Serena Williams, Mother Work Hero – Vox

Serena Williams heads to the semifinal at Wimbledon this week.

At the age of 36, only 10 months after giving birth to his granddaughter, Williams plays at the top of his game. Chris Evert, a former analyst at ESPN, said Monday that Williams had progressed to the quarterfinals against Evgeniya Rodina. "This perfection was as great as it could be."

we know that it has been hard won. In the months following the birth of his daughter, Williams was open about the efforts he had to recover from childbirth and resume his athletic form. She was also honest with her daughter and had to miss her workout schedule.

So, at first glance, Serena Williams is the mother who works the least in history – she has endorsement contracts, a big luxury home, a clothing line, and a career of incredibly tiered tennis, in addition to a successful husband and a beautiful little girl. Your typical working mother packing food in a warehouse, or repairing the teeth of patients as a dentist, or teaching a stirring class of children would probably not see Williams and think, "Gee, she's really just like me . "

The willingness to discuss the challenges she has faced sends an important message: being a working parent is difficult. And if the greatest tennis player of all time can admit it, we should all do it.

Williams reminds us all: it is difficult to physically recover from childbirth and return to work

effortlessly. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, Williams faced potentially life-threatening childbirth complications related to her past history of pulmonary embolism, she recalls in a Vogue cover story.

As PR Lockhart wrote for Vox earlier this year, "Williams' heartbreaking account places it among 50,000 women (an estimate that researchers say could actually be at the bottom of the scale) in America who are dealing with dangerous or life-threatening pregnancies, complications related each year.Black women are disproportionately likely to cope with these complications, and they are also more likely to be victims of the ongoing maternal mortality crisis. America, being three to four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related complications. "

Wimbledon was not easy.After weeks of bedtime, Williams spent months to rebuild to the status of world-class athlete.As other mothers who have the opportunity to stay away from work after having children, Williams has gone from time to heal his body, to bond with his baby and to prepare to make his own return as a working parent.

Although she qualified for the Open of Australia in January, Williams retired, citing her concerns that she was not not ready to compete to the best of his abilities. When she went to the French Open in May, Williams was not ranked because she was returning from a maternity leave. She was ranked 453rd, obliging her to face tougher competition earlier in the tournament, which led to a pectoral injury that caused her to give up. Now, the World Tennis Organization is reviewing the rules on rankings after maternity leave, simply because what seemed unlikely years ago, has now become commonplace: women return to their athletic careers after having children.

Arriving at this stage of Williams' career has made concerted efforts. Being a working mother also requires effort. Although fathers are increasingly involved in the education of children, mothers continue statistically to take care of the majority of care, in addition to their work. In Williams' case, it took months of training and rehab to return to an elite level of play. Of course, Williams is financially responsible compared to most of us, and certainly has a team of people to help him (cooking, cleaning, babysitting, athletic training and medical care, to begin). But the fact that she has encountered obstacles despite all her resources shows how difficult the transition to a working mother is.

It was the opposite of how Marissa Mayer dealt with her return to Yahoo's head after having a baby in 2012. She took two weeks off famously, and still worked from home during that time . Mayer admitted since her leave was an exception and not the rule, but the message was clear: the recovery of childbirth is relatively easy, and the combination of work and parenting is as simple as building a nursery to next to your desk. the opposite of the way parents are often portrayed on social media, especially by celebrities – smiling kids, clean homes, vacations, gorgeous dinners.

And you miss things

Working mothers receive a double case of FOMO: fear of missing If we do not let go (or if we do not fear to pay rent), we run the risk of missing milestones in childhood as the first word of a baby, the first home run of a child or the first grief of a teenager. Like other working moms, who know very well what it looks like, Williams openly lamented Alexis Olympia's first steps last week.

Prior to this, she expressed the guilt that she felt when she decided that she had to stop dying. ;breast-feed. In a press conference with reporters before Wimbledon, no less, Williams shared the experience.

"I literally sat Olympia in my arms, I talked to him, we prayed about it, and I said," Listen, I'm going to stop. Mom must do this: "I cried a little, not as much as I thought," she said.

And the reaction of Olympia? "She was quite good."

The Williams experience is a reminder to other working moms that breastfeeding does not always work for everyone; that your child can still grow strong on the formula; that you will miss some of the milestones, but not all. Parental guilt is completely real. But maybe if we can all agree that raising children and keeping a job can be difficult, more parents would spend less time feeling pressure and guilt, and more time on what is happening to them. matter the most.