Promote stay-at-home mothers from housewife status to project manager
I’ve managed projects for several years, and there is one fact that will never change; you cannot learn how to be a project manager from a book. Good project managers learn from their mistakes and from varied experience.
Experience can be classed as different sized projects, working with different people, different terrains, different countries, different industries, and the list is endless.
Learning project management at university or the so called PMP qualification is just ‘noise’. It has no relevance and certainly does not qualify the candidate to become a project manager. Perhaps it could work in sectors where one has to collect lemons from a tree, but it certainly is and will not be accepted in sectors such as oil and gas, where common sense prevails!
Communication, having the right team members, processes and procedures, careful logistics, strong management of supply chain, are all key ingredients of the perfect project.
Maintaining schedule, quality and cost is the key to success.
However, I don’t see a designation in the job section as ‘office husband’ or ‘office wife’. So, why are stay-at-home mothers called housewives as a designation in applications, school forms, NHS questionnaires, and so on and so forth.
Does a mother not qualify as a project manager status?
Let’s look at this in some detail. Let’s assess the client. The client is a new-born baby. The mother has been handed a ‘project’ which may require management for c.20 years. As the baby is put into the mother’s arms (let’s assume there are no twins or triplets!), then the months of pre-reading and learning are thrown out of the window from the anxiety.
The mother looks around and instantly understands that this project doesn’t have many team members. Her partner is already asleep on the armchair.
The family go home. The baby cries. The onset of the perfect storm. Panic sets in. Where is the milk? Where are the nappies? Get the ipad! Get some toys.
The mother learns from cautious mistakes and trial and error what her child wants. She learns because she has a vested interest. As the days go by, her confidence starts to build. She begins to wear several hats, thereby representing the team herself. She learns to multi-task, sleep at odd hours, think whilst half-alseep, react to demands within the schedule!
The responsibility of a project manager may be over a few months after a project is delivered, and so any mistakes uncovered a few years later become the issue of someone else. However, that is not the case of a mother/housewife. They have to manage children or a home for years. The responsibility is ever present and quite tangible. Only when the child comes back with a tattoo or green hair do we wonder where one went wrong.
If we take a mother in Somalia. The so-called project environment is even harder. There is a shortage of income, food and medicine is not readily available. So, does the mother go back to the hospital and ask for more money or better conditions? She merely takes stock of the situation and decides how best to handle the situation. She is a true project manager. No experience, no help, and no guidance. But she manages. Perhaps it’s the sheer willpower or the sheer determination that allows an individual to find the strength to decide what to do in uncertain circumstances. Prayer can offer strength. Peoples’ smiles can offer strength. Moral support is equally important as emotional.
As I write this, even a project manager designation is understated. I elect that a more meaningful designation is provided to a stay-at-home mother. I presume people associate titles with salaries; CEO, director attracting the fat-cat salaries, whereas waitress and hair-dressers getting short changed. Why doesn’t the government pay larger allowances to mothers? Their job is frightfully more difficult than the role of the Health Minister who wouldn’t be able to spell the word ‘BOB’ backwards.
Can we offer better coaching and help to new mothers? Should there be consistent information available to them to help them? Perhaps that initial support if it was there would alleviate the stress and post-natal depression. A helping hand, words of wisdom, ensuring the mother eats and sleeps, are the cornerstones of compassion towards a new mother.
A mother’s jobs is very difficult and in many cases thankless. Children don’t realise the extraordinary efforts and love that a mother provides, the tears and worry she endures to ensure a baby develops happily into the world. The only realisation is when her child has their own child.
My mother was not a housewife; she was a senior project manager and a successful one at that. She managed supply chain, logistics, external issues, time, costs, people, to ensure I had the best start in life.
Mother Teresa said, ‘A life not lived for others is not a life.’
Next time you have to write the occupation for your mother or wife, cross-out housewife and put in the real title. Let’s not forget the efforts of a mother, and the sacrifices she made for another being.
