Serena Williams is inspiring mothers on Instagram with her transparency. The celebrity mom recently shared a picture of her with her daughter, Alexis Olympia, during downtime to bring home the point of working moms being absolute warriors.
“I am not sure who took this picture but working and being a mom is not easy,” Williams admitted. “I am often exhausted, stressed, and then I go [to] play a professional tennis match. We keep going,” she declared. “I am so proud and inspired by the women who do it day in and day out. I’m proud to be this baby’s mama.”
Serena’s post received an onslaught of support and stories of triumph from other working moms. “Your truth is so inspiring,” Kerry Washington wrote. “We are not alone.” Ashley Graham responded to Serena’s post with a simple, “Thank you.”
The Second Shift is often a concept kept within the bounds of sociology. The term is used to describe the act of mothers working a full-time job only to come home and begin their “second shifts” as homemakers, which includes cooking along with cleaning the house and taking care of the kids.
Women in the United States have been subjected to the Second Shift phenomenon for decades because of a patriarchal society that still places the man as the breadwinner of the home despite evidence showing that women work just as many hours, if not more, in corporate America.
“I don’t know how moms do it,” Serena recently said of in an exclusive interview with TODAY: Parents. “I work a lot, and I can’t imagine working a full day like most working women and then go back to their babies,” she added. “I’m fortunate enough that I have days off, and I get to make my schedule and then can spend the rest of the day with her. And that’s still hard.”
Alexis Ohanian, Serena Williams’ husband, is working to change the way that gender is treated in the workplace. Not only has the celebrity father advocated for paid maternity leave for all expectant women, but Alexis has also been a trailblazer in the fight to give all new fathers paid paternity leave so that new moms do not have the full weight of the household on their shoulders while nurturing newborn children.
How will Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian continue to advocate for gender balance in the public sphere? We will have to keep watching these celebrity parents to find out!
Photo: Serena Williams/Instagram
