She Returned to Work in Two Weeks, and She Would Do It Again

In a country where the fertility rate has fallen to 1.48 births per woman—well below the replacement rate of 2.1—the decision to have three children is no longer the ordinary choice it once was. It is a decision made against the current, a quiet act of faith in a future that statistics suggest is becoming less common .

Dian Winata is one of the women making that choice. She returned to work just two weeks after the caesarean birth of her third child, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. When her daughters were born, she was not a permanent Australian resident, was not eligible for government-funded parental leave, and had used up her paid leave entitlements . “If you ask why I could have three kids, it’s because I love it,” she said. “And why could I work that much while having three kids? Because I needed to” .

Lauren Treweek chose three children for a different reason: joy. “Each child that you have not only gives you a new little person to get excited about and to learn about, but it also gives you different experiences that you yourself can find joy in as well,” she said . But the trade-offs were real. Childcare was “hideously expensive,” and motherhood impacted her marketing career. “Part of me is happy to sacrifice maybe not progressing as quickly as I thought I would,” she said .

That sacrifice has a name. Researchers call it the “motherhood penalty”—the negative consequences women experience in the workplace due to being a mother . According to a 2023 Treasury report, women’s earnings fall by an average of 55 percent in the first five years after becoming a parent, while men’s remain unchanged .

Demographer Liz Allen said some people might be having fewer children than they wanted because their choices were “constrained.” “Having children has become so difficult because the social, economic and cultural supports are inhospitable to having a much-wanted child,” she said .

For the mothers who choose larger families anyway, the calculus is not purely financial. It is about love, about the particular joy of watching a new person discover the world, and about the willingness to accept that some things—career speed, rest, financial ease—will be sacrificed along the way. In a country moving toward smaller households, their stories offer a different kind of arithmetic.

AI Image Disclaimer: This article’s image is AI-generated and does not depict the actual individuals or families mentioned.

Sources: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC News)