UBC October 2024 - Young vs Old Moms

Welcome back to the October UBC. Today let me share an excerpt from an interview with a German sociology professor who lives in Switzerland. She has some strong opinions about motherhood as a career woman. Disclosure, I did not do this interview, I am translating some of the questions the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger asked:

In Switzerland, over 80% of mothers are in employment, but only one in five of them works full-time. Ms. Rost, you became a mother at the age of 38. Did you want to have a career first?

Actually, I just wanted to have a career. I guess that fits in well with today's picture - the desire to have children has declined dramatically. I wanted to be independent. Children didn't play a role in this life plan because they would have been an obstacle.

Today you have a ten-year-old son. What happened?

I met my husband. He already had a daughter. She was with us a lot, and I had to spend a lot of time with her. That's how the desire to have my own child came about - at the last minute, so to speak.

At what point in your life were you then?

I was already a professor of sociology at the University of Zurich.

And your husband?

He worked in a management position in business, as he does today, and traveled abroad a lot. In other words, he didn't really have time for a second child. He lived in Innsbruck with his daughter, and I lived in Zurich. When my son was born, I was on my own - especially as I don't have any family here either.

Was that the plan?

Yes, my husband didn't want another child. It didn't fit in with his job. It was clear: the child is my wish, so I have to organize it. I said I would manage it. I was lucky that he went along with it at all.

After maternity leave, you immediately went back to work full-time. Why was that?

It also had to do with my position as a professor. Of course I could have worked part-time, perhaps reduced my teaching. But the research, i.e. the majority of it, would have stayed. I would have had less money, but not less to do. What's more, my happiness in life has always been linked to my career. I am a scientist with all my heart. I love doing it. I didn't want to give it up.

Some women want to stay at home or work part-time after the birth of their child, even if it was previously planned differently. What was it like for you?

I was happy that I was able to go back to work. Being a mother was incredibly overwhelming at first. I had to grow into it first. Suddenly there was someone I had to look after. Before that, I had always marched through life selfishly, chasing my own desires. I first had to learn to be there for others again. That was an important process for me. And I'm grateful for that.

You had a full-time job, no family environment in Zurich and were effectively a single parent. How did you manage that?

I was glad that I lived in Switzerland and not in Germany. I found a place in a crèche straight away, but it was expensive.

How expensive?

Our son went to nursery five days a week. We paid almost CHF 4,000 a month for that. That made us swallow hard.

Was it worth it financially?

Yes, of course. We had to pay for three or four years. But we were both able to continue working full-time and didn't have any career setbacks despite having a child. If you do the math at the end of your working life, it's definitely worth it. And the price was the only negative thing. Otherwise, childcare in Switzerland was really exemplary. I could drop the child off at seven in the morning and pick it up again at seven in the evening. It's different in Austria and Germany. Some of the daycare centers there don't open until nine o'clock, and you have to pick the children up again at half past three in the afternoon. How can you make a career out of that? What's more, the nursery staff never treated me like a ravenous mother just because I work one hundred percent. It was different later in kindergarten in Austria.

Did you never have a guilty conscience about leaving your child so early?

No. I always saw it in a positive light. I grew up in the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and it was common practice there to hand children over so early. I only realized over time that there are many Swiss people who see it differently. And to be honest, I find my son much more interesting now at the age of ten than when he was a baby.

What do you mean by that?

You don't really have anyone to talk to with a small child. Back then, the weekend with my son was enough for me. I didn't need an extra mommy day. But everyone has to decide that for themselves.

Did your son also benefit from the crèche?

I think so. At that time, I didn't have much of a social environment in Switzerland and my friends here were all convinced childless people. It was great that my son spent the whole day with other children. That was another reason why I wanted him to go to a childcare facility and not to a childminder. He also certainly benefited from the regular daily routine and the extremely loving care.

And how were you during this time?

I was at the limit. I hardly slept at night and had to get up early to take my son to nursery. I had zero time for myself. I just ran from work to the nursery and was constantly overtired.

And when did you see your husband?

My husband still lived in Innsbruck. His daughter was with him at the weekend. So every Friday evening I got in the car with my son and drove to Austria. That's how it was.

How long did you keep it up?

Four years. When my son started kindergarten, this model no longer worked. We couldn't take him out of his environment every weekend. So my son moved to Innsbruck to live with his father and half-sister. He still lives there today.

And who looks after your son when your husband is away on business?

We've had different models over the years. In the beginning, nannies stayed overnight with us. But there were a lot of changes. That's why we looked for a more stable model and found a really great couple who didn't have children yet. Our son slept with them when my husband and I were away. This meant that the caregivers didn't change so quickly. That worked for a long time - until the couple had children themselves.

How does childcare work today?

Today we have a very interesting model. When none of us are around, our son stays overnight with my husband's ex-wife. At the weekend, his daughter is with us and from time to time our son is with her. Of course, this is also very nice for our son. It's like family for him. Of course, it's not completely conflict-free, but the model has worked well.

Would you do everything the same again today when planning a family?

No, not at all. I see a lot of things differently now. Today I would start a family during my studies.

During your studies, without money? What makes you think that?

A child doesn't cost much at first. It's just our expectations. Childcare is subsidized during your studies and you have much more time for a child. In my mid-twenties, I would have easily crawled out of bed in the middle of the night. In my late thirties and with my position as a professor, it was very exhausting. Sure, I probably wouldn't be with the father of my children today, but I'm sure a solution would have been found.

What advice would you give to young people who want both a career and children?

Have children early. We're always looking for better options in life - better partners, better times - but they don't come. So we waste valuable time. Because children are also a hell of a lot of fun. We've forgotten that a bit these days. And if you have children in your early twenties, they're already pretty independent by the time you reach the hot career phase in your thirties.

You say children. Would you have liked to have had more than one child?

Yes. I think it's a shame that I only have one child. My son is completely different from what I had imagined. I would be interested to see how my other children would have turned out. They are personalities that develop. That's actually the most exciting thing in life. But I was simply far too late for several of them.

And what advice would you give to young people who want to have children and are already in the middle of the hot career phase?

Have the children. Just do it. Don't wait another three years or make the decision dependent on anything in your job. That will resolve itself. Priorities are shifting. I never wanted children, and now my son and family are clearly more important to me than my career. I used to think that only my career could make me happy and satisfied - now I see things differently.

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So this lady is a professor of sociology, which means she deals with social structures, relationships and interactions in society. How is it that she is so unworldly? Children don't cost much to start with? Wasn't she just whining about how much daycare costs? Is it OK to pass both university and childcare on to the taxpayer? 

Having her son sounds a lot like a "project" to me. Her son is very different from what she had imagined, and it would be interesting to find out how any other children would have turned out. 

In my eyes, she abandoned her son. For four years she had to organize her entire daily life around the needs of her child and drive four hours each way at the weekend to see her husband / son's father. As soon as her son started nursery school, for some strange reason this was no longer possible. She didn't always want to tear him away from his social environment. The solution was to permanently remove him from his social environment and leave him with his father. With the father who didn't want a second child, with the father who traveled a lot on business and had to rely on changing babysitters? I'm not feeling the motherly love here, and I can only hope that her son will never read this article.

But let's quit bitching about this lady. I called my post "Young vs Old Moms".

My mother had me young, when she was 22. She had barely finished her training and started her first job when she went on maternity leave - for the next nine years. My Dad was a bit older, but his studies took longer, so he also really just started his career when he became a father. They fist lived in a tiny apartment and didn't have much money.

When I was in third grade and my brother in Kindergarten, she went back to work part-time. Luckily in her field (she was a Kindergarten teacher) it wasn't too hard to get back into her profession.

She always told me that I should live it up first, go traveling, have fun, you can have a family for a long time. Not that I explicitly listened to her, but that's exactly what I did. 

Although my husband and I had no financial worries and brought good life experience to the role of parenting, the physical strain of being an “older mother” was certainly greater for me personally. By that I mean the lack of sleep and the associated nervous strain. 

Thanks to the career and the network I had built up, I was able to continue working part-time without any problems, and in a good job. Had I spent almost a decade as a stay at home Mom like my own mother did, I'd have had the hardest time finding a job that corresponds with my background, especially part-time.

It all has advantages and disadvantages. I also found it a disadvantage at times with the other moms in the playground or at school events. Most of them were younger and had different interests / attitudes.

All in all, my path has been right for me, and I am happy and blessed that I got to spend several days a week with my son. I mean, looking back, it all went down extremely quickly anyway. I probably blinked..?

What are your thoughts on this?