The juggle is real: Can working mums really have it all?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
This is a podcast by The Straits Times.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (0:09)
Hi, I'm Vanessa Chelvan, and welcome to The Motherload, a five-part podcast series by The Straits Times. This is a space for honest conversations about the juggle, the 9 to 5, the 5 to 9, and everything in between. Real talk about navigating the mess and the magic of being a working mum. When I first found out I was pregnant, I cried angry tears. I had just finished my masters and it felt like my career was finally taking off. Honestly, it took me weeks to accept that I was going to become a mother. And then came the second shock. I was having twins.
Something drastically shifted in me and I decided to quit my job. When the twins were about a year old, I went back to work and joined millions of other women in this daily juggle between career and carer between being a good mother and a good employee. Can working moms truly have it all?
Joining my balancing act today is Jacinth Liew.

**Jacinth Liew** (1:11)
Hi Vanessa. Thanks for having me.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (1:12)
Of course. So Jacinth, you're a former teacher who dreamed of being principal, but your career priorities changed after you had your first child.

**Jacinth Liew** (1:22)
Yes.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (1:23)
And now you have a popular Instagram account, Our Little Play Nest. Tell me about that.

**Jacinth Liew** (1:28)
Yeah. So I'm a positive parenting coach. So I empower parents with research-backed positive parenting strategies so they can better connect and communicate with their children. And I realized that what I learned during teacher training very much aligns with how our children grow and develop. And if we can understand the developmental stages, what they go through, what they need and how we can communicate with them, it makes parenting much easier.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (1:52)
And you do all this while wrangling your own kids, now in primary 6 and primary 4, right? There's PSLE year.

**Jacinth Liew** (1:58)
So there's a joke, right? I was telling my friends, we quit our 9 to 5 to work 24-7.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (2:04)
That is so true, actually. Yeah. Sometimes after a full weekend, I come to work and I'm like, ah, you know, this is...

**Jacinth Liew** (2:11)
It's really hard.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (2:12)
Yeah. This is a break, kind of. I was hesitating. I was like, what if my boss is listening? This is a break, coming to work on Monday.
You know, you talked a bit about your transition from Miss Liew to mum to parenting coach now.

**Jacinth Liew** (2:25)
Was it worth it?

**Vanessa Chelvan** (2:27)
Wow.

**Jacinth Liew** (2:29)
I think for sure it's worth it. I wouldn't regret spending more time with my kids.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (2:33)
Yeah.

**Jacinth Liew** (2:34)
Yeah. But it's not easy.
It looks rosy. And it seems like I have it all, but I don't.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (2:42)
That shift in identity, it is very real. And I feel like a lot of mums, you know, feel it as they navigate, you know, leaving work to... on maternity leave or coming back. When my boys were about three or four, I quit my job.
Because I was, you know, I was kind of feeling guilty. I wasn't spending much time with them. I wanted to be more present, right? I think that's what a lot of mums kind of grapple with. But when I did so, I struggled a lot. You know, I thought, who am I now? I am only mama, which is the most important job in the world, right? But I think for me, I was just like, I also need something else.

**Jacinth Liew** (3:17)
I don't think we want to say that, you know, staying at home is the way or working is the way. But both, I mean, it's a choice that we all made.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (3:26)
Yeah.

**Jacinth Liew** (3:26)
Yeah. And the guilt will always be there. I don't know.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (3:30)
Yeah, that's true.

**Jacinth Liew** (3:31)
If you're working, you feel guilty about leaving your kids at home. If you're at home, you feel guilty that, you know, you're not having that sense of purpose, identity. Your parents send you, you know, to study, and now you're just a stay at home parent.

**Vanessa Chelvan** (3:46)
Which is actually harder, I feel. Parents come to you for coaching when they are at their limit. What are they actually describing to you?

**Jacinth Liew** (3:55)
So they will share that they are very overwhelmed, that they don't get help from their partners, and they are not able to regulate their own emotions as well. So we realize that even though we are parenting the child in front of us, we are actually parenting the inner child, like how it was like when we were growing up, how our parents guide us. But we know whatever that we apply, it may not work for our children now, because we are growing up in a very different world compared to then. Yeah. So these are some things that they really struggle a lot with.