This sincere letter was sent by 29-year-old Tatiana to the editors of Psychologies after reading one of our articles. Seeing in it a topic that worries many today, we publish it together with a commentary by psychotherapist Margarita Zhamkochyan.
“I’m a working woman and I have a complicated relationship with success. One day I came across a material about working women: why they are afraid of success. This time you hit a nerve: you see, I was even about to write a letter.
The main point of the article was that society offers modern women a challenge that they refuse to accept due to internal complexes (“Cinderella complex”), unwillingness to take responsibility (“enchanted submission”), feelings of guilt towards the family and generally accepted stereotypes. And so – nothing stops our Russian modern working women in their pursuit of career heights …
No matter how! I am a department director in a large Russian company, I am 29 years old. I graduated from the university. I’ve been married for nine years, I have a three-year-old smart daughter. We have two fashionable cars (by status), a well-furnished three-room apartment, our own land, where my husband and I plan to start building a house this year.
I realize with horror that I see my child for half an hour a day and one, often incomplete, Sunday
I have traveled half the world on business, and I can also afford to rest wherever I point my finger on the map. My “market value” has quintupled over the past five years. My husband and I fully support our retired parents, and I also pay for the treatment of my paralyzed father. I achieved everything in my life on my own: no one patronized me, not a single material thing was given to me as a gift …
And now the other side of the coin. Every morning I start by taking vitamins, otherwise I won’t get out of bed – I usually get up at 6.20 to get to the office on time. During the day, I drink up to five cups of coffee and smoke one and a half packs of cigarettes. I come home around 10-11 pm.
On Saturday, if I don’t go to work again, I sleep until at least 12. It’s forbidden for a child to wake up his mother, “otherwise, mother will be tired and angry.” However, if the mobile phone rings, I wake up – this is sacred. I can’t sleep at night without a sedative. I go on vacation once a year (two weeks), and my phone constantly rings …
With each new career step, I had to part with something. Having switched to my first serious job, I stopped doing my hobby (sculpting and drawing). Then we began to see friends and relatives less often (congratulations on the holidays by phone and promises to call in eventually came to naught), then the fitness center disappeared.
You touched on painful problems for me: the place of a woman in modern society, her choice, her difficulties
Now I understand with horror that I see my child for half an hour a day and one, often incomplete, Sunday. At the same time, I strive, taking the girl by the hand, to drop into the store or leave her to wait while I do my manicure. It is hardly worth talking about some quality of such communication. Work takes not only time, but also mental strength.
A couple more words about my leader. He is a year younger than me and in general is no better than me. When I first saw him, I had two thoughts. First: “Let’s see, let’s see why you are in this post.” And the second: “What a strange purple-green bruises under his eyes …”
Having worked under his leadership, I can say the following: God forbid, he will not stand it and quit, God forbid! Neither I nor any of his other direct reports would be happy to take his place. Why? Do not assume that a high post is only a great car, an office, a huge salary and bonuses. Only those who see big bosses only in TV shows think so, where their main pastime is novels with secretaries. I don’t know anything about my boss’s personal life and I don’t know what energy tonics and sedatives he prefers.
And now I ask you to answer my question: what internal complexes prevent me from moving to the next career step? Is my feeling of guilt towards the child justified, and how should I be comforted by the idea that this feeling is not constructive? No one tells a widow weeping in a cemetery that her tears are not constructive…
The consumer society drives women to work. And men have long since had nothing against
In short, you touched on problems that hurt me: the place of a woman in modern society, her choice, her difficulties and how to deal with them, how to maintain an emotional background, where to take strength. In my opinion, Russian women make a career and are not afraid to do so. They are hindered not by internal problems and complexes, but by the state of society.
Europe should not be used as an example: people there today work three times less intensively than we do. The work that I and my two assistants do is done by my German colleague’s department of five people. This is despite the fact that in the West they know how to calculate personnel costs. The same German colleague of mine has a wonderful free kindergarten a stone’s throw from home and one nanny. And I have two nannies and a commercial kindergarten for big money – only I can trust him. Rather, only there, if anything, I can ask someone.
My German colleague rests 28 days a year. She works eight hours a day, she has hobbies and sports. She knows exactly how many years she will pay off her home loan and what awaits her in retirement. But I’m far from sure that, having invested a lot of time, money (what it means to have a huge unpaid loan in modern Russian society, I think it’s not necessary to explain) and strength in the construction of our house, my husband and I will not be alone there in old age.
Who knows, suddenly my daughter at 18 will say: “I’m sorry, mom, I don’t know you, and I don’t need your house. You were not around at all the important moments of my life, so why do you think that I owe you time now, in your old age, when you need me? I needed you, not this house.”
Why not start by discussing what a women’s career is in general, is it needed and what is it worth?
The consumer society drives women to work. And men have long since had nothing against it. They have relieved themselves of all possible responsibilities – for their children, their women, for their own path and career – and are only happy if a friend works on an equal footing, and ideally more.
At the same time, by imposing a stereotype about a desired career, we are not relieved of other responsibilities and stereotypes – mothers, wives. Society is quick to judge us if we don’t give birth or take care of children, if we don’t know how to cook, or if our house is like a dump. And if, God forbid, you got fat or didn’t have time to get a manicure, or you have an unfashionable suit, you can’t count on anything at all.
It’s very difficult for us. Moreover, just physical exertion from hard, on a par with men, work is nothing compared to psychological pressure. Why don’t you write about it? Not that my guilt towards the child is not constructive. Thanks, I’m aware.
How can I live with him. And how others live with it. Why not start by discussing what a women’s career is in general, is it needed and what is it worth? I don’t think that it should be considered a priori as an absolute good for everyone, something that each of us should strive for.”
Are we very tired?
According to the book The 9 NLP Principles for Highly Effective People:
- 50% of today’s leaders admit that they feel so exhausted that they can only spend energy on work and sleep.
- 30% feel they are not in complete control of their own lives.
- 20% say they can’t enjoy it to the fullest because of stress.
- 76% feel like spending more time with their family.
“Develop to keep up with yourself”
Psychologies: What would a psychologist say to the author of the letter?
Margarita Zhamkochyan: It rarely happens that a person is inside the problem and so clearly aware of it. Tatyana does not try to hide, or justify herself, or come to terms with the situation.
The imbalance between career, wealth and personal happiness is not only relevant in modern Western society, but also leads to deep and drastic changes in a woman’s life: life values change, emotional life becomes different, physiology is rebuilt: metabolism and even the cycle changes, the first children are born at a later age.
Women are gradually occupying a male niche in society, and this inevitably affects their personal development. One way or another, every working woman feels it.
What trap does she fall into?
It is difficult for her to agree to a decrease in her income: money is needed to choose the best for children, to provide a decent life for her parents, to live in comfortable housing, to be able to travel, although this minimizes communication with her child, loved ones and, most importantly, herself. It is impossible for her to accept everything as it is and enjoy life, it is unbearable to listen to banal advice. And it seems that the situation is hopeless, or rather, there is only one way out: to go further and further, bogging down deeper and deeper …
Is there any other solution?
Today, many are looking for a kind of “mechanical” balance – between family and work, between self-realization and raising children … But such a balance requires compromises and sacrifices from us, and it’s not about balance.
Enormous development opportunities have opened up before a woman, but she personally does not keep up with them. Her moral dilemma and guilt are connected not only with the fact that she devotes little time to the child, but also with the fact that she is more interested in another place – at work.
But if we use the latest technologies at work and at home, then maybe we should stop communicating with children in the old fashioned way? The transformation of a person’s inner life into a project no less ambitious and interesting than a career one requires not just development, but a real transformation, a metamorphosis of personality. It just seems to us that “time is not rubber”: in fact, everything important in our life always has its place.