The children of leading female academics, scientists and university staff have spoken out about growing up with working mothers in a bid to assuage “mum guilt”.
Imperial College London launched the project in a bid to normalise working during motherhood, and asked the grown-up offspring of female staff how they felt when their mum was at work as they grew up.
Many of the children of working mothers who were interviewed spoke of the pride they feel for their mothers, and also said they benefitted from having a mother who worked.
The project, called My Mother Worked at Imperial, aims to ensure women’s careers thrive and that their achievements are celebrated.
Professor Stephen Curry, Assistant Provost at Imperial College said: “We hope that these accounts – from the children of mothers who work at Imperial – will help to assuage any feelings of guilt working mothers at the College might have. We hope they will make all our working mothers realise how proud their work will make their children feel.”
Georgina Alford, whose mother Lesley Cohen is Professor of Solid State Physics at Imperial’s department of Physics, said: “My mother has given me a real inspiration in how I want to live my life, and it’s particularly important for boys to see their mothers working – it makes for a much better attitude towards women.”
The 25-year-old, who is now a civil servant with the Scottish government, added: “When I was younger I was more aware that she just worked incredibly hard and I have a memory of asking her why I didn’t have any brothers and sisters, and why I went to nursery aged six months – unlike my cousins.
“Now I simply have the most enormous respect for what she’s doing and what she’s achieved. It’s incredible how much she does and the way she manages to balance everything. She’s taught me how to be independent and stand on my own two feet, a really important life lesson.”
James McCue, 31, son of Professor Jane Apperley, who is an expert in haematology and campus director of the faculty of medicine at Imperial College, said: “If I was talking to a child worried about their mother going out to work, I would say they’re not going to be away for ever, they’re doing something really important and she could be making a great difference to society. But when push comes to shove, if you need your mum, she’s going to be there for you.”
He added: “My mother’s work gave me a fantastic insight not only into the wonderful institution that is the NHS, but also the key role that universities and research play in developing treatment for a whole range of diseases. Equally her work gave me a huge respect for women at a young age, particularly in leadership positions. I’m sure I would have understood this later but for me it was ingrained from the word go. As a teenager it was incredibly helpful to have that sort of role model – it gave me a work ethic and drive to get on.”
He added that his father was often around, adding: “Without him taking that role, I think she would have felt that much more pressured and it would have been harder for her to have achieved what she did.”
Iona Easton’s mother Julia worked on the Large Hadron Collider before joining Imperial college, where she is now the technical operations manager in the Department for Mechanical Engineering,
Iona, who works at a law firm, said: “It has been tremendously valuable to see my mother juggling work and three children throughout my life – it has given me realistic expectations of what I could expect or hope to achieve in that regard and certainly means that I do not view motherhood and a career as an either-or scenario, which does still seem to be a prevalent opinion.”
