Sunday mom: women executives talked about their mother's mistakes
'12.03.2019'
Source: Forbes Russia
“There can be no situation where there is not enough time for a family. This is self-deception, ”says Alexandra Barshchevskaya, vice president of the Skolkovo Foundation. Forbes talked with women who have reached career heights and whose children have already grown up, and asked them to share their experiences of motherhood.
Women with big career ambitions often have to choose between work and family. And sometimes, plunging headlong into a working routine, you can miss the most important thing - growing up and becoming your child. Forbes decided to find out whether it is possible to remain a good mother and be successful in work and how, in an attempt to build an ideal career, not to lose contact with your children.
Ekaterina Rybakova, President of the Foundation for the Support of Entrepreneurship and Social Projects of the Rybakov Foundation (4 children - 18 years, 16 years, 12 years, 9 years)
The main mistake is the desire to do many things by itself, without involving children. And even what they could cope with themselves, sometimes did for them. It seemed to me a simpler solution - faster, better, more reliable result. Now I understand that in this way deprived them of the opportunity to replenish the piggy bank of experience, to form useful skills. The main thing that we have with our children and that I really appreciate is contact, trust, mutual understanding and support.
You should not strive to be perfect, the best mom in the world - it drives a woman into a state of catastrophic dissatisfaction and constant guilt. Just being a good mom is enough. Children are angels! They need us the way we are. The period of childhood is very short, so we must strive to live it in happiness.
Alexandra Barshchevskaya, Vice President, Press Secretary of the Skolkovo Foundation (1 child - 25 years)
I am arrogant, and I want to think that I have not made many mistakes in raising my daughter. I gave birth when I was a little older than 20. What mistakes could make such a young woman? The main thing is not very attentively listening to your child. I asked this question to an adult daughter, and she replied that I had paid her little attention. I was focused on something else - that was the main mistake.
You need to hear your children, to observe what is happening in their lives, regardless of how bright positive or negative events occur in you. There can be no situation when there is not enough time for a family. This is self-deception. If you are interested in the business in which you are engaged, it, of course, passionately captures you. And in this situation, everything else can go into the background, the work absorbs. This should not be allowed in any case. Dips in the relationship with the child can be formed, which are very hard to fill up later, - then nothing can restore the lack of your attention to the child by 100 percent, you lose time. Then you can not understand why your child has changed so much.
While you are passionate about work, he has already read something, talked to someone, has accumulated a sum of knowledge and sensations, he has had a leap in development. Therefore, it is constantly necessary to be very sensitive and attentive to the inner world of the child, despite the exciting professional life.
Margarita Koshman, partner in the Russian office of Spencer Stuart (2 children - 24 years and 8 years)
I sincerely believe that being a parent is the most difficult role for a person. And mistakes are inevitable. Especially with the first children, then you become wiser, you see better the main thing, you learn from mistakes. But you admit new ones, because children are different, and time is different.
The most important thing is the trust between you and the child and the ability to become a support for him. I fully agree with the psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya. Ambitious moms who are used to constantly setting goals for themselves and others quickly have goals for their children - by education, sports, and languages. But what is most important for mom in the scale of life? Not exactly the ability of a child to speak three languages. And the opportunity to advise in a difficult, difficult moment, the confidence that you know what is in your heart and soul with your son or daughter, happiness always remain part of their life. And this is given only by the demonstration of unconditional love.
Giving the child the right to throw something is possible, but on one condition - you need to achieve the first results. With the second child, I made a mistake when I gave the installation: “Try, do not like it - throw it and try something else.” As a result, there was a series of tests that left no skills. But the trick is that all people, both large and small, start to get pleasure from activities only by attaining at least the minimum level of skill. And in the beginning it is almost always work and torment. The task of the parent is to motivate and support at this difficult stage. And leave the freedom of choice further.
Olga Eremeeva, former CEO of PANDORA, founder of Baccalea (1 child - 25 years)
I was a “Sunday” mom, and before 13 was my son, my grandparents were raised mostly. The doctors looked at me with undisguised surprise when, an hour after the birth, I hobbled to the phone to call for work and find out how the annual report was being prepared. And two weeks later I went to work. In 13, the son went to study in England and returned from there to Russia already an absolutely adult and independent man.
We do not make mistakes. Any life situation is our lessons, and any decision is the most correct one at the moment when we accept it. For me, the lesson was the understanding that in order to achieve intimacy, you still need to spend more time with your children and loved ones. Share interests, seek common hobbies. Then even a small amount of time will be a vivid memory of intimacy. And it is also very important to enjoy small victories and be proud of even the small achievements of their children. Because it is through them that the road to great victories goes.
Elena Latysheva, owner of the TRIO group of companies, chairman of the board of the group of medical companies Expert (4 children - 25 years, 23 years, 9 years, 1 years)
I am sure that my children will never say that they did not have enough of my attention. Because I understand that each of us has many different roles: daughter, mother, wife, sister, leader, partner, mentor. I work out each of them so that in the next life my spouse only searches for me, the children dream of the kind of mother I was, and my colleagues wanted them to have the same leader. When I come home, turn off all the roles, except the role of the mother and beloved.
If you are a young mother and want to pursue your development and career, do not try to make a choice between family and work. You do not have to persuade yourself that for another month or year you need to work intensively, putting it in priority and feeling guilty that you have already promised yourself several times that priorities will soon change. It is necessary to recognize and accept that the choice in the other is a choice in relation to what you do in the present and how. And then, when there is a lot of work and time for a family is not enough, it is important not how much time you give to the family, but how you spend it.
It is quality, not quantity that matters. If you understand that the time spent on parenting is not enough, remember that “I know how to do things and what is good and what is bad” moral instruction is the worst thing you can think of. The best upbringing tools are a personal example, as well as the willingness to listen, hear and accept what is bothering the child now, ability to ask what is good and what is not very good through questions and reasoning.
