Carry and perform
By Nelsy Salden-Rebbens
My journey into motherhood began with a sense of shy joy.
A few weeks before I started a new job, I found out I was pregnant. I’d had my first scan the week before.
It meant that on my first day I had to ‘confess’ that I was pregnant.
It felt as though I was laying my cards on the table straight away. As though I’d been found out. I’d surely boasted about my organisational skills during my job interview. That didn’t really come across here.
Once again, it was in spite of myself that I was able to let my bump grow with pride. Yes, there was whispering. But it remained just whispering thanks to the person who stood with her legs apart in front of me. She said that women simply carry and have children, and to me: that it was fantastic news and we would sort it out. And she did. That’s what leadership looks like.
Everything at once
But what pressure I felt. I wanted to be a mother, to breastfeed and pump, because that seemed to be the best thing to do, and I felt strong enough to claim that right and to ignore the comments from complaining colleagues about the noise of the breast pump.
At the same time, I didn’t want anyone to notice that I was only 29 and that pregnancy hormones were still raging through my body.
I wanted to be a manager, and a good one at that.
Falling and getting back up
Her birth announcement card read: “There were beautiful babies there, but none as beautiful as you.” – Herman van Veen.
But once I was back at work, I felt more like the lyrics of the song: “We have to run, fly, dive, fall, get up and carry on.”
The fact that I managed to keep going is a miracle, and in hindsight, it was completely unhealthy.
I feel regret in my heart when I think back to that shame as I look at that beautiful fifteen-year-old girl. I dare say now that motherhood made me a better employee, but it took so long to dare to feel that in all its glory, and it cost me so much.
The system doesn’t support us
Balancing work and care is still far from straightforward. Women’s health is sadly low on the list of priorities.
The system is not designed for bodies that carry, create, give birth, nurse and bounce back. We operate within a system that was not designed for or by us, and which integrates our reality very slowly. Too slowly to bear the weight of the world.
Giving meaning to the system
Exactly twenty years ago, I entered the world of finance. I think it's a powerful place.
Too powerful at times.
With my broad range of experience, which I can still draw on for some time to come, I want to give meaning to the system and, above all, to the human experience within it.