In offices around the country women decide not to return from maternity leave, the answer is assumed that the draw of motherhood is stronger than ambition, confidence and work ethic but in my case it came down to a simple lack of choice.
Being a "millenial woman", I threw myself into my career with optimism and hard work. Quick to get promoted, I was in a leadership role by my mid-twenties. I'd heard about the glass ceiling, about the drop-off in female representation at senior levels, but I felt it didn't apply to me. Although I wanted a family one day I believed that the workplaces of today were different from those that previous generations of women contended with. I was ambitious, confident and eager to develop, I thought I would thrive.
The company that I worked for seemed to be forward thinking. Female managers and board members were becoming more visible, employee engagement and development seemed to be high priorities. A noticeable exception however was around flexible working and motherhood, it seemed a particular taboo and women with young children were largely absent from junior management positions upwards. Maternity returners were spoken of in hushed tones, and flexible working requests were dropped into meetings where the general consensus was, "don't do it, don't set a precedent".
I thought it would be different by the time I had a baby, it wasn't. When I realised that juggling a full time (and then some) job with a baby was going to result in me doing both jobs less well than I would have been happy with, I tried to open up a discussion about flexible working. In the end I wasn't even given a chance to submit my case. Responses ranged from, "see how you feel, may women feel that work is less important when the baby arrives", to the blunt, "you are entitled to put in a flexible working request but it isn't something we'd consider".
In the end I was left with two choices. I believed that I had a constructive, reasonable case why my role could be more flexible, I could take it to a tribunal and fight for it. Alternatively, I could accept that after six years of hard work, the only way I could find a better work/life balance would be to seek it elsewhere. The negativity, warnings and lack of engagement about returning mothers made it clear that even if I won at the tribunal stage, I wouldn't be happy with the outcome. When the possibility of voluntary redundancy was raised it seemed the only solution.
Many would argue that I shouldn't have wanted to have it all, both a job and a family. But what I really wanted was the opportunity to try, to feel some belief in my skills from an employer that had seen me perform well and previously invested in me.
Of course I'm concerned about what my choice has done to my future career prospects. I feel that my skills and talent are wasted for the moment; a search of any company recruitment page will be overwhelmingly, sometimes exclusively full time. Is it really the case that very few jobs can't be balanced with a home life? It becomes a challenging cycle, part time or flexible work is very often lower paid and less prestigious.
While businesses continue to recognise that their employees have a life outside of work and that it would be for the good of society, business and the economy to explore new ways of managing this, working mothers will continue to be sidelined. But don't assume they end up there because of a lack of ambition, they just don't have any other choice.
Follow Catherine Bingham @binghammum
