Ayda Field says Robbie Williams is never asked if he feels guilty about leaving his children to pursue his career.
Ayda Field says Robbie Williams is never asked if he feels guilty about leaving his children to pursue his career
The model, 43, who shares four children with her singer husband, 48, added working mums and dads are not treated equally when questions about their work life balance come up, with mothers seen as “selfish” if they leave their families due to work commitments.
She said on her ‘Postcards from the Edge’ podcast: “It’s interesting, it’s the same voice that goes in my head – you used the word ‘selfish’, that mummy has to be ‘selfish’ to do her work.
“It’s interesting, like I see Rob going off to do his work, and I don’t think he ever thinks of it as being selfish.
“And it’s interesting as women – and I don’t know if that’s because of what we’ve inherited culturally from our mothers and their mothers, and society, and what’s expected of us – how we do feel guilty when we pursue something that’s ours.
“Or it feels like it’s at the behest of our children, or that it’s wrong to want those things because it’s selfish – that judgment we put in place.
“It’s that thing where you judge yourself and you do find it selfish sometimes and that voice that you have to fight. Whereas I look at Rob, and I imagine many men, and they don’t feel like it’s selfish.
“Why do we do that? Why does it become selfish all of a sudden?”
Ayda, who married Robbie in 2010, shares children Theodora, 10, Charlton, eight, Colette, four, and three-year-old Beau with the ‘Angels’ singer, and added: “I’ve been there at his interviews and I’ve never heard anyone say (to Robbie), ‘Do you feel guilty being away from the kids?’ or, ‘Who’s looking after the kids while you’re on the road?’”
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