiosity. Her wardrobes were carelessly overflowing with the contents of Saks, Selfridges and selected boutiques. I was as impressed as I was clearly intended to be.

Right up to the moment when she went to the loo, and I nosily opened her vast, American-style fridge. As I recall it now, the fridge contained absolutely nothing. It must have had something in but, in my mind, it is as bare as in the showroom. No milk, no wine, no puckered lemon, not even crusty mustard.

Inside this icy cavern was a vision of a - my - possible future. The fridge told me that if you give all your passion, your energy and your love to work, in return, you may well get a magazine lifestyle with no one to welcome you home to it. Not even a cat. And I hate cats.

Not long afterwards, on a business trip to Asia with clients, I was taken on a tour of a Japanese shrine. Inside people wrote their dreams and ambitions on a piece of parchment-style paper and placed them on an altar in the hope that their wishes would be granted. I frightened myself by writing: "To get happily married and have children". And then felt rather embarrassed about it.

I stare into that bleak fridge every time the reality of taking time out of work gives me a dose of the heebie-jeebies. Then I take a moment to indulge in Bridget Jones-ish fantasies about pink and glowing babies in the bath and my husband frolicking with our toddler in a sunlit garden.

Yet I still hated the oft-asked: ‘So when will you finish work?’ Finish?? P**s off...

The Parent Project: How to break the news

2009-12-18T14:53:00Z

As you start to announce your pregnancy, your news is the most important thing that has ever happened to you. You cannot but obsess about who knows, when in what order and who tells them. For what it’s worth, here’s how I did it:

1. Bottle direct approach and deposit memo on my CEO’s desk late one evening (before making a swift exit). It reads: ‘I went to the Annie Leibovitz exhibition at the NPG recently. I was inspired not just by the photography but the fact that Annie had the first of her three children at the age of 51. I returned home declaring this as an excellent goal not realising that I was already 17 years ahead of schedule.’. Thankfully he texts me immediately: ‘Congratulations, I am thrilled for you both’. Followed by: ‘And absolutely gutted for myself’. Then he phones to tease me for the cowardice of not telling him in person, and advises me to tell my team the following morning.

2. Attempt to deal with the fact that news spreads like wildfire (while leaving curious gaps). This is slammed home that evening when I run into the finance director of one of our UK agencies in Waitrose. ‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ he says. I back away from him into the dried pasta, reeling at the speed news has travelled. Clearly lots of other people now know too - and since babies just don’t sit well in the sterile, single-generationaI offices we work in, I’m not very comfortable with this. I have a friend who objects to pictures of kids on people’s desks because they aren’t relevant to work. I don’t go so far, but I do think that pregnancy is not an appropriate subject on which to start meetings.

3. Try to cauterise the spreading of news. I never mention it in a meeting, email or work-related phone call, and I make this policy clear to those around me. This slows the flow of information. (So much so, in fact, that several months later, some peoplewere still eyeing my belly questioningly and wondering if I’d eaten too much cake. Oddly I interpreted this as success.)

Many weeks later I watched someone else go through this process – which, in her case, involved a row about who had told what to whom when. Observing from a distance taught me a simple lesson: once the news is out there, let it go. No one cares as much as you do. No one is as interested as you are. You cannot control it. You cannot change reactions to it. But you must keep a grip on your own sanity and professionalism. Find a pregnancy friend at work with whom to share the little stories you cannot suppress, and let everyone else go about their business as usual.