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Football, Work, Family, WTF, Compatibility?

Child or career? Almuth Schult would certainly answer: both.




The German international, worldclass goalkeeper, Olympic champion and TV pundit is a mother of three and still active in football.


(Credit: Karolin Knüppel)



However, the acceptance of motherhood in professional sports is still lacking. Having children is “treated very poorly” in women’s football, she mentions on the "kicker meets DAZN" podcast. Strangely, it is perfectly normal for men in sports to start families during their active careers. This is because the responsibility often falls on the women...


Here in Germany, the topic of "motherhood in professional football" needs much more attention. "When you're pregnant, associations still treat you as if you're sick," says Marion Sulprizio from the German Sport University in Cologne. We reported on this back in 2023. You can read the full article on motherhood in sports here.

But the issue is far from over. Especially when we now turn to the topic of balancing family, sports, and work. Because not everyone is a professional athlete who can make a living from sports.


Care work, or caregiving, meaning, who takes care of the children, the elderly, or the sick, and manages the household, is often unpaid, invisible, and unfairly distributed.


According to the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, women spend on average 52.4% more time than men on childcare, caregiving, housework, and volunteer work each day. Men spend an average of two hours and 46 minutes a day on caregiving, while women spend four hours and 13 minutes. This is the infamous "gender care gap," which has a ripple effect on other inequalities. When women take care of children, they have less time for paid work, earn less (which contributes to the gender pay gap), and later receive lower pensions (gender pension gap). Gaps wherever you look.


"In Germany, legal equality between men and women has been achieved. We're still working on actual, everyday equality." This statement is an official position of the German government (as you can read under the keyword "sustainability policy" on bundesregierung.de).


The balance between family and career is an urgent societal and political issue and of course, a personal challenge. Especially when, in addition to children and career, football is a "side job," like it is for FC Viktoria Berlin captain Stephanie Gerken.





She says: "I'm here to show that mothers can also be part of this project. I'd love to have a chat with Almuth Schult about how she does it. We have a babysitter, but it's not easy."


(Credit: Michael Romacker, Location: Studio of Wonders)




Sometimes, The Guilt Creeps In

Steffi is 32, and her son Henri is five years old. He was born while she was still studying to become a teacher, but she was far enough along that she didn’t have to go to university very often anymore. The child stayed with his grandparents, and Stephanie is separated from the child's father.


Today, she works full-time as a teacher at a secondary school in Teltow, where she teaches English and Ethics/Religion."The feeling of being overwhelmed comes up from time to time. During the winter training break, I was sick twice and had to take antibiotics. A normal day for me means working full-time, picking up my son from daycare afterwards, and then going to football practice in the evening."


Her child spends two to three days a week with his father. Stephanie's current partner, whom she's been with for two years, takes over the evening childcare when she goes to training. He often asks her how long she plans to keep up with such a demanding schedule. She says that without her support network, she wouldn't be able to play sports. Still, the guilt sometimes gets to her. She’s caught in a constant conflict: mother or player? She can't take her son with her as often as she'd like.


"Try finding someone willing to travel with me to away games on the weekend! That's when I get tired. I'm always organizing something. My brain is constantly working. Even during the off-season, it's not really a break because I spend all that time fully dedicated to my son. But I also have people in my life who criticize me. They say I’m neglecting my child. Sometimes, that guilt gnaws at me. I often question myself. Does my son throw tantrums because I’m not around enough? Am I really not there enough?"


Women who try, or have to juggle everything, work, a career, an ambitious hobby, and a child are often punished by society. It starts with the language we use. There's a term for "Rabenmutter" (bad mother), but not for "Rabenfather." "Even though I know better, society still makes me feel guilty," says Stephanie. And unfortunately, it doesn’t stop at just the guilt...


Mothers Are Penalized

In sports, there's the concept of a "penalty" (like a penalty shot in ice hockey or a penalty kick in football). In sociology, there's the term "motherhood penalty." It describes how working mothers face disadvantages at work compared to women without children. For example, in terms of pay. A study shows that in Germany, and especially here, the wages of women, only women, drop significantly after having their first child. On average, it's 60% less. This is due to being passed over for promotions or getting stuck in the part-time trap, often referred to as the "part-time gap" or the "gender hours gap." Men reduce their working hours much less frequently (11.2%) compared to women (47.9%). And for other reasons, too. 78% of women cite family responsibilities as the reason for part-time work, while only 34% of men do so for reasons such as childcare.


The motherhood penalty also includes the fact that women who return to work after having children are often perceived as less competent and reliable. National goalkeeper Almuth Schult experienced doubts about her performance for a long time after returning to VfL Wolfsburg.


“What happens if it’s match day, and your kids are sick... do you still show up?” Such questions were left unspoken back then, she recalls in the "kicker meets DAZN" podcast. Would people ask her husband the same question at his workplace?




How to return to work after having a child and how to fairly divide caregiving work are recurring themes in the rbb podcast "Die Alltagsfeministinnen" (The Everyday Feminists), which I co-host with coach Johanna Fröhlich Zapata. Each week, we discuss a real coaching case from her practice and place it in the context of broader societal issues. Often, what seems like personal, private challenges are actually structural problems.





Balance Must Become The Standard

Among these structural problems is the inadequate childcare situation in kindergartens or care facilities. Receiving a call in the morning that “the kindergarten is closed today” has become normal. AND, it costs companies millions due to staff absences and reduced productivity. That’s where Heynanny comes in. This digital nanny self-service platform helps companies support work-life balance for their employees. The portal, which has more than 20,000 nannies, is available for free to our FC Viktoria Berlin players. Founders Anna Schneider and Julia Kahle are passionate advocates for flexibility and choice for women and they’re also FC Viktoria fans.




Julia Kahle, CEO & Co-Founder of Heynanny, left her previous job because of her two children. During the pandemic, she realized that family, children, and health were more important than work. Julia didn’t want to be overwhelmed by the mental load. Then her co-founder, Anna Schneider, who had previously worked as a babysitter, came up with the idea for a nanny platform for companies.


(Credit: Tribunalova)





With kids, every day is a new challenge. You constantly have to ask, "Who's taking care of what today?" And six weeks of school holidays? That's really tough," says Julia. Heynanny launched at just the right time. In the era of skilled labour shortages, all industries rely on qualified employees. And you have to offer something to attract qualified employees.


“Companies need good people; they can’t just get them out of nowhere. They have to be an employer of choice, offering something attractive to employees,” says the founder. “In the era of gender quotas, companies want to attract more female professionals. Companies like SAP and Allianz, with whom we work, know how important this is.”


Heynanny’s clients come from all kinds of industries: banks, consultancies, insurance companies, but also retail and trades.


Especially when both parents are shift workers or a parent is a single parent, it’s about survival, says Julia Kahle. "Nobody has the luxury of deciding whether to stay at home and ‘only’ take care of the children. We want companies to step up and take responsibility. Work-life balance must become the standard so that parents don’t have to worry about childcare. And so that parents aren’t left to cover the costs alone."


And here’s how it works: Heynanny is targeted at companies and is only accessible through the respective company accounts. Employees who are parents and nannies create profiles on the platform. Filters allow users to find childcare options nearby. Are you looking for childcare or eldercare? What times do you need help? Do you need homework supervision or even a meal cooked in the evening?


The nannies, who are a mix of students, freelancers, educators, caregivers, or mothers whose children have grown up, are vetted by Heynanny with identity and background checks. They also list their qualifications and training in their profiles. The nannies are insured and can be booked quickly and easily online after an initial meeting. Payment is covered by the company, depending on the individual agreement.


“By the way, nearly half of those searching for nannies on Heynanny are men! They want this, and we need them,” says Julia Kahle. “So we can break out of this niche! Care work needs to get out of the “private corner”. The German government is aware of this too. In 2021, the "traffic light" coalition included the introduction of “family start time” in their coalition agreement. In fact, the so-called paternity leave was announced for this year. But there are ongoing disputes over the current draft.


“When it comes to balancing caregiving and paid work in Germany, we still have a long way to go,” says Julia Kahle. “A lot more needs to happen. With Heynanny, we’re just trying to fill the gaps in the childcare system, especially when it comes to irregular hours, shift work, emergency situations, or bridging the time until a daycare spot is available. But really, this is something that should be addressed by policymakers! It’s also an economic issue. Companies have already realized this…”


Mom is the one on the pitch 

For our FC Viktoria Berlin player Steffi Gerken, it’s clear: as soon as her childcare network isn't enough, she will use Heynanny. She wants to continue pursuing her passion for football for as long as possible. Sport is her passion, and taking care of one’s passions is also a form of self-care: “What’s important is taking care of yourself and doing what you love. I’ve been playing football since I was four years old. I still need to figure out who I am without football. It’s a lot of work, but football gives me a lot in return. The sport is just for me."


(Credit: Kai Heuser, @heuserkampf)

Being on the pitch with the team helps Steffi recharge, and as the only mother on the team so far, she is also a role model. She demonstrates that you don’t have to give up sports just because you have a child. At the same time, she hopes that other players won’t naively step into the challenges of motherhood without being aware of what it entails.


And lastly, she wants to set certain values for her son.


“I’m trying to break traditional gender roles by not being at home every evening, by having my partner cook and put my son to bed. I want my son to see, ‘Mom is the one on the pitch, taking 100 percent responsibility for her team as captain.’”


More on the topic of balance

  • "The book you should read before becoming a mother" (Das Buch, das du gelesen haben solltest, bevor du Mutter wirst) by Johanna Fröhlich Zapata (ISBN 3833891092). She writes that balance is a myth and primarily an overwhelming burden, especially for women: “We need new approaches: in companies (men should automatically take seven months of parental leave); in societal shifts (single parents should be the benchmark for family policy decisions); and in everyday feminism (fathers and mothers should share childcare equally)."


  • BarCamp Balance: On March 16th, the second Balance BarCamp will take place in Berlin. The event is aimed at companies, organizations, and professionals who are working on products, actions, and services for better work-life balance.

  • Sharing care work fairly and playfully: Eve Rodsky’s "Fair Play" card deck makes the many small, invisible tasks of everyday life visible. It lists 100 tasks related to household and childcare. It’s not about who has the bigger pile of cards or who does more caregiving, but about becoming aware of the tasks that are often done in the background and possibly reshuffling the cards in co-parenting.

  • The Care Calculator: This app calculates how much your unpaid caregiving work is actually worth. Making this visible can be a first step toward equality. How many hours have you spent managing household and childcare unpaid? What is that time worth in money? Find out!

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