That is what my mother, grandmother, mother-in-law did and what the women around me have done. Maybe, what sparked my insight was the discussion about Rachida Dati, the French cabinet minister who went back to work five days after giving birth to her daughter by caesarean section. It made me think about what I would've done and why only now that my children are at University, do I feel free to claim all the time I need for my work?

I don't think I would've gone back after five days but I also felt angry about the either-or discussions that sparked her decision. It is this either-or thinking that stopped me from being completely visible to myself as a mother and encouraged me to put my desire for a life of my own on the back burner until I am less needed. In my family the either-or thinking is firmly on the side of the child's needs because their is no understanding that mothers have needs or a life of their own. This either-or thinking shames women into feeling guilty about their needs and their desire for a life that is fulfilling to them, on their terms and by their definition.

Too many women in the Women's Power Circles share how unsupportive other women have been to them when they combined motherhood with work. If Rachida Dati was a man who had just had a baby five days earlier, no one would've blinked an eyelide when he returned to work to secure his position in the cabinet. That behaviour would've been completely normal. And if he had said that he was taking his two weeks of paternity leave, he would've been applauded for it. Why is it so different for women? Why are women still viewed through a narrow lens and when they become mothers, the lens narrows even further?

I like to live my life by diminishing regret. But I have to admit that I regret how invisible I have been to myself as a mother. I wish that another woman would've taught me how to feel entitled to my life and realise that claiming my life isn't detrimental to my children's wellbeing, it actually enhances it. My wish is that women change this either-or discussion of what mothers are allowed to do and not allowed to do. My wish is that parenting is no longer seen as just the mother's job and that women are supported to find their own balance between mothering their children and themselves.

Rosjke Hasseldine is an author , speaker, relationship consultant, and psychotherapist. She is one of only a few psychotherapists in the world to specialise in the mother-daughter relationship. She has been researching the mother-daughter relationship for twenty years and has been featured in a number of magazines and newspapers, namely - Red, She, Cosmopolitan, Prima, The Times, Nottingham Evening Post and on BBC Radio Nottingham.

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