Parenthood and career

A text by Natasa Ivanovska

A comment on career and life choices made by a dear friend of mine, motivated me to write this text – Thank you Emilia.

This subject is a private and personal one to me, as a mother of three and self employed in my firm for the past 9. I look at it professionally, as a career counsellor who helps people and companies on subjects such as career, employment, choices we make on our own behalf, and ones that have an influence on us and everyone around us.

Here are a couple of insights:
1.While planning a career, we support a so-called holistic approach that takes into account us as a whole, and every role we want to achieve in our lives. With that we can be in the clear as to what, when and why we want something to happen. And the more we are in the clear with ourselves, the less society’s comments and criticisms influence us.
2. При планирањето на кариерата, го поддржуваме тн.холистички пристап, кој ја зема предвид нашата целина, сите улоги кои би сакале да ги оствариме во животот. Со тоа можеме да сме на чисто што, кога и зошто сакаме да се случи. И колку повеќе сме на чисто со себе, толку помалку ни влијаат коментарите од околината зошто сме "ова", а не "она".
3. Managing a career as a series of work positions is a possibility and responsibility that we all have. We have to work to survive, but another purpose is to fulfill our feeling of self worth, contribution to society, and influencing our surroundings.
4. Everyone attributes their meaning to their work and that’s fine. Or otherwise they don’t look for meaning, and they simply earn. And that’s why it’s necessary that one is honest with himself, so that he isn’t bitter towards people who found that special “something” in their work.
5. There are big disparities in the way the 2 genders are sorted in a so-called reproductive way(it’s tied to giving birth and raising children, unpaid work) and so-called productive engagement, tied to reproduction of favours and products for money. In the past these roles were distributed to mainly men and women. Our generations are trying to get a balance of some sort, and I’m not sure as to how well we’re doing at it. Not to generalise, there are many variants. Studies show that women show that women still do most of the unpaid work in the household.
6. The job that parenthood presents in my eyes is the highest pedestal of professions and success of any type that one can achieve. Having that privilege and responsibility of caring for and leading a new life, oh! Is there anything harder, more preciouswith better emotions than this? Such physical, mental and emotional effort is required.
Parents, you have my honest respect.

On the other hand, I’m not sure as to how big of a percentage who before making the decision of taking up this role, really, honestly before themselves answer the question of why they want to be parents, what they want to invest, what they expect from that whole voyage, How they’re going to tie it to their career roles and partners. Without these answers, we often resort to so-called male and female jobs, in which we often don’t question it, however there are exceptions of course. Housework in general, as well as work surrounding the kids usually falls onto the wife. She, of course (could) work outside the home, while working home as well. Does it sound familiar?

These are very complex questions that must be discussed. They influence the parents and children’s quality of life, as well as the quality of life of wider society in general. Once again – the more we work on bettering these subjects, the less we’ll feel the urge to explain them to others. We’ll be able to help them find their own, unique answers that they’ll happily carry with themselves on their journey.