The other day, I innocently asked Dear Daughter why she did not ask me to go to the store instead of her dad. To which she quickly responded: “Mom, you’re kind of cheap…” After the initial maternal hurt and shock, coupled with the realization that my dear child also believes buying all of Sephora amounts to a very affordable purchase, I got to thinking about what financial power truly means for working women and moms.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve valued financial security. Raised by a single mom who often reminded us kids that money doesn’t grow on trees, I understood the value of money very early on. However, for the longest time, this understanding was coupled with fear. It was the same fear that also kept me paralyzed when it came to money matters later on in life, from negotiating my salaries to learning to invest. Fast-forward a few decades punctuated by personal growth, marriage, motherhood, and career changes, and my financial outlook has been on quite the journey along with me. The more I learned to value myself and my unique purpose, the more my outlook on money morphed from fearful reliance to secure appreciation.
GENDER PERSPECTIVES ON FINANCIAL POWER.
The reality is, much of our money mindset and attitudes about money are often rooted in gender-based social conditioning. Indeed, research clearly shows men and women hold different conceptions of money. While men tend to consider money as a success and power symbol, women tend to consider money both as a source of security and anxiety. Men also tend to be more prone to pursuing financial investments than women. However, both genders share similar attitudes toward monitoring savings and expenses.
WOMEN’S FINANCIAL CHALLENGES.
Women are also no strangers to significant financial challenges. One of the latter can be summarized in one simple but loaded word: “Busyness”. According to an April 2023 Pew Research report, women complete on average 4.6 hours of housework as compared to 1.9 hours for men. Where both spouses share the same earning power, women take on 6.9 hours of household chores vs. 5.1 hours for men. This disparity obviously and significantly reduces women’s availability and ability to dedicate time to financial education and growth.
Indeed, the 2021 Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making (SHED) reveals substantial gender differences in financial literacy. While this is partially due to lack of motivation and confidence, other factors such as the wage gap, time spent by women outside the workforce, and the inequity in gender’s responsibilities at home, are also to blame. Considering women tend to live on average longer than their male counterparts, these staggering differences tend to impact them more heavily.
THE FEMINIZATION OF WEALTH.
Despite these challenges, women are thankfully far from being out of the financial game. If you’ve heard of the Great Wealth Transfer, you may know it’s an enormous shift of financial ownership in the United States set to occur in the next couple of decades. Currently, half of the wealth in the US is held by Boomers. However, in the next 20 years, it is predicted to land in the hands of a majority of women. As women tend to live longer than men, more women Boomers will be in charge of their family’s wealth. Additionally, a record number of single millennial women are set to inherit most of the future wealth. As a result, by 2030, American woman are predicted to manage at least $30 trillion in wealth. Which is more than the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in the hands of women! Talk about the feminization of wealth…
FINANCIAL WELLNESS IS SELF-CARE.
For all these reasons and beyond, financial self-care is now more than ever an absolute necessity for women. Caring for one’s finances as a working woman and mom is an act of radical self-care and community care. Indeed,financial self-care impacts families and communities by enlarging the pool of available financial resources, and providing positive examples for other women. It also requires reshaping what wealth means to and for women…
RESHAPING WOMEN’S FINANCIAL POWER.
For far too long, women have had a complicated relationship with money. I know I certainly have. Whenever I used to think about money, I would also think “stress”. And I’m far from being the only one here… According to a 2023 Fidelity Investments survey, stress is the first word women use to describe their feelings about money. Meanwhile, men tend to associate finances with the word “hopeful”. Difference much?
The 2022 Ipsos study published in the Women, Money, Confidence: A Lifelong Relationship report indicates most women manage their day-to-day finances well. However, it appears they struggle with longer term financial goals such as paying down debt, retirement and emergency savings.
Faced with these challenges, redefining wealth as women also means:
– CHANGING OUR MONEY MINDSET
I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly struggled with a scarcity mindset about money. While I’ve always made it a point to budget, save and invest, it was more out of a sense of lack and fear, than a belief in abundance and purpose. It took literally changing my mind about what financial security and power really mean, to even begin my journey into financial growth. And this is more gender-based than we often want to believe… Research shows while men tend to exhibit a higher risk tolerance as related to financial decisions, women tend to prioritize financial security and be more risk-averse. These biological and psychological gender differences result in the different money mindsets exhibited by women and men.
However, changing our money mindsets as working women and moms doesn’t necessarily equate behaving like men. Rather, it means identifying our money fears and addressing them as proactively, and effectively as possible. Many of these fears come from traumas passed on from generation to generation as early as in childhood. Debunking these while renewing how we view and think about money, is an indispensable part of growth and evolution.
-DON’T JUST KNOW YOUR WORTH, EMBODY IT!
Realizing our worth as working women and moms is a lifelong journey of unlearning society’s gender value system. It’s the mental, spiritual and psychological process of shedding the burden of shame, guilt, and excessive self-sacrifice.
It’s also a matter of re-learning our values in our personal and professional life, wherever finances are concerned. At work, we may measure professional worth in terms of professional fit, personal fulfillment and salary expectations. On a personal level, it’s about educating ourselves financially in the short and long-term. It’s also about developing an investment and financial mindset rooted in a spirit of financial abundance rather than scarcity.
– BOUNDARY UP!
Last but not least, implementing strong financial boundaries is key to stepping into our financial power. Most importantly, learning to say “no” to internal or external financial pressures, in order to say “yes” to financial growth and empowerment, is crucial. This can take the form of flexible budgeting, wise investments, or strong personal limits.
Setting, and keeping, financial boundaries has certainly been an ongoing journey for me. As financial power takes on very many different forms through the various seasons of our life and work, it requires different evolving versions of ourselves as well. Awareness then is the first step to creating, adjusting and upholding effective financial boundaries.
IN CONCLUSION…
All in all, stepping into our financial power, especially at the dawn of the feminization of wealth era, is a lifelong journey. However, in light of the Great Wealth Transfer set to occur in the U.S. in the next decade, it is more relevant and important than ever. Despite its challenges, stepping into our financial power as working women and moms may just be one of the most enlightening and rewarding journeys of our lives and careers. One that holds the unique potential and power of teaching us about our worth, our power and the legitimacy of our own unique purpose.
How will you step into your financial power in this season?
In this podcast episode, I’m discussing defining, or re-defining, our vision of what it means to be a working mom by better integrating career and motherhood in 2025. Through a 7 step process, I invite listeners to engage in assessing their season of motherhood and career, master their time, embrace self-care, among other steps…
Are you ready to integrate motherhood and career this year? Listen in!
Thanks for Listening!
Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this week’s episode! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please share it by using the social media at the bottom of this post!
Also, leave me a review for the TCS podcast on Apple Podcasts !
I was recently on a trip back home to Senegal to visit my aging parents. Sandwiched in between taking care of my parents, mothering my teens from a distance, and intermittently checking my work email, I realized how much motherhood had evolved for me. I was literally mothering my aging parents, while remotely ensuring my kids were ok, and still trying to wear all the hats even while away. As I was watching my mother, I also could notice how much motherhood had changed for her as well. If you’re reading this and nodding, you may have noted how your own experiences of motherhood have changed over time as well. You may also be struggling with integrating motherhood and career as you evolve as a working mom….
Motherhood is an ever-changing journey…
One thing I’ve learned as a working mom, is that motherhood is an ever-changing journey. Never quite the same from one year to the other, one season to the other. One season, you’re changing diapers back-to-back while preparing your return to work after maternity leave. Another season, you’re worrying about your teen’s mental health, while learning to mother your own parents. Yet another, you’re dropping young adults off to college, and coming back to an empty nest. Through it all, your vision of motherhood must keep evolving, as your heart and mind adjust to the changes…
The Challenges of Integrating Motherhood and Career…
Add to this the ever-present challenges of integrating motherhood and career in today’s fast-paced world. Now more than ever it seems, the demands on parents, and on mothers in particular, are astronomical to say the least. Modern stressors such as social media, the youth mental health crisis, and unique economic challenges have put heavy pressure on parents, leading to the recent U.S. Surgeon General advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents. This is even more prevalent with evolving professional expectations in 2025, including leadership roles, as well as hybrid and remote work. Women are increasingly entering leadership roles, at a rate of 37% in 2024, up from 32% in 2015, according to Mc Kinsey & Company’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report. Women are also more likely to select remote or flexible work options, citing work-life integration, increased focus and productivity, and reduced exposure to micro-aggressions.
All of these challenges make it all the more important to re-evaluate our own kind of motherhood every so often; and reflecting on how to better integrate motherhood and career. What kind of mother am I in this season? Where am I in my life and career as related to the mom I am today? What needs to stay? What needs to go? Such are the heart-wrenching, but necessary questions, so many of us often fail to ask ourselves as we journey through motherhood as working moms.
When was the last time you re-evaluated your own vision and definition of motherhood? Have you asked yourself lately what kind of mom you see yourself as? When did you last etch in your mind, or on paper, the picture of your own brand of motherhood?
If these questions resonate with you, here are some steps to define your own vision of motherhood this year:
1. Do Your “Mommy Audit”
Just like you perform your career audit periodically, take some time to pause and perform your “mommy audit” as well. Assessing who you are as a working mom in this season of your life and career is the first step to defining (and redefining) your own vision of motherhood.
Are you in a season where your kids are smaller and your career is taking a backseat? Or are you faced with the delicate teenage years while caring for aging parents and moving into leadership roles at work? Or are you an empty nester with more time on your hands?
2. Define what matters most in motherhood and career
Based on your “mommy audit”, identify your family and work priorities in this season of your life and career. What matters most this year, quarter, month, or even week? This also requires creating boundaries around your non-negotiables, including family events, family time, and work hours.
If like me, you are raising teenagers requiring you to be more present as they gain their independence, then blocking your time off to be more present becomes crucial. This may also prompt you to work in a more focused and efficient manner so you can honor your family time.
3. Master Your Time
Time is working moms’ most precious, and most abused, commodity. Hence why guarding your time is a priority as a working mom. There are a few things you can do to protect your time:
Leverage technology: From calendar apps such as Calendly, to project management tools such as Asana, and family scheduling platforms like good ol’ Google shared calendars, are my go-to’s.
Block your time: I often say “if it’s not on my calendar, it’s not happening’. Allocating specific blocks of time for parenting, self-care, and work allows to waste less time.
Break tasks into smaller steps: Learning to break down big projects into smaller tasks allows to be more intentional and effective with your use of time.
Delegate, delegate, delegate: You can’t do it all. And why would you want to? Setting a system to delegate tasks and responsibilities at home and at work can go a long way towards freeing your time. As a bonus, research shows kids are more successful when they do chores.
4. Build a Support System
An important part of defining or re-defining your vision as a working mom in the new year is to re-evaluate your support system. It takes a village to raise kids, have a career and wear all the hats working moms do. However, the unfortunate reality is, too many working moms do not have a village to rely on. This is where learning to build your own villages comes into play:
Build your work village: Asking for support at work is not a weakness. However, this depends on the type of work environment you’re in. What does building your work village look like? It can look like advocating for increased flexibility, such as flexible or remote work opportunities. Support at work can also come in the form of mentors or sponsors, who may well understand working mothers’ challenges and help advocate for you.
Build your home village: At home, support can look like enlisting the help of your spouse, children, family, and childcare services. It can also take the form of supportive working parents’ network, who can serve as resources as well.
5. Embrace self-care
Self-care is a non-negotiable as a working mom. Whether it’s prioritizing your health through exercise, sleep and healthy eating, or scheduling “me time”, carving some time out for you is a must.
Another important aspect of self-care has to do with letting go of the “mommy guilt” eating at you every time you do something for you. Instead, choosing to shift your mindset from guilt to “doing your best” can help in the process. Lastly, don’t forget to celebrate your wins, small or big.
6. Set Your Vision
Now is the time to put all the pieces together and create a vision of your own brand of working motherhood. What milestones fit into this vision? How can they be broken into smaller, more achievable pieces? How can you align your long-term family vision to your professional goals?
7. Get Inspired by Other Women
Last but not least, get inspiration from the women around you to fuel your vision as you refine and adjust it over time. Who are the women around you who are successfully integrating their family life and work? Are there even role models on social media that you can informally get inspired by?
All in all, integrating motherhood and career looks different from one person to the next. At the end of the day, it’s really about what works for each and everyone of us. Taking small, actionable steps can help. Thriving both as a parent and as a professional is possible, after all.
In this episode, I discuss ditching traditional career goals and instead embracing your own career vision by audting your career in the past 12 months. I discuss 10 steps to start with at the beginning of 2025 to audit your career.
Listen in!
Thanks for Listening!
Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this week’s episode! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please share it by using the social media at the bottom of this post!
Also, leave me a review for the TCS podcast on Apple Podcasts !
‘Tis the season to set big, lofty career goals for the New Year. It rolls around every year, lasts about a couple of days/weeks/minutes to a month and generally ends in a puddle of unanswered emails and too long meetings. If you’ve been there, you know what I’m referring to. You also may realize like me that with time, we may get tired of the big, lofty goals, and want something different. You know the “it’s not you, it’s me” kind of thing, just with your career on a Monday morning instead of the usual Saturday night heart-to-heart. And like so many working women and moms, you may just have come to the point where you’re ready to move on from the collection of scattered, albeit great, goals, and embrace the vision of your career that fits in with your life.
I realized after years of setting pages-long lists of ambitious career goals that I wanted something else. Something more “me”, that lets me be all of me, the mom, wife, writer, nerd and everything in between. After a career change, kids, marriage, and in the throngs of perimenopause, I was over the career hype and fallacy that women should have it all at all times. Basically, I was tired of dating my work goals, and ready to marry my ideal career. There, I said it…
Why Ditch Your Work Goals and Marry Your Career Vision Instead
Your work goals are the guys you pick and go on a few dates with. Your career vision is the guy you marry and stick with (hopefully) for the rest of your life, through the ups and downs, the kids, mortgage, grey hairs and aching knees. Now your career vision may take different forms, quite a few iterations, lots of changes, flexibility and forgiveness, but at the end of the day, it’s still the vision.It still keeps you grounded while teaching you to bob and weave through the obstacle courses of life as a working woman and mom. And no one goes through longer and more arduous obstacle courses in life than women and moms…
So if you’re a working woman looking to be more grounded in your career while still maintaining your professional edge, I’d strongly suggest jumping out of the goal-dating poll into the vision-setting arena. And it starts with auditing your career first. Independently of being an ex-auditor and totally biased on the subject, I’m also a fervent believer of the maxim “In order to know where you’re going, you must know where you’re coming from.” Your career holds a wealth of data that can help you learn about yourself, your purpose and your vision; that is, if you take the time to re-evaluate it periodically, at least once a quarter. And this is exactly what a career audit can provide…
Why Auditing Your Career Matters
Just like a financial audit sheds light on the financial results of a business, a career audit provides clarity on you stand professionally. Not only is it a powerful indicator of your strengths and areas of growth, it’s also an opportunity to reflection on your purpose and alignment with your life path. A career audit can help you determine if the work you do indeed supports you values and priorities, and contributes to your well-being, or if it’s time to make some changes.
Here are a 10 steps to audit your career and set a vision for your professional future:
Step 1: Make an Inventory of Your Achievements
This first step is probably the most underrated, yet among the most critical ones, especially for working women. While many of us tend to underestimate our accomplishments, they can be a powerful source of information for our careers. Whether these are successful projects, professional milestones, or individual objectives, do not discount them!
Ask yourself:
How did I best contribute to my team or organization?
What were my most significant wins at work?
What are the achievements I am the most proud of, and why?
Action Step:
To make this process easier, create your own “Bragging File” by using a spreadsheet or journal to keep track of your accomplishments. In addition to being an undeniable mood-booster, it will also facilitate the process of updating your resume/CV as well as your Linked In profile.
Step 2: Assess Your Growth
Your growth in skills and abilities is your career currency. Assessing how much you’ve grown in terms of the skills you’ve acquired or improved is crucial to auditing your career. So is the practice of flagging the areas in which you need more improvement.
Ask yourself:
What new skills did I gain this past year?
What existing skills did I improve upon?
Are my current skills in alignment with my career progression and industry trends?
Action Step:
To help with this step, create a learning plan for this year including the skills you plan on learning or improving in. Your learning plan may include workshops to attend, online courses or certifications to take, or mentorship in specific areas.
Step 3: Evaluate Your Job Satisfaction
You spend too much time at work not to assess your job satisfaction. It’s about more than just collecting a pay check. It’s also about your fulfillment, your joy, and ultimately your alignment with your purpose.
Ask yourself:
What was your level of job satisfaction this past year on a scale of 1-10?
Did you feel supported and valued at your place of work?
Was your personal life in sync with your career and vice-versa?
Action Step:
Depending on your job satisfaction score, asses what needs to change in your career. It may be considering a new role, seeking a promotion, or making a lateral move.
Step 4: Review Your Performance Feedback
Feedback is a powerful tool to help identify your strengths, areas of growth, as well as the fit of the team or organization you’re in. Reviewing the feedback you receive, whether in the form of formal performance reviews, internal feedback, or informal advice, can go a long way in assessing how you are perceived and making the necessary changes, if needed.
Ask yourself:
What were the main themes emerging from the feedback you received this past year?
What were the areas of improvement and growth noted?
Did you agree with the feedback?
What did you do to implement the advice given?
Action Step:
Create a feedback evaluation file, where you log in the main feedback themes, areas of growth, as well as steps taken to address these. Based on your evaluation, identify areas you will work on this year to address the feedback from last year.
Step 5: Evaluate Your Compensation
Newsflash: the gender pay gap is far from closing. Hence why it is so important to periodically review your compensation. This not only ensures that you’re aware of industry trends, as well as competitive salaries for your role, but that you also keep yourself marketable in your role and company.
Ask yourself:
Is my salary competitive with industry trends and standards?
Is my salary in line with peers at my current organization?
Are my benefits in line with my actual needs (parental leave, healthcare, retirement, etc)
Action step:
Create an “I’m Worth It” Folder that you periodically update with research on the current salary benchmarks for your industry and role. You can use platforms such as Payscale or Glassdoor to conduct your research.
Prepare yourself to negotiate your salary and/or benefits if need be.
Step 6: Conduct a Network Audit
One of the most underrated career assets for women is their network. Sallie Krawcheck, founder and CEO of women’s focused investment platform Ellevest, famously said: “Networking is the number one unwritten rule of success”. And she was right on the money…
The stronger and more diverse your network, the stronger your career…
Ask yourself:
What new professional connections did you make the past year?
Did you nurture your professional network in the past year?
Do you need to strengthen your network, in terms of mentors, sponsors and peers in your field and beyond?
Action step:
Crete a “Networking File” where you log at least one networking event per quarter, and update it regularly as you strengthen your network.
Step 7: Re-evaluate Your Work-Life Alignment
I don’t believe in work-life balance. There, I said it again…At the end of the day, balance is elusive, but alignment is possible. Re-evaluating how well this alignment is working is a priority at the beginning of every year, and frankly, anywhere in between.
Ask yourself:
Did you feel your work was in alignment with your personal life this past year?
Did you experience overwhelm or burnout? When and for how long?
Did you set proper boundaries last year to take care of yourself? If not, why?
Action step:
Commit to setting boundaries in your work this year. It could be not addressing emails after a certain time, or not working on weekends.
Step 8: Fail Forward
Repeat with me: “Failure is not a dirty word.” Research by Borgnovi and Han (2021) shows women tend to report higher fear of failure than their male counterparts, which can negatively impact women in and out of the workplace. Yet, failures are one of the most invaluable sources of growth. Hence why reflecting on what didn’t go well can be so beneficial in a new season.
Ask yourself:
What were my biggest professional failures and challenges this past year?
What did I learn from these?
What can I do this year to not repeat the same failures?
Action step:
By now, you know I love creating reflection-based files. Well, this is no exception. Create a “Failure Journal” to log your failures throughout the year, lessons learned and steps taken to address these. Remember, the more you recover from failure, the better you get…
Step 9: Visualize your Ideal Career
Now the real fun starts…Call me a dreamer, but I believe in seeing the end result before it manifests, that is, seeing it in your mind’s eye. So pause and take a minute (or 100) to dream up your ideal career. Visualize in the eye of your mind what your career looks like at the end of this year.
Ask yourself:
How does your career feel at the end of this year? (peaceful, energizing, inspiring, etc)
What role or work environment is a good fit for you?
What accomplishments would make you feel purposeful and fulfilled this year?
How does your career best align with you personal life and values?
Action Step:
Create your “Career Vision Board” where you illustrate with pictures what your ideal career looks like. If you’re not a vision board type of gal, then consider writing yourself a letter describing your ideal career. Use these all throughout the year to refresh yourself on your vision.
Step 10: Commit to a first step toward your vision!
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your ideal career won’t either. So start this journey with a first step. Decide on ONE thing you can do TODAY to leverage your career audit and move toward your career vision.
Ask yourself:
What is ONE thing I can do TODAY to get closer to the vision of my ideal career?
Action Step:
This one is pretty short. Just do it!
Performing a career audit is not for the faint of hearts, I’ll give you that. Yet, it may be the single most rewarding investment you make of your time and energy as the year starts, especially as a working woman and mom. Reflecting on your path so far, and committing to a career vision that frees you to be all of you, is already a win! And you’re just starting the year…
Will be auditing your career this year? Are you ready to embrace the vision for your career this year?
