Society should be more understanding of parents who are struggling to juggle their work and family lives, according to a UK author.

In a new column in The Guardian, writer Emma Armstrong said she would no longer apologise for her unruly children – noting that there is no shame in being a working mother.

She said her situation recently came to a head as she was taking part in an interview on UK radio – only for her toddler to loudly inform her - and everyone listening - that she needed to use the toilet.

On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, she said she was tired of apologising for her children.

“I was thinking about it afterwards and I thought if I'd been in a busy office environment and some really obnoxious colleague had been telling some horrendously poor taste anecdote and then I was on a call and someone overheard that, I might say, 'Sorry for the noise or apologies if that was interrupting to you' - but I wouldn't apologise for having a colleague,” she said.

“I sort of feel we should perhaps view it from that quarter.

“You shouldn't say sorry for having a child either and if anything, I feel, given what I have to juggle these days, you should get a sticker and a lollipop rather than an admonishment.”

Emma Armstrong

Ms Armstrong said she has spent all of her motherhood trying to juggle her professional and family life.

She questioned whether society has the same expectations when it comes to working fathers.

“It isn't dad-bashing to say that mums do more,” she said. “That's a fact.

“You know everybody talks about it; we do have really good data to support that – 12 of out 13 parenting tasks fall to mums.

“There are exceptions, there are 'manicorns' living in the wild, but that isn't the reality for most people and certainly not most working women.

“So there's a sort of a generosity with, ‘Oh, isn't it charming? He was interrupted doing his clever work bit,’ whereas I feel, in my experience, there hasn't been that same generosity afforded [to women].

“Perhaps I'm also self-policing; I'm desperate to prove that I'm no less because I have children, whereas I don't think men feel that same self-consciousness.”

Childcare

Ms Armstrong said she also feels there is a level of snobbery around the fact that she cannot afford to pay for childcare.

When it was put to her that juggling work and parenting should be viewed as a noble and admirable thing to do, she said society has unrealistic expectations for the modern mother.

“It's this post-third-wave feminism,” she said.

“You're meant to be able to do it all and I know my mother's generation, my mum raised me to say, you know, you don't make a fuss, you don't complain, you've got to get on and you've got to be good in order to be taken seriously.

“You know, the era of ’80s shoulder pads, office culture.

“I suppose the hangover of that is the feeling that you can't put your hand up and say, ‘It's too much for me, I'm going to have to let something slide a bit and I'm not going to be apologizing that it's all a bit too much because I am doing more'.”

Support

She urged other women to be more supportive of other working mothers.

“We all know how hard it is and everybody needs to be kind to each other,” she said.

“I think there's sometimes a hardness in that people - particularly women - think, ‘Well, it was difficult for me and I managed’ and I think that's actually unhelpful.

“What we actually need to do is to try and, where we can, help each other out and also try and have, you know, slightly more balanced expectations in terms of, Person A is just doing their job, while Person B is doing their job and parenting so they are trying.”

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