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14 The Linguist Vol/62 No/3
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Why Olivia Morton and Clare Suttie are no longer keeping
quiet about their children when it comes to their work
T
here is a significant number of freelance
translators who choose to entirely hide, or
downplay, the effects of their family lives on their
careers, endeavouring to glide like swans while frantically
paddling under the surface to fulfil their commitments.
There's nothing wrong with this approach, and there is
certainly no obligation to share details of your personal
life in your professional domain, but it is worth
considering the reasons why translators make this choice.
As a freelance translator and an agency owner working
together to provide translators with business training, we
talk to a lot of parents who struggle to combine their
translation business with the demands of parenting. And
as parents we understand these challenges all too well.
We all have different reasons for keeping quiet about
our family commitments. For Olivia, it was a way of
appearing 'professional' and not giving clients cause for
concern about her level of dedication to her work. For
others, there may be a concern that clients will perceive
them as less available for potential work, less capable of
committing to a particular project or less likely to get the
job done to a high standard if they mention childcare.
Others may just choose not to talk about their private life
in a professional setting.
Many of those fears start with the insecurities that can
arise when working in isolation as a freelancer. We may
worry that we do not measure up to an unachievable
standard. Many of the translators Clare meets have a
fear of being dropped if they don't accept every
assignment they are offered. In reality, many project
managers are juggling similar home/work commitments
and understand that freelancers may not always be
Family? What family?
