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Mummy: was it so wrong for Dati to go back to work?
When I read about Rachida Dati, the French Justice Minister, returning to work
five days after her baby was born, I wasn't shocked. I know that she had to
do it. I went back to work four days after the birth of my third child,
Bethany. She was two weeks early, it was a natural birth and I signed myself
out of hospital the next morning. By then I was thinking, what I am going to
do? I've got this perfect baby but unfortunately she has arrived too early
for my plans.
I was a month away from the London launch of the bra that I'd worked on for
three and a half years, I had £420,000 of debt and the securities included
the house. When you're that much in debt you don't want it all to go
horribly wrong and be thrown out of your house because you can't pay your
mortgage. I had no choice but to go out and work on the launch - and I was
on the first plane from Glasgow to London on the fourth day.
It's hard and I can't explain the intensity of the guilt and conflicting
emotions I felt. I'd bought the bottles and nappies, made sure that dinner
was in for the rest of the family, expressed the milk. I got up at 3.30am
and used a big notepad to write down what I had to do in the next hour
before I left. There were Post-it Notes of instructions all over the place -
when she wakes up she's to get this.
I left Bethany with my mum. Obviously you feel awful and sick - I almost
fainted on the plane - but adrenalin does kick in. In London I had a series
of business meetings, casting for models, seeing banking people, retail
people.
Between meetings I remember crying in the loo, then I'd try to cover it up
with make-up and go into the next meeting. I was big, still in my maternity
clothes, and one man asked when the baby was due. I said I'd had her a few
days ago. He was shocked. Otherwise I didn't mention my baby.
I got the last flight home at night so I could see her. Then I found that my
other two children wanted attention as well - Rebecca was 7, Declan 3. They
wouldn't sleep and were getting upset. After tidying up and getting
organised, I'd lie down at about one in the morning - then the baby would
wake up for a feed.
That was the pattern. Get up, express the milk, hand over the baby, feel
upset, get on a plane, feel upset, go to business meetings, cry in the loo,
put on this face because I had to appear strong and professional and a
credible businesswoman. It affects your relationship with your husband
because you have so many tasks to do that you've no time whatsoever; you
don't want to be even in the same room as him.
When I was at home and the baby was asleep I would take every opportunity to
catch up on phone calls, e-mails, everything else. I got up in the night
because I felt exceptionally guilty that I was away during the day, so I
wanted to bond with the baby alone. When I was breast-feeding I would take
pictures of her face and look at them when I was travelling. However
difficult it was emotionally, it was my choice to do it; I was so far down
the line with my business that I had to carry on. Arrangements for the big
launch were in place and my business depended on that.
After the launch I burst into tears during an interview with Sky News. I
didn't say
“I've just had a baby”. I said “I'm just so emotional after three and a half
years of working for this launch”. I felt really guilty; I was almost trying
to hide that I'd just had a baby from people because I didn't want them to
think I was a horrible person. You feel as though you're being judged,
especially by other women. I give talks throughout the world and I always
get this reaction - a sense that I'm being condemned.
The only person who knew how I felt was my mum. I would cry to her, but she
understood what I was doing and told me to go for it. My dad was
disappointed in me, that I wasn't being a wife and mother in the way that he
understands.
I do believe there are some jobs that don't accommodate maternity cover
because no one can do what I can do. I run the design and the marketing and
that was what mattered at the launch. My husband is very supportive but at
that time he hadn't joined the company. Like Rachida Dati, I'm from a family
where circumstances were tough. I grew up in the East End of Glasgow, I lost
my brother when I was 10 and we didn't have a bath in the house until I was
12. We used to go to the local swimming baths to get washed. When I was 15
my father woke up one morning and he was paralysed at the age of 38. My mum
and dad worked so hard but it was always a struggle and from a young age I
was focused on building the life I hadn't had as a child.
We're now the biggest lingerie company in the country and my kids have a life
that I always dreamt they would have - and that's down to hard work. They're
at good private schools, we have holidays and live in a big house with
lovely cars. I would
never have been able to provide any of that if I'd taken the full maternity
leave that is allowed in the UK.
Has it damaged me? Probably. I still have moments when I feel bad about it. I
get jealous when I see mothers with babies meeting their friends in
Starbucks. I never did that. My focus was work, Bethany, my other children -
my husband, poor soul, came after that. This was the situation for a good
year until it settled down. I had a gorgeous baby but it was a horrible
time.
I'm still away a lot during the week but that doesn't mean that other mothers
love their kids more than I do. It's the way I am. When I had Declan I was
working for Labatts, the beer company, and I was back to work within five or
six weeks because I had so much to do and I didn't trust anybody else to do
my job. I felt committed to my customers and my company. It's important that
mothers are given time with their babies but companies still have to do
business and make money, and if they don't then redundancies have to come
in.
Eighty per cent of our organisation are women and when we last counted, 70 per
cent of them were of childbearing age. They get everything they're entitled
to and if they want to work three days a week afterwards and their job
allows them to do that, then we grant it. But we are not a charity, we're a
business. Just as every mother has a responsibility to her baby, so
employees have a respons i bility to their employer.
I don't mean to be cold when I say that; the point I'm making is that there
has to be a balance. There's a lot of women out there who do themselves no
favours because they want to take, take and take. Sometimes, when you take
so much a company has nothing else to give. If everyone in a company was
allowed to take a year off, how can the company do the business to get the
money in to pay for them all?
My children are now 16, 12 and Bethany is 9. I have staff at home, a team of
people who take care of everything from gardening to the children. I start
work at about 6am and try to get home a couple of nights in the week to have
dinner with the kids, and I'm with them most weekends. We talk on the phone
and we Skype each other, and now that the business is established we take a
month in Spain with them - I work in the morning but I'm there with them at
night.
It's easier having a newborn than the age they are at the moment. My son
Declan is 12 and a bit dyslexic and I know that if I was at home every night
he would get much more support, but I have to give that responsibility to
someone else. That's the hardest guilt. When they're tiny they eat, they
sleep, they do the toilet, they don't know what's going on. My kids don't
remember me not being there when they were young, and it will never scar
them.
What does harm them is when they're 12 and they need extra support. I would
have thought that, with the company being established, I would have more
time but it's like a huge monster: the bigger it becomes, the more it needs
feeding. We employ 45 in Glasgow, 50 in Hong Kong and another 1,200 people
in China work for us.
I wouldn't say that I'm a natural mother in terms of wanting to stay at home
and pick the kids up from school, and I don't feel guilty about that. I
still leave instructions. In the utility room there's one white board for
each child, saying what they need to do and where they need to go, how much
the fees are for the dancing, the rugby.
My house is run like a business. My staff, the kids and my husband have key
performance indicators and every Friday we get together with a flip chart
and mark how the week has been. That sounds hard but it keeps everyone
focused. Children love routine and this house is run like clockwork. I
manage everything, but the kids and my husband aren't allowed to mark me.
I have obsessive compulsive disorder and every night when I come in it takes
me 17 minutes to go round the house and make sure everything is where it
should be, all the white shirts together, all the black shirts together.
The kids come home, hang up their uniforms, put on their pyjamas, get their
homework done, and when they've done their tasks they're free to do what
they want and have their friends round. It sounds regimented but it's a
happy home as well.
Interview by Penny Wark
Back to work: the law
Under The Management of Health and Safety At Work Regulations 1999, it is
unlawful for an employer to let an employee return to work within two weeks
of giving birth. If they do, the employer faces a fine from the Health and
Safety Executive.
After two weeks it is up to the employee how much she takes of her one
year's maternity leave entitlement. She must give eight weeks' notice to her
employer if she wants to return to work before the one-year period is up.
An employee on statutory maternity leave is paid 90 per cent of her average
weekly earnings for the first six weeks, then up to £117.18 for the
remaining 33 weeks.
A self-employed woman is not liable to the same two-week limit on returning
to work. However, her place of work may be subject to some health and safety
regulations regarding working after giving birth, which will depend on the
type of business.
Chloe Lambert
Source: Working Families
