As a society, we still have wildly outdated presumptions and expectations about what women want and what they should be. It’s this expectation that contributes to women feeling they must prove they can do everything and be everything, to everyone.

And for working mums in particular, the constant shift between mum mode and worker mode can be really challenging and in reality, is in sharp contrast to the ‘superwoman’ ideologies that many women feel they need to attain.

WOMBA looka at both sides of Lily Allen's comments as it relates to working parents, as there is absolutely merit in what she says, but not everyone will have the same experience, or agree.

What do you think?

Recently, the UK Government’s has made a promise to working parents:

By September 2025, working parents will be able to claim 30 hours of free childcare a week, over 38 weeks of the year, all the way through from nine months up to their child starting school.

The promise of 'free childcare' has sparked both hope and skepticism for working parents. We at WOMBA, believe that while the intention behind the pledge is noble, it risks exacerbating existing inequalities rather than alleviating them.

Alison Green speaks to Workplace Wellbeing about how organisations are still failing to implement significant or lasting change, despite their recognition in the huge value in supporting working parents – and have dedicated a lot of time and resources to doing so.

With recent research revealing the challenges mums and dads face in balancing their jobs and home lives, Helen Sachdev talks to People Management UK and outlines how organisations can help working parents

Helen Sachdev, director of specialist coaching practice for working parents WOMBA (Work, Me and the Baby) agrees. “Job sharing leads to greater role resilience and career progression. It offers talented employees the incentive to remain in an organisation, especially those with young children.”

Any mum who’s tried to keep their career in tact after having children will tell you it’s no mean feat.

Between the extra long days, the worries people think you’re not taking your job seriously and the guilt that comes from working overtime and not feeling present enough for your child, it’s A Lot.

Our new piece of research has seen mums open up about the difficulties – and sometimes impossibilities – of juggling work and motherhood.

For working dads, COVID-19 considerably changed their relationship with work and family.

And yet, despite dads wanting to participate more actively in family life, our joint research study with Hult International Business School (Ashridge) – exploring how working parents experience the transition to parenthood in an organisational context – found that many have found it difficult to take on a greater parental role.

For working dads, Covid-19 considerably changed their relationship with work and family. Not only did it prove to be an awakening – with many dads for the first time appreciating the challenges of juggling work and childcare – it was also a period that showed parents a different and better way forward. Now, many have no intention of returning to the outdated, pre-pandemic routines that prove to be barriers to a healthy work-family balance.

WOMBA director, Alison Green, writes in HR Director sharing four ways working dads are pioneering gender equality.

WOMBA Director, Alison Green, writes in People Management, the most read and visited HR media brand in the UK, about how working dads have become the pioneers of gender equality.

As more fathers challenge the status quo of paternity leave policies in a post-pandemic world, they are inadvertently driving change, says Alison.

WOMBA director, Alison Green, contributes to an article in d&i Leaders on how inclusive new working practices are.

The traditional 9 to 5 is fast becoming obsolete, with the past three years seeing a dramatic shift in flexible working practices from flexible hours, hybrid working to the four-day week.

The U.K. government gifted an early Christmas present to millions of workers by proposing a new law that will grant the right to ask for part-time hours or home-working arrangements from the first day of a new job.

Full employment allows employees to choose who they work for

As employment levels reach their highest levels since 1974, companies are looking carefully at risks relating to recruitment and retention. The Office for National Statistics has revealed that full employment has been achieved in 2022 for the first time in Britain – unemployment rate was 3.7% in the first quarter of 2022 – its lowest level for 50 years.

A few weeks after a report from the House of Commons Library concluded that ‘mothers and women from minority ethnic groups were especially (negatively) impacted’ during the pandemic, Jacob Rees Mogg cancels all Whitehall diversity courses, describing them as ‘absurd’. He goes on to say, that only “intelligent, sensible” courses would be offered to officials in future.

As reported by the BBC today on International Women’s Day 2021, if women increased their pension contributions at the start of their careers by 5%, they could close the £100,000 pension gap that currently exists between them and their male peers.

To achieve ‘retirement parity’, Scottish Widows points out there is an alternative. If young women don’t/can’t save the extra 5% during the early parts of their careers, they will need to work an additional 37 years after their male contemporaries have already retired. Hmmm

As reported by the BBC today on International Women’s Day 2021, if women increased their pension contributions at the start of their careers by 5%, they could close the £100,000 pension gap that currently exists between them and their male peers.

To achieve ‘retirement parity’, Scottish Widows points out there is an alternative. If young women don’t/can’t save the extra 5% during the early parts of their careers, they will need to work an additional 37 years after their male contemporaries have already retired. Hmmm

At WOMBA we see first-hand the energy and effort of organisations to become more gender equal. And they’re certainly trying to do things right with a plethora of policies, processes and programmes. From employee resource groups to recruitment shortlists, from flexible working to enhanced shared parental leave.

And the good news is these have translated into some positive change.

These are uncertain, unprecedented and disorientating times. All of these words are over-used, but they do describe the world we’re living in. From our coaching with working parents we’re hearing how they’re feeling overwhelmed. I can relate to this. Some days I feel resilient and “I’ve got this”, only to wake up the next in disbelief at what is now “normal”.

One way of making sense of this emotional rollercoaster is to think about our window of tolerance.