Sunday May 12, 2013

Just relax and enjoy motherhood

By HARIATI AZIZAN
sunday@thestar.com.my

Mixing business with motherhood: Foong believes that women don’t have to draw a clear line separating work and the duties and responsibilities of being a mother.

Sometimes it is difficult for working mothers to keep work and home separate, but that may not be a bad thing.

A MOTHER'S work is never done, so it is said, and when one is also a full-time worker, the list of things to do is even longer. Datin Mina Cheah-Foong, founder and managing director of green cosmetics franchise Body Shop in Malaysia should know.

Since she started work as a systems engineer in Hewlett Packard after graduating from university and then set up Body Shop here in 1984, her life has been one fast-paced flurry of work, work, work.

Yet the corporate mother of two can look back in joy as she recalls the way she managed to balance her responsibilities as a mother and her tasks in the office.

“I must say, though, that I had good help and a strong network. When I first started my business, my sons were still young, so I had someone to look after them, especially when I had to do merchandising. That is the compromise that working mothers have to make.”

Now her older son Daryl, 27, is working with her at their company Rampai Niaga Sdn Bhd while her younger son Dexter, 24, is reading law at the London School of Economics.

One thing Foong, 53, always made sure she did was to take over from her domestic helper when she got home.

“I was conscious that as soon as I got home my sons were mine because I wanted to bond with my children and she needed a break too from taking care of the babies all day long!” she recalls fondly, stressing that it is important to make time for your children.

But she admits that she used to beat herself up for not spending enough time with her children, until her son Dexter, then 12, told her that he loved having a working mother.

“I used to feel so guilty. Then one day he said he never felt neglected, not even once. He told me this was the life he knew and he loved it. He told me, If you feel guilty it is just you; you are just feeling guilty for yourself.' I felt so liberated after he told me that!”

So this Mothers Day, Foong has this message to all mothers in Malaysia: “Just relax and enjoy your babies.”

Don't beat yourselves up, she says. “Women are their worst taskmasters. There are so many things that we feel we have to do every day and so many boxes that we have to tick.”

She concedes that she is lucky to be her own boss. In fact, that was what got her interested in retail in the first place.

“It allows me to control my own time. And I basically lugged my sons to work and everywhere I had to be,” she relates.

“In KL, driving from one place to another sometimes takes you an hour or more because you get stuck in a jam, so I always used that time to spend quality time with them, just chatting. We didn't do anything special. We just read stories or I would drill them with their tables and test them on their maths. But at least it gave us a chance to talk.”

She realised soon, however, that she had to keep long hours in retail, especially when she was building her business.

“Retail keeps a gruelling time. You open from 10 to 10 but that does not count the set-up time before you open and the things you have to do after closing.”

Luckily, as the owner of the shops, she was able to take her kids to work.

That is why, Foong says, she does not believe in keeping a strict delineation between work and home life.

“There are some people who say my home time is my own time, that you need to have work-life balance. In this day and age, I think it is so difficult to draw a clear line to separate your work life and home life.

“I really think it is this idea that you have to keep them separated that is making people stressed. That is why I feel some women have so much angst.”

Relating her experience, Foong says it would have been impossible for her to keep her children out of her work.

“In retail, the hours are long, so how can I say to my children, don't disturb me at work? That is why, in my office, you can hear conversations like Boyboy, why are you fighting? Have you done your homework?'

“(It's the) same if people have some urgent thing to ask you about work at night or something happens after office hours. They should be able to contact you at home,” she vouches.

More importantly, women need to define what work-life balance really is for themselves, she urges.

“As a mother, you are not just one facet, you are a complex being with various facets and you need to share that with your kids and get them involved in the different parts of your life. If I don't involve my children in my work, if I don't talk to them about it, they will not know a big part of me. That is why I've always thought that they should know about my work, they should know what it is that I have to finish and they need know that my work is important.”

Of course, she concedes, making the workplace in this country “mother-friendly” will require not just a change of mindset but also structural changes and statutory support. But it will not only enable Malaysia to tap into the talents of its women, but also help achieve the country's target of getting women into at least 30% of the decision-making positions.

Ultimately, this will be good for the children, she stresses.

“If you want your children to have a successful career later, you need to lead by example. You need to show them that you have to put in time and effort in your work if you want to achieve something.”

Foong is also thankful for the technology that's available which helps keep her work life and motherhood in balance.

“With technology, it is so much easier now to be a parent,” she chirps.

Ultimately, working mothers need to stop feeling guilty, she reiterates.

“I don't believe that life is about absolutes; that you have to be one or the other. It is also important not to think of the choices we make as women as sacrifices. Sacrifice connotes that you have suffered.”

On Mothers Day, Foong urges all mothers to pamper themselves.

“You have to appreciate yourself first; if you are an unhappy person, your children will be unhappy.”

She jokes that at her home, Mothers Day is not a special day unless she reminds her sons, “which I do.”

“I've always told them that I don't want gifts, I want action and their time. I want effort. These are the things that I feel are truly priceless.”

Foong believes that we should not wait for “occasions” to celebrate each other in the family.

“We have to create the occasions,” she says, adding that she and her sons used to have weekly “slap-up dinners”.

Still, she says she will always treasure the memory of one Mothers Day celebration.

“That was when my younger son Dexter wrote me a poem and my older son Daryl baked me cookies. Dexter was 12 and Daryl was about 15. I thought that was a bonanza year!”

To those who are still wondering about what to do for their mothers today, Foong says, “Just go see her.”

As she puts it, “Mothers are the most important people in the world, not politicians or warlords. It is up to the mothers how the children will grow up to be bad or good.”

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Sunday May 12, 2013

Just relax and enjoy motherhood

By HARIATI AZIZAN sunday@thestar.com.my

By HARIATI AZIZAN
sunday@thestar.com.my