It’s Election Day Eve in Aussieland, an added bonus to a West Wing enthusiast who has been turning up the radio/ tv when the attack ads from both Liberal and Labor parties come on.
(Though it might all be over by the time I find Wifi to post this)
Julia Gillard v Tony Abbott for Prime Minister
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2rMsYYKvQk]
Sorry, I should see the issues not the woman, but I can’t pretend I know that much about Aussie politics beyond the entertainment I derive out of attack ads, especially not on a Mummy blog. For Mummy blog purposes, Ms Gillard is someone who, according to her parents and biography author, has chosen not to have children because she wanted to concentrate on career.
“Why is the woman ‘always’ the one who downgrades her career?”
Bet you’ve heard that one before.
But have you heard the rebuttal?
“She isn’t. But if she wants children, she’s the one who has to have them, no matter how kick-ass she is at work.
Bearing in mind one of my closest girlfriends Y, now 41 and in a stable relationship (with someone who heads the dealing room of a bank with a small presence in Hong Kong), makes about HKD 120,000 a month, can be in a different city every working day of a (bad) week, and thinks surrogacy is a splendid idea.
If you are female and want children (and are neither Y nor adopting), you’re the one who has to get pregnant. So it’s your head those pregnancy hormones are going to mess with. (And if you are like me, you will be inexplicably fine with it – the change in you is unimaginable – kinda like when Jacob turns into a werewolf, but with puppies.)
Oh, and you’re also the one who has to lug that load around in the office for almost 9 months. I snapped at colleagues to not be idiots who aggravate me unreasonably in case I give birth to a monster. (For some reason they found that hilarious).
Poring over a termsheet with them over the phone one lunch hour, I told my (then) Goldman counterpart it would be their fault if my unborn baby turned into a quant. (Ditto. Why do people think I’m kidding when I say these things?)
Not all women are created equal – so it’s just yours truly’s opinion that there are at least a few career women out there who undergo lobotomy-like changes after pushing out a baby. Employers are right to be concerned (sorry, Every Other Career Woman).
Employers however, have no right to be overly concerned. Just because we had a baby doesn’t make us bad at what we do – it could make us better.
Like when we refuse to engage in politicking (or other such unnecessary stress) because we think it will sour our breastmilk.
Like when we don’t engage in watercooler gossip (or in my case coffee breaks) because we want to finish up faster and leave at a reasonable time of day.
Employers – newsflash, every employee is going to be a “package” of goods, bads and in-betweens. Pregnancy is just one thing in that package. A good working woman will more than try to make it up in the rest of her package anyways. Oh wait – employers are also packages. Including those who overreact to pregnancy.
Y-of-the-HKD120,000-thereabouts-salary, was from an average-income Malaysian family, married young into a rich (also Malaysian) family, loved kids (unlike me before Rockstar), was showered with Louis Vuitton and Cartier, and would otherwise have had a few little ones running around some palace-like abode in Shah Alam or PJ by now if not for the fact she divorced her unfaithful husband in her late 20s, came to Hong Kong, changed career in her mid 30s and had a new career that then took off.
She went from making 30% less than what I made to 20% more than my final salary (which wasn’t stagnant either). Today, she can probably buy and sell her ex’s cheating butt. (But she settles for splurging on property in Malaysia).
Based on a series of life choices that has let her down this path, she now never wants to give that up. Hey, that sounds like something Julia Gillard is saying in Women’s Weekly.
I’ve had a few bosses whom I have an almost puppy-dog adoration for (and one to whom I said “let go of my chair before it files harassment charges” because he kept pulling the back of my office chair while I was staring at my computer screen so I plummeted to certain Death By Shame for being the girl who squeaked in the dealing room).
But the one who bears mentioning in this post is the one responsible for hiring me pregnant:
1. Found out I was unexpectedly pregnant around the time of my first-round interview
2. Vowed to disclose the pregnancy if I made it through to the next round (who wants to start a job by telling their new boss they’re knocked up?)
3. Disclosed pregnancy in Emily Post of Pregnancy Disclosures To Potential Employers (disclose too late, like when they’ve made an offer, and they can’t legitimately rescind – but having someone hire you and then have to arrange your maternity cover so shortly after you pass probation has got to be some kind of faux pas. As I said, an employee is a package – Emily Post Disclosure is as much a part of that package as pregnancy itself.)
4. Got job offer. Headhunter slightly flabbergasted. I had only gone for 1 interview.
5. HR says I have to sign immediately to be eligible for full maternity benefits, because of my due date.
6. Boss signs off by waiving my second-round interview (she’ll bear the responsibility toher boss) so HR can sign me on quicker.
Soo n-ot all female bosses are proverbial horrors in the workplace. I love this boss. I love her shoes. Especially when I find out she was once a hard core investment banker who took 4 years off to raise 2 girls, before “downgrading” to a reputedly less aggressive house and eventually hiring me. Her eldest daughter topped the Hong Kong equivalent of the SPM in Malaysia and her second is going to Wharton.
Where have I been going with all this?
A boss I adore may want me to come back to the market. It’s a helluva compliment that I’m lapping up with immense gratitude, at a time when blogging and really so many things are new to me, where derivatives and banking has ever been my (weird, I know) comfort zone.
At a time when the banking job market is so bad and my ex employer could have had any number of wildly qualified applicants sent to them with a snap of their fingers.
At a time when I’ve been chewed and spat out by some blogging machines and upper echelon Mummy circles because I speak bank not blog, because I speak baby with the faint accent of someone who used to be a working mum, unlike the perm stay-at-homes.
What the hell am I doing staying out? I love the market. It’s my native language.
You have been blessed with a child. You have been blessed to not have to work solely for money, in the near term, Aileen.
But from the Ashcombe Maize café in Redhill, sitting in the purple chairs with yellow and white daisies on the table (and no Wifi!!) I call the Hong Kong SFC anyway. My licensing will last 3 years before I have to re-sit the Hong Kong Securities Institute (HKSI) Paper 1 exam that allows me back to the industry (no it’s not an easy test – the passing rate back when I first took it was as low as 25% though last I checked it then went up to 40% after some people complained).
The person on the other end of the line helpfully adds I will not need to fulfill my 5-hour CPT (Continuous Professional Training) annual requirements during the 3 year period. But because I recall my previous employer requesting we keep 3 years of CPT records, I’ve already fulfilled this year’s requirement, filed it nicely, and will do the same for the next couple years.
No, Hamlet, I don’t think your mum had it easy so stop being a brat and give her a break.
Sometimes Mums, women, have tough choices to make.
If Ms Gillard had had children, there would be people questioning her ability to focus on the job, especially if her children were still young. If her children were grown, she would then be judged based on their screw-ups (think Sarah Palin, not that I’m a fan). Ironically, the quickest to pass judgement would likely be other women. (Though admittedly it was a man, Coalition backbencher Senator Bill Heffernan, who coined the label “deliberately barren.”)
What happens if I take a step back from something I loved doing to raise Rockstar here, snoozing with his mouth open beside me on Kings’ shoulder, and he decides to leave home at 16 without a backward glance?
He didn’t have much choice, he’s stuck with you as his Mum. And you’re supposed to be Mummy-ing, not banking, at this stage in your life, Aileen
Ever decision we ever make will be a package. Where we land in our decisions should depend on our mental laundry list of things we can live with/ can’t live without.
That goes for you too, Hamlet.
This was posted on Aussie Election Day, from Australia On Collins shopping mall, Melbourne, after a couple hours’ driving and one broken down GPS.. Along the way we learn Ms Gillard will apparently be casting her vote somewhere in this city, in a (at press time) close-run election… Rockstar fell asleep to the radio and didn’t want to get out of the car.
