The relationship between forming a family and one’s career development has always been closely related. Many people look on as they see how their most fertile and energetic years pass on by while they concentrate all their efforts on developing a successful career, resulting in some serious internal conflict and retrospect. Can maternity affect our professional life? Can our professional life affect maternity ? When is that perfect moment?
The pressure which many people put themselves under to achieve specific goals professionally can be an impediment when trying to form a family both for the new parents as well as for the corporations. The first group mentioned because from one day to the next they have before them something which will change their priority list completely. The second because of the bad work practice which continues to exist in the job market today.
The reasons for delaying maternity.
One of the reasons which most affects and delays maternity , in the case of professional women is precisely this uncertainty with respect to their company’s behaviour when they decide to take that all important step. Sadly today it’s still far too prevalent for women who opt for maternity at a given moment and watch while they see their old work position degrade, their responsibilities diminish or find that their previous status is not maintained by their employer.
Maternity leave , longer than that of paternity is the fact which is responsible for why a little over half of the new mums return to their old work timetable when they begin to work again compared to new dads who are practically all able to return to their old working schedule according to data from the International Work Organisation which is ample proof that this type of discrimination is alive and kicking in the workplace today and represents a serious obstacle for women who are trying to coordinate work and family life.
In fact although it shouldn’t be this way , until not too long ago the general consensus was exactly like that. And not just by companies but also by women themselves. A barometer for the Centre for Sociological studies concluded that in Spain six out of ten women considered that maternity represented an obstacle in terms of their career development. Regardless of whether the response was or was not conditioned by the environment, the answers to the questions suggested by the CIS showed that the idea, irrespective of its origin, was widely extended and accepted in the social strata. Sadly this discrimination at work with respect to issues regarding maternity is more common than one would wish for, with cases like this one, which provokes a negative effect in many women’s perspective at the time of deciding to become a mother and in what moment to do so.
Is delaying maternity the solution?
Before this conundrum, many women chose to delay maternity. This enables them to fully develop their career over a longer period so that when the time comes to start a family their work position is more stable and consolidated and less vulnerable to fluctuations in the workplace.
It is true to say that one’s professional development shouldn’t be conditioned by maternity, waiting to reach a certain age to look to become pregnant has several emotional , professional and even economic benefits. In this respect, treatments such as ovule vitrification are the perfect ally for women who opt for maternity at a later date: it allows them to freeze their oocytes at an earlier age, at the peak of their fertile period, so that later they can take advantage of these biological and technological resources and so achieve pregnancy.
Ultimately the reasons which can delay maternity, can originate from one’s own career development to that of the company’s, it can even derivate from one’s social sphere, however current technology gives us the possibility of opting to form a family with a full guarantee where health is concerned. With the assisted reproductive treatments in the correct hands, not even one’s professional life would be an excuse to becoming mum: however late it may seem, it just simply wouldn’t be.
In our Reproductive Assistance Units in Alicante and Valencia we will supply you with all the information you may need and put at your disposal our innovative installations together with the best team of experts who will help you achieve your objective by means of the treatment which best suits your needs and possibilities.
Other articles which may interest you:
Advantages of following a fertility treatment program in Spain
Maternity at 40: advantages and disadvantages of this decision
