Compliance Specialist bei der UBS
In der Rubrik “Frauen im Fokus”, stellen wir auch die Interviews vor, die Stephanie Oehen für den femdat Newsletter führt. Im November 2023 mit Qing Chen.
1. How do you organize your life – work, family and free time?
First, I must say that a supporting husband or partner is very important. We share family duties and support each other. For example, my husband goes to work early and finishes early, so that he can pick up my daughter in order for me to work a bit longer. He takes more care of my daughter during the week, and I take over childcare at weekend.
Second, I try to think that childcare is fun time, although it can be more stressful than work. Before having a kid, I used to spend my free time shopping, watching movies, listening to music, or going out. Now I do what I can with my kid, like doing yoga and she likes to mimic me, or sit-ups with her on my tummy as extra weight. It’s true that I meet friends less often than before. Meeting friends with their kids together is also a good opportunity to relax and look after children at the same time.
Workwise, when I am working, I almost never think of my child. I know she is happy at Kita, and she probably has more fun with teachers and kids than with her busy mom. The most difficult moment is when she is ill, because I cannot look after her and work at the same time. I’m grateful that most colleagues at work are understanding, and we have the flexibility to work earlier or later instead of 9 to 6.
2. What should definitely not be missing in your personal everyday life? What is your top priority that you don’t miss out on?
Motivation. I need to be constantly motivated to live my life. There can be challenges that I need to tackle, as long as I’m motivated, things may work out. Motivation makes me look forward to each new day, and brings expectation to me. Of course good health is also important, like for everyone. I didn’t realise this as much as I do now before becoming a mother. The well-being of this little one all depends on me. This made me realise that I’m not only myself anymore. I’m bound with this kid.
3. How was your absence during maternity leave organized?
I was almost never absent from my daughter during maternity leave. It was hard to be outside because I had to pump breast milk every 4-5 hours. I could only be away for like 3-4 hours each time when my husband took care of the baby. The good thing is anyone could feed my daughter, because I was pumping breast milk and bottle feed my daughter. I froze the oversupply and my daughter could still have breast milk after starting daycare. My in-laws parents also visited us for 2 months and they could help a bit as well. (We were in Asia, and they travelled from Switzerland.)
4. Looking back, would you do anything differently about this?
No, I can’t think of anything. I wish our freezer had been bigger so I could freeze more breast milk. 😆
5. What do you want / wish from society and the world of work for working women?
I wish people embraced differences and society could provide more support to working mothers. Some ladies like to work less to have more time with their kids, but some ladies don’t or maybe they have no choice (like single moms or less better-off families). This doesn’t mean they love their kids less, just in a different way. As a mother, I first need to be independent before being able to look after kids. So that’s also why I wish society could give more support to working mothers and have equal expectation from daddies and moms. This could be a more affordable price, more spots and longer opening hours of children daycare, maybe flexible working hours and locations. These could help a working mother more easily focus on their job, and maybe also encourage working women to have (more) children since low birth rate has been an issue in many developed countries.