I used to apologise for my unruly children – but there’s no shame in being a working mother | Emma Armstrong

The expectation that parents can neatly compartmentalise their professional and domestic lives is an unfair one

I was on national radio when the words “Mummy, I need a poo-ooo” assaulted my (and the nation’s) ears. This time, my toddler had waited for me to be on a live broadcast to announce she needed me. But it wasn’t the first time I had felt upstaged and mortified by motherhood.

One of the many unspoken rules of being a parent is that you must maintain high levels of professionalism at all times. While it’s cool to be a slummy mummy, it’s also emphatically uncool to point out that mothers who work have several responsibilities that can’t always be compartmentalised.

Emma Armstrong is a freelance writer and the author of I Used to Think Vegans Were Dicks

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