As we navigate the Coronavirus crisis quarantined at home, many working moms are under extraordinary pressure to handle multiple priorities at once, including childcare, elderly care, remote work and household chores, in addition to keeping a level head and maintaining some sense of sanity. While many parents are working from home, the burden of care and household chores still traditionally remains on working moms, who also have to add to it the pressure (and obligation) of working remotely.
For many, if not most working mothers, it means rearranging their schedules to rise even earlier than usual to work, or staying up late to catch up on unfinished business. It also means homeschooling the at least 32.5 million students from kindergarten through 12thgrade, who may be reticent to studying at home, and having the patience to deal with the inevitable meltdowns and tantrums that may come with it. Add to it the piling up of dishes, laundry and household cleaning due to the majority of the family being home at the same time, and overwhelm, frustration and even resentment, may set in. This is without even considering the impact of the anxiety, worry and despair plaguing most of us as we painfully learn to live in a reality that is closer to science-fiction than anything we could have ever imagined…
What this also translates into for working mothers, are inescapable health-related mental costs, as the number of hours spent working inside the home on careers and businesses, in addition to childcare and household-related duties, increases, along with stress and anxiety levels. For working moms who do not have the benefit of salaried employment, are seasonal workers, or small business owners, the economic costs are outrageously high, as many, if not most, come to terms with not being able to put food in the table in a matter of days or weeks. Many working moms, single moms in particular, who relied on schools to provide meals to their children, or moms whose children need regular, expensive medication, are now facing dire economic circumstances.
As a working mom myself, I was shocked by the sheer amount of work, both childcare and household-related, in addition to adapting to working remotely in the midst of chaos and homeschooling, I now had to face. As my spouse had to go to work, this also meant dealing with the new situation alone at home. While I’m certainly counting my blessings, I also realized there are millions of working women faced with the same, if not worse, situation.
I can only imagine what the moms who work part-time performing essential duties that cannot be performed remotely, are going through. Women working part-time represent 2/3 of the population of part-time workers, as reported by the National Women’s Law Center, and are paid less in addition to having less access to benefits. Not to mention the working moms in the healthcare industry, or in other emergency fields like firefighters and public servants, who do not even have the privilege to stay home.
While this depicts a pretty dreary picture during this already depressing coronavirus crisis, it also reminds us of the importance of building plans and infrastructures that preserve working mothers in the regular course of business and life. The House passed a preliminary aid package including a provision to provide mothers and pregnant women out of a job with food.
While there should be contingency plans in place to protect everyone, working moms, most of whom in charge of caring for children and elderly, especially in the case of single moms and in many families represent financial, emotional and spiritual pillars, should not be forgotten.
Here are some ways to help working moms during the coronavirus crisis:
Bosses, please be more understanding!
Working from home with kids is HARD. This is why it’s so important that working moms and their managers have honest conversations about work expectations during this time. This is largely uncharted territory, hence the importance of having flexible yet clear expectations, and being able to adapt to change.
Use technology to help out
With the quarantine restrictions, it may mean children are expected to have more screen time than usual, with homework and activities being completed online. This also means that some working moms may have to get a computer, or not have enough computers for all their children. If you have a spare computer, consider helping out by sharing with less fortunate families.
Some companies have already started offering Internet streaming services for free, which will be a huge relief for families. Other ways to help include using technology to hold virtual play dates, or send tips and tricks to help working moms via text, email, or on social media.
Parenting partners, please get on the same page!
In regular times, sharing responsibilities as parenting partners is challenging, with most of the childcare and household duties falling on working moms’ shoulders. If you’re a parenting partner to a working mom, it may mean considering adjusting your schedule to accommodate school closures, work disruptions, layoffs, and other disruptions bound to happen during this time.
It also may mean opening the lines of communication with your partner to understand what they’re going through, and how best to help, whether it’s operating in shifts, come up with creative alternatives, or just lending a compassionate ear.
Just check in and ask how they’re doing
Sometimes, all someone needs is a smile and a word of encouragement. Many working moms are struggling to keep mentally healthy, in addition to their other preoccupations and worries. Just be kind!
Offer assistance if you can
Can you spare a roll of toilet paper, some extra money, or just resources on funding (state or federal) and (trustworthy) information you can share? Your contribution can make the difference in someone’s day, so if you find yourself in a situation where you can help, consider doing so.
Overall, working moms are some of the hardest hit through the coronavirus case, economically, physically, and mentally. They also are the pillars of many, if not most families, who may not able to survive without them. As such, the burden to help and assist working mothers is on all of us, and the responsibility to help our common duty.
As a working mom, what challenges are you facing during the coronavirus crisis?
“You’re my person”: When Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) uttered the now famously coined phrase to her best friend Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) as she shares her decision to put her name down as an emergency contact for her upcoming abortion, it took on a life of its own, embodying our primal human need for deep, healthy, fulfilling friendships. From Sex and the City to Issa Rae’s Awkward Black Girl, stories of female friendships and girl squads have graced our TV screens and subconscious for decades, confirming that as working women and working moms, our friendships play an important role in our lives. However successful we may be professionally, or even family-wise, friendships with other women hold a sacred place. For many, if not most of us, they are a reminder of our original relationship with our mothers, aunts, sisters and other female pillars of our lives, as well as a reflection of our own self-love. This can make the dynamics of our relationships with our sister friends beautifully complex, uniquely fulfilling, and sometimes, downright frustrating.
However, in the modern era of social media, lacking inter-personal connection, and negative media messages around female friendships, it can be challenging to reap these benefits if, and when, we do not foster and nurture healthy relationships with other women. Healthy relationships based on trust, openness, vulnerability, rather than fear, distrust, and anger. It’s the same fear, distrust and anger that end up being translated into gossip, “mean women”, Queen Bee Syndrome, and exclusion, to cite a few.
In my own relationships, I’ve had the privilege to experience the beautiful openness, trust, and vulnerability that makes female friendships a unique bond, and also the heart-wrenching fear, betrayal, and distrust that rob us of the empowering impact of these connections. I’ve learnt, and am still learning (and probably always will) from my positive and negative experiences, as well as my mistakes and mishaps, and growing into a better understanding of the sacred bond between women:
Friendship is a process:
In the era of instant messages and micro-waved networking, we can be tempted to jump in and out of friendships, without the realization it is a marathon, not a race. It’s a process that requires this one thing we cannot microwave: time. It takes time to know someone, see them act in different contexts, build a history with them. It takes time to face and surmount obstacles, enjoy moments together, and deepen bonds. Without it being a process, a friendship can hardly survive, let alone flourish.
A fruitful friendship is a friendship that evolves as both individuals involved evolve as well.
This is where so many friendships reach an impasse, especially among women, as we often tend to not voice our concerns in relationships. I often hear some people say: “I hope you never change” to their friends, which tends to make me shudder every single time. Not expecting those around us, especially our friends, to evolve and change for the better, is to keep them stuck in the same place for our own convenience and comfort. If you’re my friend, I wish you to evolve, to grow, to change into the best version of yourself, even if your growth requires me to grow as well and challenge myself to meet you at a place that is mutually beneficial.
A fruitful friendship is one that evolves. Developing healthy friendships requires shedding the fear of evolving, and that of our friends evolving as well. Some of my greatest relationships are friendships that grow as both individuals grow, and as we both discover new facets of ourselves and each other, and engage on a path on continuous, positive, even exhilarating evolution.
Don’t be afraid to release what no longer serves.
Developing healthy female friendships also requires leveraging the power of releasing what no longer serves. Very often, we allow history to determine relationships that no longer have a place in our destiny. It’s these same relationships that in turn, prevent us from growing into our full potential and achieve our destiny, as we settle for the comfort of familiarity and ease.
Healthy friendships challenge you, push you to be a better version of yourself, and fulfill you to the brim. They don’t leave you drained, empty or wanting for more, but instead felling supported, valued, cherished, and challenged. If not, it may be time to release them, gently, peacefully, with the understanding that we’re creating more space for relationships that fit us better, for our mutual benefit.
All in all, developing healthy female friendships is like making an investment in our well-being, health and potential. Yet, it’s also a process of introspection, self-knowledge and character development that requires choosing who can sit at the table of your life and on what terms. In the end, it may be one of the most important processes of your personal and professional life.
Welcome to Let It Be Friday!, where I say hello (and TGIF), and round up the lifestyle, career and business news that inspired, excited, made me smile (or laugh out loud).
Business Insider shares 5 conferences for women of color in tech to help beat gender inequality in the field and how to get a coveted spot ;
Got money on your mind? Actress, writer and wearer of many hats Issa Rae reveals to Black Enterprise that multiple streams of income are the key to success;
Working Moms, we see you! Working Mother shares with us a heartfelt testimony from Serena Williams about the hardships of working motherhood, and we’re right there with her;
Ever cried at work? Inc. explains why it’s ok (We all did it);
Afraid of public speaking? Entrepreneur teaches you how to give a presentation like a pro;
Tax season is here, and so are email attachment scams as well! Lifehacker tips you on a few tips to avoid the scams;
I’ve been trying to eat less meat these days, and Corporette is helping with their 6 easy strategies to go meat-less;
We’re ready for Spring, and WhoWhatWear is sharing 8 spring trends that are technically for free;
In the midst of all the talk about purpose, business success stories, happy entrepreneurial endings, and so on and so forth, it can be tempting to look down at your current career. As you stroll through the pages of Instagram, you may even be experiencing some serious symptoms of “career envy”, as you dream of being your own boss or waking up like Beyonce. That is, until reality hits you tenderly strokes your cheek as you roll out of bed on Monday morning and proceed to make it through your usual daily commute. Does this mean it’s virtually impossible to find fulfillment in the job you’ve got? Do you have to suffer through the ins and outs of your current job, waiting for the perfect career or business? Or are you destined to endlessly hustle towards your dream while constantly feeling dissatisfied? I would respectfully disagree…
I was there, in that dark place where I believed that unless I hit the perfect career jackpot, I would never find fulfillment. I know so many other working women who also were, and still are, there, dragging themselves in and outside of work, waiting for that elusive perfect opportunity and/or hustling to no end. Some are striving and building while they are waiting, while others are teetering on the edge of giving up. Yet, the missing piece we seldom consider is the one that encourages us to find fulfillment in our current careers and positions, even as we strive for more. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until a fellow working woman and coach of mine taught me to strategize my approach to fulfillment that my entire career changed for the better.
If you are asking yourself this question: “How do I find fulfillment in a job or a career I don’t love or even like?”, here are three questions I challenge you to consider:
How can you combine your gifts and your acquired abilities?
This is the one single question that changed the trajectory of my career. As a natural-born writer with a passion for gender diversity borne from being raised by a single working mother, and with degrees and a professional background in business and accounting, I believed the various parts of my experience were totally separate and incompatible, when in fact they were all aligned with my purpose. Fast forward a few years, I find fulfillment in writing about and teaching business, accounting and gender diversity. The various, and quite different parts of my experience are being combined with my natural gifts to serve the people and causes I most believe in.
What are your natural gifts and talents, and how can you combine them with the acquired abilities you’ve gathered through your career? You could use your ease to network to facilitate instrumental meetings in your area, for instance. If your project management skills have always been your strength, you could volunteer to manage a given project in or outside of your work. As a gifted speaker, you may be able to serve as an event presenter in your department or company. These are simple examples of combining your talents with your acquired knowledge and abilities, right where you are.
How does your career/job help people?
I’ve learnt from experience and from talking to fellow working women that service is an extremely important component of the fulfillment factor at work. It gives your work a higher dimension, one that extends beyond deliverables and tasks, and creates a strong sense of engagement and community. Above all, service gives work meaning and impact. Unfortunately, many of us are missing this part in our careers or jobs, unless we’re saving lives or changing the world.
Can you consider how your job is helping others? If in doubt, could you start the conversation in your teams or departments? As an accountant for instance, you may not feel like your work impacts anyone. However, without accurate financial records and financial statements, the entire financial fabric of our society would be at risk of compromise and fraud, stripping investors, creditors and stakeholders of the trust needed to invest and grow our economy. As a hairdresser, your work is at the core of many women’s (and men’s) sense of self-esteem, community and belonging. So, let me ask you again, how does your job help people?
How can you improve your life outside of work?
In many, if not most instances, our dissatisfaction with our work may be in direct relation with our general dissatisfaction about life, and vice-versa. It’s hard to be motivated at work when your home life is a wreck. Finding the strength to do great work is challenging when you feel like you’re failing as a parent at home. There are so many other examples of the correlation between life outside of work and life at work.
How can you improve your life outside of work? For you, it may be meeting more people, and having more fulfilling friendships and relationships. Or you may have to invest into family therapy and improve the atmosphere in your home. Maybe you need to forgive your parents for neglecting you as a child, so you can stop struggling to gain approval at work at the cost of your sanity and ineffectiveness. Let me ask you again, how can you improve your life outside of work, so your work life improves as well?
While we should all be striving for better, finding fulfillment in a career we don’t necessarily love is possible. It starts with a few hard but crucial questions…
Do you believe you can find fulfillment in a job you don’t love?
“Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings, or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behaviors.” Brene Brown
This quote from one of my favorite of Brene Brown’s books “Dare to Lead” always stops me in my tracks, forcing me to re-consider how, as a working woman, I’m continuously addressing my fears and feelings, especially at work. We are all leaders in the work we do, regardless of our position or title, as we’re called on to have an impact through our work. However, what we often dismiss, are the experiences, many of them hurtful, the histories (many of them traumatic), as well as the deep-seated emotions we’ve been carrying within ourselves since childhood. These are the same histories, experiences, emotions, feelings and fears that we also take into our work, businesses, and professional lives, and that end up becoming our most disadvantageous blind spots as we keep facing the same challenges, over and over again.
Most of us have been hurt by various experiences we’ve faced. Whether it’s the trauma of being neglected as child, not being heard or valued as a partner or parent, or sustaining the loss of a loved one, and so many other deeply hurtful scenarios, these events stay with us as we work through them throughout our lives. This includes working through them, whether consciously or unconsciously, at work, where we spend the majority of our time. For instance, if you’ve been dismissed as a child, you may be working through this trauma, without even realizing it, by striving to be seen and heard in your workplace at whatever cost, including that of seeking approval from colleagues or cheating your way to the top of the corporate ladder. Or it could be the exact opposite, as you hide in the back of meeting rooms to avoid letting your potential be seen and heard.
The fears and feelings we all carry are also the source of the pain we keep experiencing in all environments, including at work. If we do not dare, as Brene Brown puts it so well, to “lead from a place of heart, instead of hurt“, we risk not showing up as our most authentic and capable self, thus ruining the very work that we strive to do each and every single day and damaging ourselves in the process. The most successful people, and working women especially that I have had the privilege to meet, work with, or just watch afar in admiration, have been women who have experienced some of the deepest pain and hurt, yet have done the work to turn this pain and hurt into the power they now show up with in their lives and work. That’s the very point, not just to focus on the feelings and fears that separate us from our best, but to leverage the pain and hurt into power.
So how do you keep your own histories, experiences, feelings and fears from stripping you of the very fulfillment you seek? How do you show up in power when your marriage may be failing, or you may be doubting yourself as a parent, or you’re battling an illness? How do you refrain from letting your old traumas show up at work in the form of harsh leadership, avoidance or faulty power dynamics? You do the work, the mindset work that is. It is hard work, but the best work you could do for yourself and others:
Acknowledge the source of your pain: This is where you take the blinders off, and ask yourself the tough questions. Questions such as: “Why do I need the approval and acceptance of my colleagues and bosses?”, “Why is it so important for me to take credit for my accomplishments at the expense of others?”, or “Why is it so hard for me to speak up or face confrontation?” The answer to these questions may be found in your moments spent in silence, through therapy, journaling, or even having honest conversations with friends and family. Some of these answers may shake you to your core, but as you peel the onion of your own self-image, they will lead you to some of the most important discoveries about yourself.
Choose to show up differently: This is where you re-write the story of your work, and ultimately that of your life. As you do the work to peel the layers of the mindset blocks that your experience has placed in front of you, you will also have to take your power back. It’s the power to re-write your own story, from hurt and disappointment, to being able to choose how you show up in your work and life. This means being vulnerable enough to seek constructive criticism from your team and colleagues, challenging yourself to step outside of your comfort zone, or address the areas in your work that have yielded the most frustration for you.
Keep doing the work: This is not a one-time, one-size-fits-all type of process. Instead, it’s continuous work that requires you to keep putting yourself in question, not as a way to doubt yourself, but as a way to positively check yourself. It can take the form of consistent check-ins with yourself and your team, where you can discuss areas of struggle and discord. It can also be a matter of assessing progress or stalling, and connecting both with yours and others’ level of connectedness to the mission at hand and the organization.
In a culture and an era that tends to dismiss fears and feelings in favor of hyper-productivity and superficial success, checking in with yourself and others remain the key to true fulfillment that translates into actual progress at an individual and organizational level. Maybe its not your performance, your education, credentials or experience that’s standing in your way. Maybe it’s just your old fears and feelings rearing their ugly heads and keeping you from your dream career. The good news is you have the power to change your story…
What fears and feelings are you battling with at work?
