Work for All: Why full-time working mums work full-time differently than full-time working dads

Essay by Dilek Güngör, writer and a journalist from Berlin

We call working mums, working mums – but are there any mums that don’t work? Procreation is hard work, so is pregnancy, not to mention giving birth. The moment they cross that off the list in the delivery room, it dawns on them: the real work is still ahead of them.

At first, she might think how much work can an infant be? She wonders about girlfriends who talk about how, during the first weeks with the baby, they stayed in their pyjamas and didn’t even find the time to take a shower. Doesn’t a baby sleep most of the time? Doesn’t it lie on its back in the pram, unable to turn around, unable to do anything much besides screaming, drinking and “doody”?

Still, her thoughts are always with the baby. It may stop breathing. She goes to the cot and checks. Are its hands cold? They might be because the baby puts its hands on both sides of its head, instead of sticking them under the blanket. It twitches in its sleep and wakes up, so the mother caresses it gently.

The baby grows and starts to crawl. Everywhere. When it’s not walking, it stumbles over the edge of the carpet, the doorstep, the shoes in the hall or its baby blanket. When it’s not stumbling, it’s bumping against the edge of the table, the bench, the door, the sink, the couch and on every other object the world has to offer. The mother comforts, kisses, rubs, cools and blows. She puts band-aids with little bears on grazed skin. She tries – with the baby on her knees or sleeping on her shoulder – to make a phone call or an appointment, to write an e-mail or even take a conference call. It works somehow, but it’s obviously inconvenient, slow and she doesn’t get much of what’s being said - by the colleagues on the phone or the baby, which has meanwhile slid of her lap, scuttled into the kitchen and started eating something. Surprise! It’s the kitchen sponge.

There comes the day when the child goes to kindergarten and the working mum goes back to her real work. Only paid work is real work, all the other stuff doesn’t count. It just has to be done. Work has changed because mothers don’t stay at the office until late but leave at four to pick up the child. The dad could do it, but he is a full-time working dad. Mums are full-time working mums, too, but it’s a different full time. They achieve the miraculous feat of doing 120% of their work in 80% of the time, then drive to kindergarten or school, or nevermind where, because they always leave the office feeling they have left in the middle of something. Does it matter though? It’s the same for all the working mums she meets at four.

What about the kids? Well, they’re the ones that don’t want to be picked up and rather go home with a friend, or rather go home instead of taking their music lesson. With all her strength, the mother looks at her watch and finds comfort in telling herself that there’s only five hours left until bedtime. When that time comes, there is still some time to put away the washing or a read an article that she didn’t manage during the day. I’m sure there are mothers who aren’t bothered by any of this. And I’m sure there are those that make plans on how to transform the full-time working dads into just “dads”. To do it the way we had naively planned, when the baby was still in our bellies: to share the chores evenly. All of them!