Having it all. Not doing it all.

“You can’t have it all”.

How many times have I heard this? And the variations… You can have it all, just not at once. Having it all just means doing it all. And then, at the successful women… “I don’t know how she does it”. With a sideways glance, like there must be something wrong with her, or how she’s doing it. The impossible facade must hold a dirty secret.

Well, I’m going to share the dirty secret, and it’s not that dirty and it’s pretty simple, really: Paid help.

I told a colleague this, and she wrinkled her nose at me. “Yeah, but it’s a bit privileged isn’t it?”. I agreed - many women simply can’t afford to employ domestic help. However, on reflection I think I need to make the case for domestic help as a foundational part of your career, an expense to plan for, and to think about as an investment, rather than a luxury.

Over the past 15 years of working motherhood, I’ve taken various periods of “time out”. Part-time work when my first was born. Unpaid statutory leave to see me though school holidays when the kids were little. A period of “funemployment” while I considered my next career move. The cost of “help” - mostly childcare in a nursery - when I returned to work after my second maternity leave took all my salary. And yet, over the years we’ve needed to pay less for childcare while my salary has gone up.

I have complete sympathy for mothers who check-out from their careers due to the pressures of juggling work and home responsibilities. I’ve been there - burnt out, can’t carry on. As my salary has gone up, those periods of unpaid work became increasingly expensive. What I’ve come to realise is that investing in making my job sustainable is a good return on investment. And creating space where I have the flexibility and energy to push forward my career has had real financial impact for our family.

When we enter motherhood, we’re told “it takes a village”. We were never meant to do this alone. But changing societal trends have systematically eroded the support for mothers to the point of total collapse. We tend to live away from our families, and even if we don’t, our parents are more likely to be infirm, our female relatives who might previously have helped with childcare have their own jobs and families. Meanwhile, the expectations for being a “good” mother have risen. Car-filled and transient societies feel less safe for unaccompanied children, who are now expected to spend most of their time at home or otherwise supervised by a parent (usually the mother) on “enriching” activities and play. No wonder women are increasingly choosing to opt out of motherhood.

Ultimately, the “you can’t do it all” statements are correct - you can’t. Paid help breaks the unspoken rules that lead to women doing three quarters of the housework at home. It gives women the option to pursue both career and family.

By treating the money spent on paid help as an investment in career rather than a luxury to get out of housework, it changes the way that cost is accounted for and planned for. Most of us will cut our budget to fit - money spent on “essentials” like our home, our car, and basics are adjusted. We cut back on luxuries. If paid help is put in the “essentials” bucket, we can adjust our lifestyles early on. If it’s treated in the same way as the cost of the daily commute, it makes the conversation about work and pay more realistic. And it brings visibility to the real cost of your unpaid labour at home.

The stark truth is: I don’t know any working mums in senior positions who don’t get at least a day a week of domestic help at home, on top of whatever childcare arrangements make most sense to them (many get much more than this). Women over 40 earn 9.1% less than their male counterparts, and the vast majority of that gap can be attributed to the maternity penalty. How much more could you afford if you closed that gap?

But the real culprit here is that traditional “women’s work” is under-valued. Most domestic help is carried out by women, often in informal roles. If we really want to re-shape our society, we need to pay those domestic professionals fairly for their work, and treat this as “real” work, not just casual unskilled work.

This IWD, the theme is “give to gain”. I say this: Give a proper job, with proper pay, to someone (probably a woman) to do the housework for you. Give yourself a proper chance at your career. Give your kids the chance of high-quality time and energy with you, not the dregs of your energy in between chores. Give this society a chance to re-write the value of “women’s work”. And make sure you’re the one who’s gaining from that.

A final note: If you’re treating the investment in domestic help as an investment, the time you get back has to be a good investment. As with all investments, the return is not guaranteed, but to maximise your chances of good returns, you need to look at paid help as one part of a strategic career development strategy. Don’t pay for help so that you can spend more time and effort on a workplace that under-values you, under-appreciates you, or chronically under-promotes you.

I know the paid help message might feel controversial to some. But to share the progress more widely, we need to start being honest about how the successful women are actually managing career and family.