'Working from home is the best thing that happened to me, why would I vote against it?

Mum-of-two Andrea Hanifin writes about how her experience working from home will influence her vote in the March 8 referendum

Sun, 03 Mar, 2024 - 20:00

As a mother of two small children, Andrea Hanifin is a full-time employee of a large Irish corporate entity and works from home. She shares her personal views on what she sees as a potential misinterpretation of articles 41.2.1° and 41.2.2° in the upcoming Referendum. Instead, Andrea encourages working mothers to consider the actual language under scrutiny.

From her perspective, being based at home is nothing to be ashamed of. And given the number of women knocking on her employer's door since the launch of its new hybrid working policy, it’s quite the opposite.

Many women, as it turns out, want to work at home more, to maximise the time spent with their children. Andrea’s recent promotion while working from home is proof that employers are taking working mothers’ commitment seriously, despite their location.

If this is the case, Andrea asks, perhaps the Government might do something similarly positive, by making it easier for more mothers to work from home through policy changes.

Our homes are no longer places to break free from, they are canvases for us to create new types of lives; colleagues, children, and cappuccinos all blending into each other (mostly) harmoniously.

My workplace was reasonably supportive of working mothers before covid-19, now its policy is genuinely supportive. A happy mum is an even happier employee it turns out. The daily commute swapped for misty morning walks to school. Evening pickups no longer anxiety-fuelled sweat fests. Minders bribed to stay past six gladly a thing of the past.

All the time saved conscientiously redistributed back into the family and its myriad of needs. Sometimes even for myself. A dance class, a shower and a home-cooked snack all possible in a 60-minute lunch break. These are game-changing prospects in the confines, or rather, the expanses of our own homes.

So why, would we want to change a thing about this time management revolution of ours? In fact, shouldn’t we be looking to make this new-found situation work harder for all working mothers? And so I find myself wondering why on earth we’d remove this compliment to working mothers from the Irish Constitution: “The State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved”. Shouldn’t we instead, wear it like a badge of honour?

We’ve heard it a million times. It makes our skin crawl. But where did it come from? ‘Women's place is in the home’, is an idiom originally attributed to the Greeks and handed down through the centuries by numerous writers, political and otherwise.

A diminishing and reductive phrase that is universally insulting to women. Unbefitting, especially given the record number of Irish women in the workplace. But that phrase doesn’t appear in our Constitution. And so the existing language is actually fitting, given my current work and parent-from-home scenario.

Is it helpful then that some media coverage and debate uses misleading, gendered language about women that has been (inadvertently) misconstrued over the decades? Triggering women into feeling shame for staying at home is cruel. Why are we work-away-from-home-centric?

'Supporting mothers to fulfil a duty of care to young children therefore shouldn’t be another thing to brush under the carpet.'

Is dragging ourselves to offices to get ahead the only way to do things? My recent promotion, while working from home during the pandemic, proves that ‘home-motions’ are now a thing, but can we make it a norm?

My mother gave up her ‘good job’ when she had me. So many of our mothers did. It was an obligation for some or an expectation held by others in 20th-century Ireland. While my mother continues to tell me to this day that it was the “best decision she ever made”, I know she softens the story to console me.

Perhaps the burden of resentment I carried on her behalf spurred me on. Being the first generation of my family to graduate from University and enter into an open and (seemingly) equal job market felt like an antidote. But herein lies another complication, now I’m at the mercy of the exact inversion of my mother’s scenario. I can’t not work. What kind of cruel twist of fate have we served ourselves here?

My husband and I both work to afford a mortgage, pay bills and childcare fees.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to work (and at home, which makes it as easy as it can be). But there’s no way to sugarcoat it, we’re dependent on two full-time salaries.

There are times when I wish I didn’t have this kind of unavoidable obligation. And so when it's promised that the “State shall endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home,” perhaps the Government might reconsider its duty here? I certainly am keenly aware of mine, as I juggle the responsibilities to that of my children, wider family, and employer.

Removing this clause seems to let the State off the hook. Supporting mothers to fulfil a duty of care to young children therefore shouldn’t be another thing to brush under the carpet. Why do we seem to always avoid, instead of tackling the hard truths?

Yes, fighting for equal rights in the workplace is valiant, and was once the form of liberal feminism I subscribed to. But it completely ignores the biological imperatives of mothers, and their inclination to nurture children at home. It turns out that having the best of both worlds ultimately can mean the worst. Working mothers carry the burden of two opposed identities.

Bread-winning and bread-making, are tiring tasks in isolation and even more so together. I often wonder why we don’t speak up as much as we should. Are we simply too busy? Or worse, too embarrassed? Either way, it might be about time to trade in the baggage of the past.

Since covid, more mothers have had a taste of working from home. It can offer all sorts of sweet deals, especially when parental responsibilities leave time in short supply. Dismissing the fact that mothers have a unique (and once sacrosanct) place in society shouldn’t be the strategy we choose. Confronting the institutional bias against the inconvenience of lost time to pregnancy, maternity leave and child-rearing should be.

And while I welcome fathers and all carers (I was once one myself to an elderly neighbour) to be included in our Constitution, I would prefer that it was side-by-side with mothers.

The reality is that working mothers exist, they play an invaluable role in our society, and everyone benefits — let’s not ask them to deny it.