We'll fail a generation of girls if we teach them they have to have it all, says Jill Berry

Can women have a successful career and a family?



Looking around at the ambitious and talented young women I teach as headmistress of Dane Alice Harpur school in Bedford, my heart swells.

Brimful of dreams and high expectations, they talk of how they are going to become surgeons, barristers and captains of industry.



They envisage themselves running companies, saving lives and making millions - all with a clutch of rosy-cheeked children in tow. And why shouldn't they?



From the moment these little girls toddled into nursery school, we've been teaching them that their ambitions should have no limits.

We've told them there's absolutely nothing that men can do that they can't do at least as well. And they've proved it - girls now outperform boys at every academic stage.

We've told our daughters that nothing need stand in their way - not relationships, not marriage and certainly not children.



And, being ambitious, hard-working girls, they've learned the lesson only too well.



The young women we are sending out into the world believe they can have it all - and, if they don't, they will have failed.

And what a tragedy that is, because the truth is that modern women can't have it all. They may succeed in their careers and they may succeed as mothers, but to do both at the same time? No, that is not possible without making huge sacrifices which many will find simply too much.

The fact is that life is not a level playing field. Men and women may finally have equal opportunities, but that doesn't mean women should make the same choices as men. The sexes are different.

Most women want children and they want to be the principal carer. Encouraging young women to aim for the top at the same time as raising a family is unrealistic and, I would argue, damaging.

Equals: Girls are told there is nothing men can do that they can't but can modern women have it all?

We need to tell today's young women that there is absolutely no shame in stepping off the career ladder to bring up children. Women should be the best they can, but being the best chief executive and the best mother at the same time is unrealistic.

I know that, as a headmistress of a leading girls' school and president of the Girls' School Association, many women are going to hold up their hands in horror.



How can I, someone who was part of the generation who fought so hard to win equality, possibly suggest that women should now consider curbing their ambitions?

Feminist sisterhood will undoubtedly accuse me of trying to send women back into the Dark Ages. But I refuse to sit back and watch us fail another generation of women by feeding them a fairytale.

Of course, I want my pupils to have successful careers. I certainly don't want to turn back the clock and make women economically dependent on their husbands and unable to leave unhappy marriages because they couldn't fend for themselves, as happened in my mother's generation.

But I desperately want my students to be happy. And that means acknowledging that having a career and children brings pressures which many women will find unbearable.

I know several successful women who were in shock when they became mothers. No one had warned them they would find the pull of motherhood so powerful. And no one had prepared them for the terrible juggling act they were faced with.



They felt enormously guilty because they wanted to stay at home with their children. Quitting work seemed like admitting failure so they soldiered on, becoming increasingly stressed and exhausted.

I am incredibly grateful for my education. I was the first member of my family to go to university. I studied English at Manchester before training as a teacher. I'm very ambitious. I don't have children. But I know I would have wanted to concentrate on my family and chosen to put my career ambitions on the back-burner for a while, had that been the case.

Having a career and children brings pressures which many women find unbearable



The truth is that many women would be a lot happier if they stepped off the career ladder to raise children.

Instead, in a bid to pursue equality at all costs, we have made these women feel like failures. Friends tell me that they don't understand how other women can have it all and they can't. They feel there's something wrong with them.

And that's simply not fair. We need to admit that children aren't a problem to be negotiated. They enrich our lives and bring huge happiness as well as challenges. And no woman who chooses to sacrifice her career for her family should feel a failure.

We need to tell our girls that you can't have it all, all of the time. We need to admit that balancing a high-powered career and children is incredibly complex. Career opportunities have changed dramatically. A generation ago, women dreamed of being nurses, not doctors. Now, more women than men graduate from medical school.

I wouldn't deny my girls the chance to study medicine. But I do tell them that if they want to be a consultant surgeon and have children they will have a very tough balancing act.

It may not be what they want to hear, but I feel if I don''t open their eyes to the truth, I will be failing them. I have taught girls and boys during my 30-year career, and I am convinced the sexes are very different.

Typically, boys have a greater self belief. They are more inclined to believe they can do something until they are proved otherwise. Girls are much more self- effacing and self critical.

Men apply for promotion years before they are ready. Women wait until they have amassed every qualification and scrap of experience.

In short, we are our own worst enemies. We push ourselves to the brink and then beat ourselves up because we're not perfect. That's why it's so important that we teach our girls that they have a right to be happy and that they're not failing if they choose motherhood over their careers.

Yes, we women can make it to the top. But think very, very carefully about the price you may have to pay.

Interview by TESSA CUNNINGHAM