In the lead up to International Women’s Day, Living360 chats to Anna Whitehouse on her campaign, and why mothers are currently set up to fail.
Columnist, radio host, author and campaigner: Anna Whitehouse (otherwise known as Mother Pukka) wears many hats, often at the same time. It begs the question: how does she do it all while juggling parenthood? But that’s the very sentiment that kindles Anna’s fire — because she can’t do it all. According to her, no woman can, really.
“The 21st-century problem is that women are trying to do it all, and we’re crumbling under the pressure,” she explains. “Mothers, by default, shoulder the lion’s share of parenting guilt, but we also work just as much as our partners.”
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Doing it all has long felt intrinsic to womanhood — becoming a mother, going back to work, keeping up a social life, taking care of the home — and most barely bat an eyelash at the thought. It’s become inherent, expected, as though men are tasked with assuming the same cataclysmic combination of roles, but they’re nearly always not.
“As a working mother, I am very aware of the biases that I face that dads don’t,” explains Anna. “I’m the one who gets the call from nursery, from school, from the doctor’s. There’s a certain guilt that comes with working while mothering, which men just don’t have to deal with.”
Anna brings up an interesting contradiction: by nature of women seeking equality, we’re now juggling more than our male counterparts. International Women’s Day is about commemorating this journey but, perhaps, as Anna suggests, we need to reframe equality to fit our own terms.
“Most mums are terrified that flexible working is going to impact their career, but they don’t have the flexibility they need to parent and work without one impacting the other,” says Anna. “What mums have achieved by the time they get to their work desk is no easy feat.”
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What more can be done to help working mothers?
In 2015, Anna quit her job after being denied flexible working. The reason for the refusal? Because it might ‘open the floodgates’ to other employees seeking flexibility.
Since then, flexible working has come a long way, in large part due to the Covid pandemic, but we’re not quite there yet.
“We’re seeing this silent roll-back with rhetoric from certain members of government telling us we need to get ‘back to the office’ — and it’s happening.”
Anna’s Flex Appeal campaign has achieved great things since its conception in 2015, most notably getting a new bill passed in April 2024, which ensured that employees can request flexible working from the first day of employment. It’s a big step for working mothers, but the road doesn’t end here.
“We need to move away from a uniformed perception of what an employee should look like, and we need to understand that working and being a mother brings endless obstacles,” says Anna.
“When we attribute work success to presenteeism, we’re setting mums up to fail. It’s a race we simply can’t win. Instead, we need to refocus on productivity and results, and trust mothers to be able to work around childcare and school.”
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International Women’s Day: more for mums
This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is Give to Gain, which aims to encourage advocates to support the commitment to gender equality. But to really support working mothers, perceptions of equality need to shift.
“Businesses need to advertise their flex and embrace flexible working practices out loud,” says Anna. “The system needs to change so that mothers can thrive, instead of asking parents to twist like pretzels to make it all work.”
What mothers should remember about trying to ‘do it all’
Anna’s advice sounds simple but tends to be forgotten by most women: “Remember that you are human.”
“Your children think you’re the best thing ever, regardless of how much you earn and what you do. The key is balancing your career with your happiness. Whatever you do, don’t believe Instagram, there’s no one who is getting it right.”
Feature image: Anna Whitehouse
