Learning from Others: The Changing Role of the Parent (Part 1)

My Family Care asks Kate: Juggling the ever busy lives of the 21st century is sometimes hard, especially when one of those responsibilities is parenting. How do you think the role of the parent has changed in the workplace? How has the role of parent adapted to fit with a work life balance? What differences do you notice and how do you cope?

First day jitters

My colleague's daughter just started school for the first time and she thinks that her daughter is adjusting better than she is. The irony of the role reversal was not lost on her when, on the first day of school, her daughter squeezed her hand reassuringly and said "It's OK Mummy, you can go to work now". She then smilingly waved goodbye as my colleague left the school, turned a corner and promptly burst into proud tears.

My colleague's story made me think - the small amount I have learnt so far in the extraordinary and fantastic journey of being a parent is that my own mindset and life must adapt as my children grow and develop. Something seemingly as simple as starting school requires considerable adaptation, not only emotionally but also practically. All working parents face the same questions - what changes do we make to our working day? Can I arrive or leave work earlier or later to fit in the school run? How will childcare need to change? How will I make sure I'm there for those events that are important to me and, more critically, that are important to my child?

And these are only the minutiae of the many dilemmas of modern working parents. The larger, more philosophical questions loom large in the background - how do you divide caring responsibilities? What is the right balance between a successful career and being a successful parent? Is the modern, aggressively technological world a help or a hindrance?

Working parent

Clearly, a parent's working environment has an enormous impact on these questions. My firm, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, is one of the leading international law firms with over 2,500 lawyers providing business law advice in 28 offices throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the US. We pride ourselves on the quality of advice we provide and on our commitment to client service.

Making our environment as family friendly as possible is a continuous work in progress on which we are very focused. There is no easy answer and, a bit like raising children, what works for one of our offices may not work for others. We are building on the good foundations already in place and are making progress.

Feedback is key

So, what are we doing? We have asked all our offices to review their maternity offering. In London, feedback was that our new mothers felt that they needed more support on their return to work, both professionally and personally. Returning mothers told us that, although they knew that many at Freshfields had done it before them; they didn't know where to start in considering childcare or the most effective way to manage their ongoing career. So we have changed our approach to maternity. Working closely with My Family Care, we have examined every element of our offering and, where necessary, made changes to enable a much more joined up, holistic approach.

Of course, maternity is only the beginning of the long family journey so we have also looked at our families network. We aim to cover every aspect of family life in the regular seminars, including topics such as "the 60 minute father", eldercare, infant first aid and teenage issues. We also have a number of longer term projects - promoting more flexible working alternatives and creative resourcing of transactions - encouraging more to follow those who have shown, at all levels, that it can be done without compromise to client service or family life.

Learning from others

Role models seem to us to be key. We have many people at Freshfields who juggle work and family life successfully in many different ways. In the past, they didn't always talk about it, but we are encouraging more openness and as more and more people share their experiences, seeing really does become believing.

In the spirit of my last paragraph, I should admit that my "colleague" was actually me. I have just about adjusted - until the next change...

Kate Burns, Head of Central Team Projects, Mother of two