Mothers Finding Balance: Meet Florence

My story starts with a major event in early 2010. 

I resigned from a prominent accounting firm, a very high paying job and I had no other job lined up. I realized that I had got into the rut of chasing the next promotion, working all hours but, I had neglected everything else in my life.

I have two teenage daughters who were infants in 2010. It had got to a point where I felt like I had to tell a lie in order to do something as simple as pick them up from school. I never did, and so I missed a lot of what was going on in my family. I was up early and came home late, with more work to do at home that would continue late into the night. Life was going on in my home, but I wasn’t part of it.

I was irrelevant in my own home, and things had to change before it was too late.

On hearing that I was leaving my job, a previous client of the accounting firm offered me a role and this was the start of my career in Banking. At that point, there was a lot of skepticism about getting work-life balance in a bank, but I was clear about my terms. Amazingly, they accommodated me. 

Since then, my workplace has continued to evolve for the better to support work-life balance. I have had an amazing opportunity to be one of the drivers for this change and be a role model for others.

I am aware that not everyone has such an opportunity, and I recognize the absolute privilege of being able to do this. I recognized with clarity what I needed and wanted to do. This is important to me because I am a role model for my girls. I want them to know that everyone must work
hard, and be excellent at whatever they choose to do. 

They must believe in themselves and work their hardest, but I also want them to know that there are other important things in life. In addition to talking to them, I am the best example that they can look to, and actions speak louder than words. They have seen me take time off work, for example, to spend summer with them or, to look after my ailing father, because they are all important to me.

It is a privilege watching my girls grow as they find their gifting. I have been able to teach them life skills like cooking, cleaning and money management. I have also learned very important skills I didn’t quite master when growing up, like doing handstands. 🙂

I have a lot of open conversations with my daughters. I talk about what they find interesting, I watch TikToks with them, and I listen to their stories. I know a lot of teens who do not like their parents. This is tragic. Life lessons are best taught through actual events going on in their lives. With the negativity on social media, I challenge them to see positives.

What I would tell younger mothers:
Do your best, you cannot do it all, but this does not mean giving up what you enjoy. 

I discovered that guilt is an integral part of mothering and there will always be someone who seems to be doing better than you are. As a working mother, I often felt guilty, until one day at the school gate, a stay-at-home mom was talking about how inadequate she felt! 

Now I realize that one must play their part, yet often the outcome of events is not really up to you. Bring that invisible and impossible bar you have set for yourself down to your best, to what brings you joy.

I also know that I am a pain if I am not challenged, and my work gives me that challenge. I took a years maternity leave after having my second child, and I was terrible. My husband suffered that year. Looking back, I would not have wanted to live with me. I learned that if I do not have a problem to solve, I’ll create one. The problems miraculously disappeared once I went back to work. The problems there are real, I can solve them, and our life is so much better.

Church is important to us. It is our community. We have no other family living nearby otherwise. Our church has supported us from the girls’ birth and has provided role models for them as they are growing up. This is a place where there are other people who believe like me. I know that my daughters ultimately will decide for themselves what they believe but it is important that we tell our children, and show them what we believe. You cannot leave this to chance. You want them grounded so that they do not lose themselves.

I am a child of opportunity. I was raised in a small village in Uganda. To my knowledge, I am the only one out of my grade school classmates who left the village. I was accepted into an elite high school where I flourished, although the initial integration was hard. The Christian ethos at this high school was amazing. It molded me into who I have become. I have an amazing group of friends from high school many of whom I am still close to, after nearly 20 years of living in a different country.

On racism:
It is very clear there are many who have experienced limited opportunities because of their race. I am very aware that in many ways, my story is not typical for a Black woman, but it is not unique. I live in a large cosmopolitan city and there are many like me who have not had a bad experience with racism. In many cases, there is a lot of ignorance involved when we attribute someone’s behavior to racism. This has been my experience. I learned not to attribute intent to someone’s actions until I was certain they are not just ignorant or uninformed. It has amazed me how often people will change things once they have been enlightened. I have learned to see different sides of what is possible.

Florence, Accountant

Something that Florence said stood out to me. Recently, I talked to a mother who told me that she does not believe in taking her children to church because she wants them to choose for themselves. In our conversation, she has paid for piano lessons, tennis lessons and golf lessons. This does not look like allowing the children to choose for themselves. 

Ultimately, children learn from our actions what is important to us. Not so much from our words, although this is important too. As mothers, we are our children’s primary contact and introduction to the world. There is so much out of our control in this mothering adventure, we must control the things we can. 

If Christ is important to you, it is critical that your children know this.