Oh The Guilt! - Sex and the City

4/20/2017

Oh the Guilt! - Sex and the City by Pillow Talk Girl

Oh The Guilt...Sex and the City Season 6
Written by: Pillow Talk Gal

It’s one of the most challenging things any mother (single or not) has to learn to cope with:

How to balance motherhood/family life and a career.

For nine months we go through pregnancy, coping with our ever changing bodies, preparing for the day when baby will arrive. We setup the room; making sure we have every detail taken care of (baby clothes, toys, strollers, car seats, etc...).

Before you know it the day has arrived and you are happier than you ever thought possible. You bring your new bundle of joy home and you learn what being a mom entails (little to no sleep, what seems like endless diaper changes and cleaning clothes, bottles and other baby related paraphernalia).

Eventually you get the hang of the whole baby thing (schedule and otherwise) and you’ve hit your stride. You have it all together. You feel like you have this baby thing under control and you are the super hero of moms (at the very least a side kick).

Then the day you’ve been dreading more than the labour pains, hits.

You have to go back to your job.

Suddenly, you have to trade in your mom card and go back to being ‘’professional’’ you.

You hand in your diaper genie and get an upgrade to a briefcase.

It feels weird, unnatural and somehow all wrong!

In season 6 of Sex and the City (episode 6- Hop, Skip and a Jump) Miranda is facing just such a challenge. She has been back to work for a little while now and has acquired help from her trusted house keeper, Magda, to look after her infant son Brady.

One morning, Miranda is running late for work when Magda arrives at the apartment to start her day.

As all working mothers must do, Miranda relinquishes care of Brady to the help and sets off on her day to work.

As she is leaving, Brady begins to howl at seeing his mama leave his sight. Although she knows she loves her job, Miranda is riddled with guilt at leaving her baby boy.

None the less, she sets of on her long day of work.

Later that day, Miranda is summoned to a meeting (for which she believes involves a case she has been working tirelessly on for her law firm). She arrives in a bit of a rush and immediately begins to give the partners of the firm her assessment of how her case is going.

They quickly interrupt her, informing her that the meeting is with regards to her work performance and not her cases.

They mention that they have noticed her missing time, being late for meetings and leaving early on certain occasions. Miranda, being the ultimate professional she is, makes no excuses for herself and states that those issues will no longer be a problem. She also takes the time to mention (you know, casually in passing) that as a lawyer, her performance has been unflawed but as a mother she felt like a failure.

She gracefully leaves the room, and takes the time to remind the partners that when her mother passed, she happened to be at work the following Monday (only having missed 1 day).

That evening, Miranda rushes home in the hopes of being able to spend some quality time with Brady. As she arrives home, she proclaims ‘’I’m here, I’m here!’’ to Magda, but to her disappointment Miranda discovers that Brady has been in bed for the past hour.

She is so disappointed not only to find out that she missed spending time with her son, but also at herself.

She feels like a failure as a parent!

Why is it so difficult being a working mother?

It’s such a struggle to be successful at both. The more time we spend being good at one, the more time we end up feeling like a failure at the other.

Is there a happy medium?

The business world places so much emphasis on being successful at our careers and there is so much pressure to perform.

On the other hand, choosing to spend time and invest in our children is seen as slacking off.

When a working mom needs to leave work because their child is sick, it is often met with scorn and disapproval (from colleagues and superiors a like).

If there happens to be an occasion where a mother needs a day off to attend an event for their child, they are often either denied this opportunity, or are forced to lie about the reasons they need the day off (for example ‘’my car broke down’’, ‘’I was robbed’’, you get the idea).

The business world invests millions of dollars everyday into a multitude of business ventures, so how is it they don’t put the same value on investing into children, who essentially are our future leaders.

Why does society shun stay at home moms instead of praising them for raising well rounded kids?

It would be nice to have an equal balance of both worlds (family and career) so that working women could avoid the feeling of failure all together and just feel fulfilled, all the while enjoying success both in and outside of the family unit.

About Pillow Talk Gal

Born and raised in British Columbia, she is a professional woman managing a career, marriage, and a teenager. Life can be challenging at times but she's a firm believer that everything in life happens for a reason, and more often than not, she tries to understand those reasons.

"Join me in my journey throughout life’s issues and I guarantee you’ll be left pondering an issue or two." - Pillow Talk Gal

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*Disclaimer: Sex and the City was produced by HBO and all rights, titles and interests in any images or clips, used herein under Fair Use and Fair Copying, remain the property of the author.

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