50/50.

There’s a social phenomenon happening that I want to draw attention to. You will definitely subconsciously be aware of this but it’s important to me that every woman, every mother, is actively conscious of this.

Whether you’re a mother or not, this is true: in order for women to be seen as successful we have to be seen to sacrifice ourself in lots of ways. Successful women cannot put themselves, their physical health, their mental health, their biological clock, their wants or needs first, if they want to be taken successfully.

If you are a mother, this trope is extended exponentially into motherhood. Unless you are prepared to give your whole life, soul, emotional energy and creative output to your kids you are easily labelled as selfish, neglectful, not maternal and trust me, I know, because I get comments like this all the time.

My mission online is to empower women and mothers to ask for what they need and what they want. I believe many of us feel trapped, uncared for and as if we are drowning simply because we don’t ask. It’s not a confidence thing. It’s something we’ve been inherently made to believe is an absolute fact: that the option of choosing ourself is one that is not open to us. Instead we must just accept our lot, our role as primary care giver to the kids.

Because after all, we chose to have kids. Didn’t we?

But didn’t the men who helped you make them, also make that choice? In most cases, the answer is yes, and yet the expectations as to what makes a great father are so abysmally low that, if I was a man, I would be embarrassed. I’ve seen women go weak at the knees when I say my husband does most drop offs and pick ups, that he makes most of the dinners, that he does as many bedtimes as me and, in fact, he does all the bath times.

“Wow. What an amazing guy!” they exclaim. And they’re right. He is. He’s so great that I don’t feel burnt out by the pressures of work and motherhood. He’s so great that he recognises that we need to split the home-load 50/50 and because I do so much of the cleaning and life admin, he picks up the slack with the day to day stuff with the kids.

But just because I’m not ground down, on my knees, miserable and broken it doesn’t mean I’m not a great mum. It means I have a great partner because until equality exists in the home, it can never exist anywhere else in the world because women will always be tied to the house that little bit tighter.