So why did we create The Juggling Act?

In 2017, shortly before their sons were born, both Claire and Lucy attended pre-natal classes with Bump & Baby Club in London. Here they developed friendships with other working mothers. As everybody’s babies grew, the conversations turned from feeding and sleep strategies towards going back to work. Many of the parents shared the same conundrums. Did they want to work flexibly or go back full time? Could they transition slowly? Would they be discriminated against or be pushed out for being parents, perhaps not able to offer the same unilateral focus to their work as they had previously? And what about the exhaustion, the logistics and the guilt?

Not a single person felt entirely confident about this next step. Many felt unsupported by their employers. Fast forward about eighteen months and a lot of caffeinated conversations and The Juggling Act was born.

We’re intent on reducing stigma and discrimination against working mothers, as well as offering them practical, purposeful support with regards their work, wealth and wellbeing.

Juggling Act Research

So, we knew work re-entry was proving challenging for ourselves, our friends and our family, but we wanted to know more. What were women really facing? What were their greatest challenges? To gain further insight and ensure The Juggling Act Programme was targeting the real issues for women returning to work we ran a survey. We had nearly 100 responses from all over the English-speaking world. Peoples’ challenges varied to some degree, but the key themes included:

• Feelings of guilt: about leaving kids, about working too much, about not working enough. There was guilt about enjoying work and guilt about not enjoying it.
• Endless context-switching: from sometimes joyful, sometimes mind-numbing parenting to running meetings, writing papers, making presentations.
• Fatigue! The tiredness, so much tiredness.
• Many cases of women juggling everything at home and pursuing a career with not enough support from their partner.
• Bungled returns to work, with little to no prep or consideration from employers
• Not enough time to think or consider what they would need for themselves to make a success of their return
• Knocked confidence, low confidence, no confidence.
• Struggles with boundaries, especially saying no.