International Women’s Day has come around again, and we thought about if and what to say about it. We decided to write something honest and long form about the challenges working mothers face, and how this directly led to the formation of JBC Projects.
Pressure of the default parent
When we became parents, Victoria Bradshaw fell into the role of the “default parent”. If the nursery called because there was a problem, they called Victoria. If something went wrong during the day, it was Victoria who had to leave work. She was the one negotiating part time arrangements with her employer, asking for flexible working and working from home in a world that existed before Covid made those things normal.
When our children started school Victoria adjusted her working hours again, working from 9-3pm so she could manage the school runs. Which meant that when 3pm arrived, whatever she was doing had to stop immediately, close her laptop, rush out the door, pick up the kids. In addition, there was never enough annual leave to juggle the school holidays.
That kind of constant pressure built and built over time. It created a very particular type of stress that many working mothers carry, and their partners can often sympathise, but not really empathise with. The feeling that you are constantly letting someone down, either your employer or your children, or yourself.
30-40 years ago a family could often live on one income. Today that choice isn’t realistic for many households, particularly for those living and working in and around London.
Why we started JBC Projects
When people ask why we started JBC Projects it would be very easy to give a salesy business answer. There was a genuine gap in the market for what we do, and we created a great solution to that gap, but the original motivation was far more practical.
Whilst this was the catalyst for why we started the business, our goals and vision have grown and evolved over the 2 years that we’ve been going. Making the decision at the start of the year to expand the business is our first real evolution. We’re an employer now, and with that comes a new way of thinking, and a responsibility to develop our culture.
Building an inclusive culture
We know that as we grow, we have a responsibility as an employer to provide a working environment that allows all of us to flourish, and to try and create the sort of culture for our team that we would want for us.
Victoria wanted to spend more time with the children, without constantly feeling that work and parenting were in conflict with one another. She wanted the freedom to work on her own terms. At the same time, even with James Bradshaw on a good wage, the tax system and cost of living in the UK meant that we could not sustain our lifestyle on a single employed income, so we became accidental entrepreneurs to solve this problem and give us the flexibility we needed.
So for us, IWD is a reminder of why we made the step to start the business in the first place, and an encouragement for us to be part of a cultural change in the workplace to respond to the challenges that working mothers face.