Work Life Balance in Germany
Sybille is a German woman in her 40s, living in the Frankfurt area with her partner and daughter. She is a seasoned professional with decades of experience in global mobility.
She currently works as an immigration manager for a successful tech company and balances her job with parenting, a partner who works shifts, a consistent yoga practice, and a passion for music.
How? Let's ask her.
We discuss:
impacts of affordable childcare (and the lack thereof) on choices
limited social permission and flexibility for men to be present parents
the truth about the time it takes to be a parent and run a household
protecting health and body and interests in the midst of endless to do lists
Prefer to listen to the podcast? Click here A conversation about work life balance in Germany
So this conversation goes between South Africa, me and Sybille in Germany, and we have a chat about her experience of living in Germany in the Frankfurt area with her partner and her daughter. Sybille is a seasoned professional with decades of experience, and she currently works part time in a global environment for a successful tech company.She balances her job with parenting. And a partner who works shifts. And we talk a bit about how that is to work kind of against cultural norms and time norms. We talk about my fantasy of living in the North, living in Germany and how things might be in her actual reality and what she sees around her and community.
We talk about money. We talk about time. We talk about health. We talk about so many things that I think we'll all be able to relate to as busy humans who are balancing. Working and [00:01:00] parenting and trying to have moments in between where we are living life and really enjoying that. So I think you're going to get so many little nuggets and I'm so grateful for Sybille to sit down and have this chat with me.
So let's dive in. Hi lovelies, this is Maude, Women's Burnout and Leadership Coach. You're listening to the Work Family Me podcast. A series of conversations with women from different cultures and industries around the world, about the behind the scenes of earning money, parenting, being in relationship, and adulting all at the same time.
Here we will discuss the challenges, ideas, and support structures that show up in co-running dual parenting situations, and talk through some helpful strategies and mindsets. Why? So that you, as a busy working woman, can learn from others, implement what could make your [00:02:00] life a little bit easier, and share these with your family, friends, and colleagues.
We are at the forefront of working, parenting, and relating in a totally different way to previous generations, and there can be so much value in validating this and learning with each other. I'm so happy that you're here. Let's dive into the conversation for today. So we are here today. Thank you so much for taking the time.
And I would love for you to introduce yourself. So who are you, where are you and what's your family and work situation?
I'm Sibylle. I'm from Germany. I'm 46 years old now. I am working part time 30 hours a week. I guess we get to that later. Um, my family situation is I'm married and have one child. She is nine and a half now.
So there's the part time work, there's the full time family, [00:03:00] and there's you in the middle of that. Talk us through a regular week with your work and family. What happens when?
We don't have a regular week because my husband is working shift. So we never have a normal schedule because he's working day shift the next day, night shift, and then he has two days off. So we are always working differently or seeing us differently. So there's no weekend. There's no, he's working a day or a week in this shift. So he's really going one day is different to the next. So someone is always sleeping. That's the major. I wouldn't call it an issue in our house, but this is what we're dealing with since we have met each other.
So we know each other for more than 20 years, so I was very much aware of what will be happening if we start a family. So a normal week is There's school, there's work, there's part time work, and there's a [00:04:00] These pieces, there's sleep, there's work, there's school, and sometimes we eat food. Yeah, and that's the big question, I guess, in every household.
It's more like, okay, what are we going to eat today? I told my husband before we started that podcast, I was, I was telling him, there's one question about what would you change about your Partner change or what would you like your partner to know or to do? And I said, the only thing I really would like is that he knows what day it is, what weekday it is, because in Germany, for example, you cannot do grocery shopping on a Sunday and mostly on a Sunday, he's like, Oh, can we get this and that? Because this is missing. And I'm like, it's Sunday. It's we're all at home. Did you realize something is different normal schedule? Nobody's at work. Nobody is in school. And there's we don't have a possibility to do grocery shopping now or to go to a doctor Uh, required. So we have to go to the [00:05:00] emergency. We were starting, we were saying a normal week. We don't have a normal week, but yes, as girls, so my daughter and myself, of course, we started a regular week based on what's going on in school. So we just came back from summer break. So now we are all getting organized.
It's still not clear of what activities are there beyond school, because that's all now Being prepared by the teachers and outside school and they are getting older. So they are now in the middle of not kids anymore and no teenagers. So there's something like, okay, you join another group. So we don't have a real schedule yet.
So I would say it's all very flexible anyway. With our schedule and our week.
So it's an interesting one, I've been talking to a few women where, um, one of the partners works away or work shifts or, you know, is away Monday to Friday and has quite a different rhythm from the other partner, predominantly the mother and children. [00:06:00] How does that work in terms of communication and who's doing what when, in terms of sharing parenting and domestic responsibilities?
It's me, I am the one planning, organizing, I am the one in all the school groups, in all the parent groups, in all the socializing activities. That's me and I need to tell him, now it's your turn because I have something to do or I need me time, I need freedom, I need to work or I need to be somewhere because sometimes I have to do some things and need to go away. But it's majority is I am doing the organization. And I can call myself lucky because. I just need to write it down on a piece of paper. That's the way of communication we work with and just stick it on the kitchen table for the first coffee, because I know that he will have his coffee whenever he is waking up and then he sees what is expected [00:07:00] or what needs to be done.
We have a trustful relationship, so nothing goes. Wrong, but I have to organize it. So as long as I follow up, if I told him once this needs to be done during my absence, or I cannot take care of that right now, I just need to put it on a post it or something. Remind him. So here, Sibylla mentions putting things on post it notes and putting them on the fridge or leaving them for her partner to find and him taking that forward and then doing the action that she's reminding him of.
And i wanted to pause here around this theme of you know somebody's doing the planning and the thinking and the organization and then asking the other person to do something and this is what you may see in popular media or you know articles out there in magazines or. TikTok videos around mental load or invisible labor or the, the second shift, right?
[00:08:00] When you're the person that feels like you're holding all the thinking, the organizing, the planning, the multiple things going on at the same time, thinking about what's going to be for dinner at the same time as mentally checking the cupboards at the same time as thinking about what you had for dinner last night.
And so there is a real energy that's required for that. And I guess the thing that I wanted to just pause and pull out here is when we explicitly agree that one person is going to be, you know, doing all the thinking and the planning and the organizing and the other person is happy to take actions.
That's one thing. But it's another thing when we slide into defaults of one person and stereotypically, this is the female partner, right, from the generational and societal expectations placed on women, that it's the mother who is expected to do the organizing, the thinking and the planning, and the father or the [00:09:00] partner is quote, unquote, happy to help as if it's her responsibility, her job, her World and he's coming in as a little worker be to help right as if she's a CEO and he's the employee rather than having two CEOs to CFOs and so it just a note here that if that's something that you have fallen into as a default without explicit conversation. Maybe having a pause to think about who is going to be responsible for what, or how does planning an organization work? And if it's going to be something that you're taking on, because that's what works for your family, then also recognizing that that takes energy.
One of the things that I love so much Sybille talking about the time that's required to do the taking the fetching the thinking the organizing the play dates and all the things in between and how it's really hard to do that if there's also a [00:10:00] full time job going on and I think because that work is invisible.
We often expect it just to happen without recognizing that that takes energy and kind of brain and body budget in a way when we give it that value and importance we can give a time and we can also recognize that may be tiring and maybe I need to go and nourish myself somewhere else so little notes from me I work with us so much in my one on one coaching my one on one clients is mental labor or the mental load or the invisible labor is something that's kind of default fallen to you, maybe stopping to pause and have a conversation about how that's going to go forward and a really great first step to that is actually writing down.
And I know this takes more time. So you're like, Oh no, please not another thing. I have to do more work to make the invisible labor visible. Right. But actually writing down what goes into a task or the [00:11:00] things that you're thinking and planning and holding and organizing. In your brain, so you can see that and then see, okay, well, does this all need to live with me or can I outsource it or how are we going to deal with this and really making it something that is a tangible marker of work and love and service and all of those things, but recognizing that it takes energy and has that been a conscious decision for you as a couple of I'm the person who holds this, I'm the person who organizes and I will ask you as and when there are practical things to do.
Yeah, like I said in the beginning, it's not that we were put in that situation by surprise. So we knew when we started a family that this is going to happen. So we have been living together for a very long time. We even have been friends since we are 15. So we know each other for almost 30 years and he has always been working shift. So when we agreed to have a child, I knew this would all be on me. [00:12:00] This is who I am. What I expected. So there was nothing that came up by surprise. I feel like that element of choosing of feeling like I knew this was going to be the deal. And I stepped into that with my eyes open.
Sounds like it's really calming in a way, quite powerful, because it's not that I'm sitting here in resentment. I'm sitting here in choice.
Yes, the only thing is you always have to explain your situation to other people, because most of the people know everything better than you. We had experienced that long before we had a child that everybody was always questioning. So why are you going to a birthday party or to a wedding by yourself?
Why is your husband not able to take off or why is he not joining us for after work drinks? And then you have to explain. Well, You know, if you get up at four in the morning, work 12 hours a day, you fall asleep if you get [00:13:00] home by seven, you're not able to have a normal conversation because you're tired and you know that you need to work the very next day and you need to be prepared for that.
So this is what we had before we had a child and it even was worse after having a baby because then you had no sleep, you had a partner with a working shift and you had other social. Meetings or dates with other people who just didn't understand they don't have a weekend or is that, and they, they took it personal in the beginning, my, the good friends understand now that.
Whenever there's something, they check the schedule. They are saying, okay, is he working? Is he free? Is he awake? They don't even ring the doorbell anymore because they just text me on my phone saying, can I come over or is he sleeping? They understand and these are good friends, but the rest is always like, oh, okay, I didn't know that.
Or if we have anything, a school meeting. Where I need to be. And when, when my daughter [00:14:00] was younger, I couldn't just join because I said, my husband is working night shift. I cannot leave my child alone now. So the pandemic was a good thing because then you could do a lot of things online where everybody wanted you to be there in person.
That changed now. I mean, she's getting older and we are used to that situation.
You mentioned that, that change and that questioning and kind of almost societal curiosity about how you do your life and the choices you've made. Also, when we had that brief chat earlier about working part time and continuing to work part time in an industry that is quite full on and global and there are different time zones and there's kind of deadline driven. Tell me more about why you've made those choices to stay part time to protect your time and how that feels when other people question it.
That's a good point. Decided to stay part time. First of all, like I [00:15:00] said in the beginning, the organization is completely myself and whenever there are things that need to be done I need to be flexible. I need to have that time in the afternoon, for example, or we have flex hours at work. So I can say, okay, I'm starting late today and I'm working very late or I'm starting very early, whatever is on our schedule for that week or that day or unexpected, which is a real blessing because working remotely, having flex hours is just perfectly.
But in an industry, what you were saying where everyone is working internationally,
Yeah. In other cultures, it's not common that you work part time or I wouldn't even call it part time. It's now reduced to 70%. So it's 30 hours a week. It's it's not even half of the time. It's it's more than than 50%. But of course, they don't understand or company, the people working in other cultures, Don't understand that you don't have support. You don't have a daycare [00:16:00] where someone can watch your children until evening or where the family is there to cook food and prepare dinner. You don't have a gardener. You don't have a cleaning person. You don't have a driver. You have to drive by yourself because this is how we grew up. We don't live in a city. So wherever you have to go, you have to take your own car. You have to go by yourself. You are stuck in traffic. You're always on time pressure. So it's not even that you're saying, I prefer working part time because it's so nice to have a few hours off. It's to organize the rest of your day around it. You have doctor's appointments. You have to take the kids somewhere. And that's what we forget most is need to do something for yourself as well. You want to go to, I prefer, I love to go swimming by myself, just an hour for myself or Going to a yoga class or whatever, doing or just going for a walk, which is impossible if, um, you do a full time job, [00:17:00] to my understanding, or if you have to squeeze it all into a weekend, which you don't have, or which I don't have, because I don't have another weekend. in our family.
It's almost, you know, this calling out of it takes time to parent. It takes time to run a household. It takes time to buy food and make food. It takes time to clean a house. But I think we often almost overlook that or make that, you know, because it's been so invisible for so long that it's been done in the back end by, you know, 1950s housewives. We don't honor that, you know, all of us take time. And so, yes. If I'm working, I also need to find time to do that. And then if there's a piece of something unexpected or emergency, or if I want to take time for my health, like where does that actually come from?
Exactly.
So what do you love about the way you do your slightly unconventional, no weekend, shift work, part [00:18:00] time, family and life work?
It's very flexible and it's not very traditional and that's what I really like because it's everybody is very independent. You can do your things. Both of us have a career. Both of us have a life and that's what I forgot. And when we when we spoke first about that situation is that working part time also give us flexibility to do some family things, especially that we don't have like others do in the evenings on the weekend. So Having a husband off on a, for example, today is a Wednesday today, then we can do something in the afternoon today with our daughter as a family, which we cannot do on a weekend. And that's the flexibility. I really enjoy working part time to say yes. And even if it's just going to a park having ice cream on a summer day. Just having that luxury saying, okay, this is our family time [00:19:00] and we don't follow any traditions or weekdays. And that's what I really enjoy.
I feel like that's almost the flip side of living out of the norm. You know, we often feel a little bit weird, maybe when we're out of the traditional, out of the norm, but the flip side of that is that you're inventing and you're creative and you get to make it whatever you want.
And that sounds like it's. It's a personality thing. I've spoken to a lot of friends and one of my friends was saying, I need to stick to a nine to five schedule because everything else is just. Killing me and I need to be organized that way and if someone is telling me I need to start at 7 and leave at 2, I'm completely out of my schedule and I cannot be productive and I think this is who you are and I'm not that kind of a person who needs to work 9 to 5 if, if I can work 6 to 11 and the other day, 3 to 7, I'm more than happy because this is more [00:20:00] fun for myself.
Character and also permission, because I feel like sometimes women are feeling like they should, right? It should be nine to five, or it should look like this, or I should be productive at these times and don't really allow themselves the experimentation of like, well, maybe I just work better in the evenings. And can I allow myself to do that? Because it is kind of counter the norm. When you think about nitty gritty, can I ask you about money? Like how you do finances together?
We're both very independent financially. We don't share a bank account. We decided that on purpose before we got married that we Both keep our own accounts, just because we were very lazy, we just not that we're not trusting each other, but we were just so lazy to just combine everything that we are saying, okay, and like I said, we know each other for a long time. So we trust each other. So we have [00:21:00] everything agreed verbally. Who's taking care of what, who's paying for what, who's getting, in Germany, you get child allowance from the government, so who's getting that money and who's spending money on groceries, who's spending money on the house, who's taking care of the insurance.
We all agreed that by talking to each other and just said, okay, this makes sense that I'm taking this and if we have something like going on vacation, we just. Share whoever has something, and that's, I think, trust in a relationship, so we don't have to really make a plan of that because we, we are both very independent.
And it sounds like there's been a process of communication around that, what seals say for us and how much is coming in, and was that worked out on percentages or?
When I was off on, on parental leave, of course, I was dependent on his income, but this was a, a time where you could see, okay, there's an end. And it did work out because during that [00:22:00] time, you didn't do all the fancy stuff like traveling, buying fancy clothes or, or going somewhere, which is more expensive. So, and I can step back. So I know during that time, it was more important to spend money on whatever is necessary. And now that We are back to something like a normal schedule.
We can do what, not what we want, but it's okay. And I think the most important is we trust each other. If I see other couples who really have a detailed plan of who's spending what and when to buy a new dryer or a new dishwasher or a car, we just go by it if it's needed. Of course, you always have to be prepared that something is breaking.
You have a house, you have a child, you have, you have a life, right? There's always something coming in between your, your plans, and then you have to skip your next vacation. The emergency fund has run dry. [00:23:00] Exactly. So this is there, but it's not that strict that you're saying, okay, we cannot buy a new dishwasher now because we spend it on a vacation or something like that. And I've seen that in a lot of friends, households where they are saying, okay, this is just not in our financial plan this year, buying a new bicycle for the kid or whatever. So this is not how we want to live. So that gives us a lot of flexibility. And of course, trust, because I'm not looking at, okay, what did you spend this month?
And why did you buy a new TV or a new phone or whatever comes to my mind?
So this is, it's really a communication thing and trusting each other. And it sounds like almost the independence plays into that, right? Because you've got your money, I've got my money, and we're both looking after the house or the shared expenses in a way that feels fair. So if I want to go on a yoga retreat or if I want to pay for a new phone, [00:24:00] then it feels like that's okay.
Absolutely, absolutely. So I didn't have to justify, I told you personally earlier this year, I was going on my concert trip with my favorite band, so I didn't have to justify why I spent so much money on concert tickets, because this was my yoga retreat for this year.
You mentioned a community and how your friends kind of maybe do find answers or their questions around your relationships or availability. What is quote unquote normal in your friendship circle, in your communities, in your peer groups, in your community? Do both partners work? Do they parent together? What do you see around you?
Yeah, most of them, the majority is that the husband is working full time and my friends, my female friends are working part time, are mostly dependent on their husbands. I have only a few in my friend circle who have a similar situation like [00:25:00] we do. But the majority is dependent on the income of the husband.
And when you think about child care and kind of domestic work, does that then mainly rest on the woman, the mother.
Yeah, absolutely. So it's kind of traditional plus plus. You know, a lot of people, because you know them, if you have kids and if you live in a, in a small town, you know, each other. So if I would say out of a hundred people, I would know maybe five are independent, where the woman is independent and they live like what we are doing, that flexible and financially independent life, but the rest is completely dependent on the husband, on child care.
And do you think that is a choice or do you think that is the way the environment is set up?
Well, it's not a choice because most of them had to step back because child care is not that common here that you can. can have a full day childcare. Plus it [00:26:00] is not expected that someone is having a career. It still is if the husband is the one staying at home with a kid that everybody is looking at him saying, Oh, your wife is making a career and you're not. So what's wrong with you? So it's the environment. It's probably different in bigger cities like Munich or Hamburg. That role model is, is probably not there, but if you're in a, in a small town, everybody's saying, oh, wow, she's making the career and she's doing all the things and she's not a good mother because she's leaving her husband with all these things.
That's, that's absolutely the environment we are still living in, in certain parts of Germany. And it's not by choice because my friends who stay at home and who work part time, they don't have a choice because. Of the childcare situation, of the financial situation and of the jobs they are doing and sometimes they don't have a career or if they stepped out for [00:27:00] parental leave, they no longer get back to what they had done before and they have to step back in their career.
So it sounds like the support structure isn't there from a, it's not possible to hire in, in a way that is affordable.
There isn't, you know, the daycare that makes it possible to maintain the career.
And there isn't the thinking or the support structure of what it would make sense for both people to go about part time?
You were saying that if both go part time, that's what we had been thinking about a long time back, but my husband's company is not supporting that. They do not allow him to go part time. So that was one of our plans in the beginning. Because I saw that in my friend's circle and they both reduced to 30 hours a week for a personal situation because his parents died very early because they were so burned out and they both thought we don't want to do the same mistakes [00:28:00] like our parents did and we just step back and go part time both and that works perfectly. They have two kids and One is working early in the morning and the other one late at night, and they just share that, which is, I think, a good combination. And it sounds like out of the norm. But they are really happy on that because they are really enjoying the way they are doing it. And this is why we were thinking about, this is something we could do as well, but unfortunately it's not supported by the employer of my husband.
It's this tension of How do we want to be and then how can we be in the structure that exists while making the money that we need to feed our families that can often feel like such a tricky place to be because I feel like there are more men out there who would want to, you know, spend time with their families and be providing for their children and an emotional and mental level and we're just not ready set up for it in the workplace or accepting of it.[00:29:00]
Absolutely. And even if we are, and if the country is supporting that by financially, it's still the company or the employer or the, the culture of the company that maybe is not at the outside, they would probably say, yes, we are family friendly. We are supporting our employees, but you never know. What is happening and then you see others and then you see that the career is different because they are the ones looked at. Oh, he took some parental leave or he took some time off to spend with his kids. What is his wife doing? What do they not have any grandparents support or anyone to help them with?
Yeah, this was a really interesting piece of the conversation for me with Sibylle because.
Number one, it made me quite sad and reflective to think that fathers are not winning here, right?
So. We're seeing a situation where a parent would like to work more flexibly [00:30:00] to be able to spend more time with their family, and that's not possible in their place of work. So when we think about models of working and parenting, in these conversations, we've often been talking about how challenging that can be for women and for mothers and how the current model isn't really set up for success when you are co earning dual parenting handling so much. And it's interesting to look at the flip side of, well, what about the other parent? What are the societal expectations put on a man and the way he needs to show up at work or what's accepted for him, or what kind of paternity leave that there is, or what kind of flexible working arrangements they are all.
What kind of comments come up in the office when somebody says, actually, you know, I've got to leave now because I've got to take my daughter to the doctor, or I want to watch my son play hockey or whatever the case may be. Do we permit that for men? [00:31:00] So just like we have the societal pressures and responsibilities on women, and we're kind of buckling under the weight of that and maybe not enough support for the domestic and parenting side and all the guilt and all the things.
Definitely, that's true and that exists, but just taking a moment to think about the tax and the pain and the difficulty that it can also present on the other side where we're not affording that same flexibility in our communities or in our places of employment to men who maybe really want to be more involved.
They really want to be more present. That level of what a company says as a well being practice and then what's actually happening in the day to day and what feels like it's acceptable, quote unquote.
When you talk about support, do you have any support? Do you pay for anything? Do you have people around you? What physical, emotional, mental support do [00:32:00] you tap into?
Besides, uh, daycare, which is ending next year because then she's turning 10 and there wouldn't be any daycare anymore, there's no further support you can have or you can pay for. So sometimes I do have. My parents, they are getting older. So if I want to go on a girl's weekend or do something or need some time off, I had to have my parents and good friends. So we mostly support us amongst each other, just saying, okay, I'm taking care. You go. And, uh, yeah. That works really good because you need to have a few friends you can really rely on if you're somewhere, like I said, if you really have to go somewhere for a meeting in person these days, and then you're trying to get back home, but you're stuck in traffic. And nobody can pick up your child, your husband is at night shift already, then you need to have a [00:33:00] few friends living close in your community saying, and where your child is comfortable going with, to say, okay, pick her up, give me the phone, I'm telling her I'll be there in two hours. And I do have three friends where I would say, okay, I can completely rely on and that helps a lot. But apart from that, nothing.
And you were saying earlier, it's not affordable in Germany to pay for cleaning help or kind of things like that.
It's affordable, but it's something that is not very common. You don't find the people anymore because it's a lack of cleaning support.
You don't even get people anymore because everybody who can afford it has a good cleaning person already and they are completely booked. So it's, it's more like, okay, even if you decide now that you want to have someone, there's nobody there you can officially hire. So you probably have to do it by [00:34:00] recommendation or someone knows someone.
And plus for me, I haven't been raised like that. So I haven't been raised in a community or in a household where I would accept help. I would do it myself because Now I see it more like, okay, it's a physical exercise to see it as exercise. You're cleaning the house. You don't have to go to to a gym now.
You're like, be grateful.
Yes. So you have to, you have to see it from that perspective. And then, of course, you, you're thinking about, oh, what can I do with that money? Because just, uh, and as long as I'm, I'm okay with that as long as I have the time. And of course, when my daughter was a baby, I was. More. I would have been more than happy to have someone to support me during that time. And this is what I would recommend everybody to do. You don't have to do it for a lifetime, but there are certain times chapters in your life. It's okay [00:35:00] to take all the support you can get and to spend that money. Do that.
Just repeating that for everybody who's having a newborn baby right now. Get all the support.
It's absolutely okay. Invest that money. It's not forever.
Good point. You talked about not growing up with a model of paying people to come into your house and clean, what kind of model did you grow up with? So generationally, did both parents work? Did they not? How did that look for you and your partner?
Maybe we both grew up in a similar households. So our dads used to work and they were the main income. My mom started to work part time, I guess, when I was 12. So that was very late. I'm not sure about my mother in law. I think she stayed at home completely. So, we grew up in the traditional German model, where [00:36:00] the mother was the housewife, she was always there, and the father was the one being responsible for the financial income.
And mostly not there. I cannot remember having seen my dad during the week, because he was leaving early and coming home late. Plus, sometimes he worked Saturdays. Then we had Saturday afternoon and Sunday as a family, but there was, my mom was the one who was there. Childcare was something we didn't know back then. We went to kindergarten, yes, and then we went to school, but school was until 12 or 1, so we were home by lunchtime every day.
So it sounds like even if the desire would have been there for a woman to work, it wouldn't really have been possible.
Not back then. Mm.
Yeah. So it's that kind of in between generation that I feel we're struggling. You know, we have the parents where maybe it was a more traditional model and we're moving to something where there are more [00:37:00] opportunities accessible for women and it's how are we bridging that gap and what conversations are we having about. The balance or the holding or the time that it takes to do both of those things.
And I must say in the defense of my parents, they never stopped. I have an elder sister. So they never stopped us from being independent and making a career. So we will never put into that situation. One day you start a family and then you stop working. So being in between because that generation was, we always call that the, in Germany is when, when everything was really booming because it was after the second world war and everything was really great and was raised and they were having a good work life and being a housewife. But then when we started to finish school, they never made it complicated for us. So we were always able to make our own decisions. We were saying, okay, this is [00:38:00] what I want to do. I want to travel. I want to start this and that. So we were never put in that role model saying you have to take care of the household and you have to stay at home.
So we have been away. My sister has been away. I have been away living independently, alone, everything. And I think it's interesting because they didn't have the possibilities we have today. And they didn't have any internet or any news or Any source of information on how things could be, but they just.
Allowed us to develop it and to, to go our, our own way, which is really, I'm really grateful for that because otherwise you would probably be stuck in that role model forever because you just want to please your parents or you just want to not disappoint them. Yeah.
How beautiful that they could not, or they could be psychologically flexible enough to say, Oh, there's another way of doing things. Oh, look at my beautiful daughters go and do that.
Yeah. I remember my mom was saying that when I was [00:39:00] going, I think on a language summer holiday to the UK one year, and then I really wanted to do that. And I was 15 and it was something organized where you. We just had a language training. She was saying, we never had that opportunity. I'm so happy for you. Go and have the time of your life. And I think this is what we have been raised. They are saying, okay, we didn't have that opportunity, but I'm so happy for you go. And this is what I see when I raise my daughter, because they have even more opportunities than we ever had. Which I'm more than happy for them to explore.
Such a beautiful, almost generational gift to pass down, right? That feeling of curiosity or open mindedness or pride in the next generation.
Absolutely.
You talked about swimming and you talked about yoga and you talked about following this group, this band that you love. What do you do to keep yourself [00:40:00] healthy and well?
So that's the first question. And the second part of that is what mindset maybe or permission did you have to give yourself mentally to allow yourself to do things that keep you healthy and well?
I wish I could say I'm doing all these things to stay healthy, but there are always times in your life where you forget to listen to your body and you're falling back to old habits. I'm trying, and this is the one thing, yoga, I'm never skipping. So I'm doing yoga every week. And this is the one. I think I never skipped. I even did it when I was pregnant. I did it when the child was very little and didn't need me and did it during the entire pandemic because we did it online and we still continue doing it online.
So whenever I don't have anyone watching my daughter or being there, I can still join online. And that's the thing that keeps me [00:41:00] grounded. And that's my two hours a week where I Listen to my body and just see, okay, is there something I need to focus on? So that's the one thing I never skip. Then I'm trying to stay healthy sometimes to detox.
I wish I would do that more often. Try to eat healthy, which sometimes works very well. And then you completely forget. I always hear my body quite well. If you have a stomach problem or if you feel okay, I cannot do any exercise because I'm completely Yeah. I don't have any breath anymore. Then I'm, I'm going back to, Oh, okay, stop.
My body is telling me something, but that takes a long time to learn it. I have support. I do work with someone who is helping me with my supplementals. It's not a doctor. It's more like an alternative medicine. I don't know what that is called in English, but that's something where I go back. She's helping with, with [00:42:00] everything. What your body needs even if you just need a massage because you feel like okay Something is blocking me and where does it come from and looking at the entire body not just saying? Oh, I have a headache now. I'm taking a painkiller. No, where's that headache coming from? What did you do? What caused it? So this is something where I invest money and I'm trying to stay healthy to have professional support.
Plus, yes, swimming as much as I can as often as I can. Sometimes I try to do Pilates on a regular basis. I just did it earlier this week and restarted it so I can really feel my muscles ache. I feel like, okay, you finally did something. Plus, I'm trying to walk every morning to school with my daughter, but now we have reached a stage in life where this is not really acceptable anymore because they are getting older.
So now I'm, I'm just trying to find another time slot for myself to just say, okay, just [00:43:00] go outside, take some fresh air, because that was really helping me. And it started during the pandemic, just before you start your day, just go for a half an hour or an hour walk, just don't do any exercise, just walking, clear your head. Sounds like doing a lot, but this is what I try to do, but yoga, what you were saying, yoga is the thing I always stick to and the rest, I'm trying to keep that on a regular basis. I have to remind myself that this is actually good for me and I need to continue doing that. And your body is telling that you can, you can really listen to your body. Help give me more, more movement, more nature, more breathing.
What helps you protect that yoga time or what helps remind you to go for the walk or to have the swim?
That has been developing long time back. Before I had a family, I [00:44:00] had been very sick and I started with yoga and that always keeps me back and keeps me grounded to do it. And it's just in my head. So it's in my head saying, okay, this is my time to really calm down and to take care of myself. And it took me some time and I had to be very ill before I realized that I need to do something for myself. It's been maybe 15 years now, and I cannot even tell you how, how I protect that yoga time. It's just with me now because this is exactly what I need and what I found out. Others probably have to go for a bike ride or hiking or something else, but for me, it's yoga. And it sounds like it almost took you the time to not be healthy to say to yourself and to carve out my body needs this or I need this to protect my health.
And without my health, I can't [00:45:00] work or provide or hang out or spend time or shop or do. Does that sound true?
I would even go that far and say if I wouldn't have been that ill back then and looking at it now. I would not be so careful with my body and probably that was a sign, it was long before I was pregnant, I always say, it was the right time that my body told me, okay, you need to do something differently, I think I've lost more than 25 kg during that time by just being careful with what I'm eating and doing more exercise. And I didn't, didn't lose that weight in a month or something. It took me two years and I didn't even realize how I lost weight. I just stopped drinking alcohol. I stopped eating too much chocolate and stopped drinking anything that is Coke or juice or whatever. So I really went down to water, tea. That [00:46:00] sounds very, very healthy. I, of course, enjoy my coffee. I wouldn't mind drinking alcohol every now and then, but I know that my body is just not dealing with that. So I just say, okay, why should I do that if I'm not feeling well? And it had to happen, I think, to be healthy for what was next. What was coming up next in life?
It sounds like when you look back on that, you, I don't want to say treasure, because it feels like that's a strong word. But there's a recognition of that shifted things for me and it allowed me to honor my body or honor my health in different ways that maybe I wouldn't have. if I wouldn't have been so ill?
Absolutely. Absolutely. You have to see it from that perspective because otherwise you just think, okay, I don't want to be there again, but you can do something to not be there again. It was really a sign. I can be proud to have listened to my body because I see others who [00:47:00] don't do that and who just complain about saying, oh, these painkillers do not work. And I am always having these problems, but no doctor knows what to do. Yes. It's not just Done by taking something you need to work on that as well.
I've got a question to you about something we talked about when we were chatting about having this interview and it was about when people question your choices around. Being part time, despite the fact that maybe your daughter's growing up and you were talking about how you respond or don't respond to them. Do you remember?
I can't remember what exactly I was saying, but it's what we were just talking about. It's, it's my health. It's my choice and I want to be healthy and I want to have my free time as well and take care of myself. You don't have to justify that to anyone in your life. And yes, I remember. We were talking about that as especially if it [00:48:00] comes to work life, if someone is saying, but your daughter is now old enough, so why are you still working part time? Yes, because I want to do other things in life. And it's not just about staying healthy. It's I think I mentioned that when we spoke last time, it's, it's doing something apart from that. There's so much more than just your one full time job. We started with that refugee thing over here. So in a community where you're really supporting and helping organizing, especially when the war started, um, in the Ukraine, just to see, okay, what can we do on a volunteer basis or in our community? So this is something where I would say there's so much more in life than your family, yourself and your dogs. There's so much I want to experience.
And this is the reason why I enjoy working less.
So two pieces there, almost that, um, permission not to defend or not to [00:49:00] justify or not to give explanations. Like, I get to use my time the way I want to, right, in a work context or whatever context, actually. And the other piece, which I love that you're bringing, is there's so much in life, right? And I think sometimes we forget that when we're in the nitty gritty, get through the day. get through the week, get through the month. What else is there? What else do I feel strongly about? What other passions do I want to feed and nourish? And how beautiful that you're at the point where you're able to look around and see those and engage with them.
Absolutely. In closing, and I promise this is the last question. What are you most proud of in yourself?
To be at a stage where I'm very independent and flexible, so I have all these choices and we achieved that in our partnership and our relationship as a family and of course, in my career, so I have always been a very [00:50:00] reliable person and that's what I'm proud of because I can still stick to that and for me, it's always black and white so I can make A decision very quick, and I'm glad that I can do that, and that's what I'm proud of, too, because I don't need a long time to think about something. If it feels right, I'm going for it, and if it doesn't feel right, I'm saying no to it. And that's what I'm really proud of that I can say no to a lot of things and to have a family that is supporting and a good friend circle based for a very long time, even those who have been there before we had a family and sometimes they don't even have kids, which I appreciate because these are the friends you need in your life as well.
So it sounds like self trust in decision making, confidence, and then also having both people around you that feel so aligned and so connected and I feel like life without [00:51:00] friends is a very different life.
Yeah. And even those who you don't speak to in a few months and then you just pick up as if you have spoken to them yesterday. These are the most important. Relationship with friends you can have where you don't have to explain why you didn't call for the last four weeks that love is deep.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it. It was lovely to see you and hear you.
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
I love having these conversations. So, so much. Thank you for being here for listening to the work family, me podcast. If you want to connect with me in real life, I would love that. You can find me on LinkedIn and I will put the link for my profile below. So you can just click on that and connect with me.
See you out there.
I hope you enjoyed this conversation exploring the behind the scenes of Sybille’s life flowing between caring for health, financial wellbeing, parenting, partnering, working, and having fun.