Submissions

From: Suze

Sent: Friday, 30 September 2005 6:28 PM

To: Family Responsibilities

Subject: striking the balance

While I have been unable to get far into the document "Striking the Balance", due to my newly acquired role as mother to a now four and a half month old daughter, I have a few comments to make on the topic.

Our current status: My partner and I are both tertiary educated people employed in professional capacities. I worked full-time until embarking on unpaid maternity leave for the birth of our first child. We live in a rural area on the outer fringes of Melbourne, with my parter working in the locality and my workplace in Melbourne. We are on the verge of having a mortgage.

Though we don't struggle financially, we have found that life's a little more complicated in trying to balance work and family. Having a new baby is a fairly intense process bringing about new changes and demands. We were hoping that I could return to work in a part time capacity from when our daughter was six months old, with the idealised belief that the occasional work-from-home day would be feasible. This has not been the case.

Attempting to string together one hour,let alone two, to concentrate on a task is really not possible - planning the sleep and feeding times of a growing baby is impossible! So we are now embarking on child care......We have been fortunate enough to be offered three hours of family day care on a Friday, which we are building up to every week. Last week we were offered a full day at another child care centre in our township, so in addition to the Friday we are starting to orientate our daughter to another centre. We had to take the place as we could not be guaranteed of one when we really would have wanted it. This is not ideal but may have to do in the short term. We didn't anticipate the difficulty in getting childcare toward the latter end of the year. We were certainly hoping that our baby would be able to get care in one place as this would be the least disruptive to her and enable her to develop a caring relationship with one carer instead of multiple people at such a tender age. Our parents do not live near by so the grandparent care option is not available. (I also think that grandparents should be able to relish their role in grandparenting and not parenting as this blurs the relationship between grandchild and grandparent.) My partner is able to take the salary sacrifice option, though while I am still breastfeeding, it seems a little frustrating to utilise this option now. It would be more benficial when our daughter is older and not solely reliant on me for her sustenance. We do not want our baby in full time care and will probably struggle getting the amount of care we would like in a way that offers her the best of both worlds - parenting at home in her younger years and external care with someone she trusts - and offers us the emotional, intellectual and financial benefits of being parents and working.

Offering women in particular, and parents in general, equitable payment and support at a governmental level for their work as parents in lieu of paid work is a must. The professional award that I work under has the standard twelve months unpaid parenting leave for women with one week for men. The award protects my position as a full time worker for twelve months and, this is the rub, if I elect to work in a lesser capacity such as part time upon return, my employer is not obligated to offer me an alternative position nor retain the full time position for me. I could potentially be out of a job.

I now realise that this is not uncommon in the private sector in many professions. I suspect it comes from the masculine culture of my profession, but the award is recent and these notions have not been challenged. In investigating other workplaces for their leave policy I was unsuprised to find that several women found themselves without employment after maternity leave due to this clause. It is not only women that suffer when small business is considered to be the ultimate loser when staff become parents. There are many examples internationally where the role of parents is valued and supported by governments in a meaningful and ongoing way, not the token support for childcare and one off maternity payments. Why is that the Federal government is not looking at best practice examples for supporting parents?

Which leads me to another frustrating issue for new mothers - expressing milk. While I understand the practicalities of it, yes it will enable others to care for my child, it is one of the most soul destroying things a new mother can do. There is nothing more depressing than pumping your breastmilk into little bags to be frozen for later use. Am I disgruntled?

Perhaps. There will be days when I return to work where I will have to

express milk in the toilets, as there will be no other private place for it, so I can ensure my supply is maintained. I intend on feeding my baby as long as she wants and hope that breastmilk will continue as part of her diet until she is at least one year old. I have often joked that as a new mother I need a third arm, but what I would truly like is a partner with mammary glands that work! Why weren't men invented with operable breasts? It would potentially share the task of breastfeeding. I am being facetious.

My final gripe is the presentation of new mothers in society. I am not a regular viewer of commercial television but I recently chanced upon an horrific ad for toilet cleaner involving a new mother. I was really dismayed at the presentation of this woman and of greater society represented by her gift bearing friends. (I am a proud feminist and am constantly aware of the poor presentation of women in advertising, however I felt this more acutely than ever before as it somehow seemed

unchallengable.) It was clear from this ad that the new mother should be more concerned with the cleansliness of her loo instead of her new born just in case her friends drop around unexpectedly. Why is this the way that mothers continue to be portrayed in the greater media? Society has a lot of issues about women generally, but mothers seem to relegated the lowest of the low tasks - ensuring that the loo is spotless. Striking the balance should also mean that women are presented in the media ways that truly reflect their roles.

Society as a whole needs to refigure that presentation of families and their contribution to society. Communtiies will suffer for the contribution of one parent only or none at all as families are dislocated in attempting to meet work, family and financial commitments. My partner and I are attempting to work out a way that we can balance the day to day issues of parenting and contributing to society. But it is early days for us.

Suzanne Zahra