Parenting principles for work – Photo credit: http://www.humptybumptykids.com

From what you can read in the media, motherhood and a successful career don’t exactly go hand in hand. Actually, there is even what is called a “motherhood penalty” at work for working mothers, which apparently takes us right back to the way things were in 1977. Yes, 1977, that was before I (and many among us) was born, or could count the dollars and cents that would make up this perennial wage gap penalty….

Yes, just as motherhood is for many of us an integral part of who we are, it’s also virtually impossible to separate our careers from it.

Actually and even better, I’ve found working at being a better mother (because it is also a career all on its own, if not one of the most difficult careers) helps me be a better career woman. Not in the quantity of hours I put in the office (which has been proved to be one of the worst barometers of career success), but in the quality of the vision, thought and actual work provided.

How could this be, when as professional moms, we are said to be torn between our motherly and career duties? When this whole work-life balance seems to elude us more and more by the day? How do we even begin to garner enough resources to walk on that thin line?

Well, maybe it’s less of a matter of performing a difficult balancing act than leveraging all the resources we actually have. Maybe motherhood, and parenting in general, instead of being the anti-thesis of career success, is actually one of its best allies:

1.It’s about what you put in, not just what you get out of it. There’s no work more rewarding than caring for children. Yet, in no other area of life, is the reward less quantifiable. Neither do we seek to quantify it. What if we applied the same altruistic approach to work? Aren’t the best leaders those who put the interests of their life’s work ahead of themselves?

2. It’s about learning first, then teaching! Today’s economy requires us to be lifelong learners, apt at transmuting and evolving our skills at the drop of a hat (or the newest Apple i-product). What else do we do as parents? We continuously learn, mostly about ourselves, and we constantly evolve. After all, who’d ever think we’d get to learning the difference between chocolate and poop?

3. It’s about realizing the work is never, ever, ever finished…I remember waking up every 2 hours to feed my baby daughter, and asking my mom when this grueling motherhood business would be over. “Never, baby, never!” If more of us realized our lives’ and career work is never, ever, ever done, maybe we could take it all in stride and learn to do better, not just more…

The Corporate Sis.