As busy and at times overwhelmed working moms, thinking further than the next drop-off or pickup, the next meal, or the next school form to fill out can be far-fetched. We’re so often caught with the demands of the moment that long-term planning can fall by the wayside. Especially when this long-term planning involves uncomfortable, and downright somber possibilities such as the case in which something should happen to us, and we could no longer be around our families and children. This falls under the definition of estate planning, which while sounding like a dark topic, is also one that working moms like you and I should get familiar with, and take action on.
According to Investopedia, estate planning is the “preparation of tasks that serve to manage an individual’s asset base in the event of their incapacitation or death.” This includes the guardianship of any living dependents, such as children, naming beneficiaries of insurance and retirement plans, naming executors and power of attorney to oversee and direct assets in the process, and many more planning tasks.
I remember meeting with my first financial advisor, and broaching the topic of estate planning. Saying it was a highly uncomfortable conversation is nothing short of an understatement. The prospect of anything happening to any of us is a rather terrifying one, let alone having to plan for it. However, life happens, circumstances are often out of our control, and may end up leaving our loved ones in dire straits for lack of adequate planning and preparation. This is actually what happens to 70% of Americans who leave this Earth without a will.
As working moms, it’s also our responsibility to help plan for the future and well-being of our children and families. If this is something you have thought about and would consider, here are a few steps to help us get started:
Introduce and continue the conversation
This is hard to think about, let alone talk about, so it is understandable that you may feel awkward and even stressed broaching the topic. However, keeping in mind the well-being of your family can help in the process, and you can start with your spouse, significant other, or a trusted loved one. It need not be an elaborate discussion, but rather the honest asking of questions such as: “Who would take care of the kids if anything happened to me/us?”, or “What would happen if I fell ill?”, or “How will things and assets be divided up in case of unplanned circumstances?”
This also means continuing the conversation with the people you and your partner, or you on your own, if you happen to be single, have picked to fulfill various roles as part of your estate planning. These may be your potential executors, children’s guardians, or individuals to be entrusted with power of attorney. It would make sense to first discuss with them the possibility of their fulfilling these roles, and whether or not they agree to do so and are aware of what it entails.
Begin the process
The most immediate basics that most people start with when it comes to estate planning consist in setting up a will and establishing life insurance. Many have life insurance already set up from their workplaces, however it is important to check whether those insurances do indeed cover all foreseeable needs should something happen. This is especially relevant if your family is dependent on your income.
As for a will, it can be easily done online, although you may want to check with a professional as well, and consider a “living will” as your healthcare directive for your medical and financial wishes.
Also be sure to consolidate all your paperwork and documentation, and inform your executor(s) of their location and how to access these, should anything happen.
Seek professional help
If you’re afraid you may not be familiar enough with this process to undertake it alone, or your estate is larger or more complex than average, or if you possess investments, you may want to seek professional advice.
Despite the fees charged by attorneys (which may range from $500 to multiple thousands of dollars), setting up your estate plan appropriately will save you not just money, but your dependents much heartache and stress in the long run. Besides, peace of mind is worth every penny!
Have you thought about estate planning as a working mom?
As working women and moms, the reality is we often neglect our mental health. Faced with all the responsibilities and duties imposed (and self-imposed as well) on us, we tend to put this part of self-care on the back burner a lot. This is especially relevant when we consider the dark stigma around mental health and therapy, especially in minority communities. I grew up in Senegal, West Africa, where the entire concept of mental health was (and in many ways still is) ignored altogether.
Back then, we didn’t talk about mental disease, only pitying the “crazy” men and women abandoned on the streets for lack of better care. Despite the existence of mental health hospitals, there was a strong stigma on mental health, or the lack thereof. As a result, for me, the necessity of caring for one’s mental health was non-existent. You just had to cope with whatever came your way in life, and that was that…
It wasn’t until later in life, after experiencing the heart-wrenching blow of suicide, loss and grief, that I started wondering about mental health. As an immigrant in a different culture that was more open to considering the importance of mental health and therapy, I had the opportunity to learn more about it. First, from books, then through conversations, and ultimately through experiencing the benefits of therapy myself at a turning point in my life and work.
Like many, I felt the stigma and the associated sense of shame around it initially, especially as a strong Black woman who was taught to “handle my business privately”. Yet, what I learnt about myself, my beliefs, values and story, and the deep process of healing and freedom that ensued, absolutely amazed me, and prompted me to share my experience with fellow women and moms:
Going to therapy is an act of bravery and NOT weakness
One of the main reasons why so many women, and people in general, avoid therapy (or any form of mental health care) is because of the stigma of weakness associated with it. For many, to go to therapy means admitting to being weak, to not being able to cope with life, or being unable to “handle your business”.
As a result, the rate of suicides and depression have been climbing at an alarming rate, as individuals are left to struggle alone. On the very contrary, taking care of one’s mind is an act of courage, an act of bravery that says: “I want to be whole, so I can in turn help others be whole”.
Your mind is your most important asset, and you should care for it
The most important asset we have is our mind. It’s the battleground where our thoughts define the way we see, and act towards, the world. It can literally make or break us. So why wouldn’t we, especially as women and moms who are in charge of so much of the world’s education through our influence on families and children, care for it as well as we do our bodies?
Imagine dealing with everything you deal with as a working woman and mom, and not stopping to wonder if you’re ok mentally? It’s with our minds that we raise our children, follow purpose, help others, build striving lives and careers, and they deserve the best care.
Your growth and healing affect others
We all carry baggage from our pasts and present. From childhood on, we are shaped by beliefs and values transmitted to us by well-meaning parents, family members and communities who themselves carried negative baggage from their own experiences. As such, we’re not always responsible for the cards we’re handed in life. Yet, what we are responsible for is our own healing and growth as individuals. Without it, we run the risk of stagnating and not evolving ourselves, not to mention bleeding on and hurting others who may not be able to defend themselves, including our children.
As moms especially, our mental health deeply affects our children, and we are the ones instilling many of the values and beliefs they keep for most of their lives. It also affects our marriages, couples (hence the importance of couple therapy as well) and relationships. That is a heavy responsibility that we must be aware of and heed carefully.
All in all, caring for your mental health as a working mom is far from being an indulgence. It’s actually a necessity that doesn’t just impact you, but whose benefits extend to everyone and everything around you. However, it requires courage, commitment and the willingness to preserve one’s mental well-being.
Have you been considering your mental health and ways to better care for it?
In this episode of The Corporate Sister podcast, I’m discussing how we, as working women and working moms, can go about finding purpose right where we are, on the way to where we’re going.
From re-assessing ourselves to leveraging the opportunities around us and being willing to expand, this episode is all about starting the year on the right note!
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 don’t even have time to sit somewhere for a minute, never mind think about finding my purpose.”
Whenever I start talking about purpose with a fellow working mom or working woman, I get one of these answers, or a variant thereof. Despite all the talks about purpose, many working women and working moms find themselves confused about the whole concept of finding and applying one’s purpose, especially in the midst of unending to-do lists and obligations, whether personal or professional. I remember being quite confused myself as I was transitioning careers, and desperately seeking a sense of purpose in the chaos of change and uncertainty. However, the more I tortured myself with the hard questions, the less it seemed I was finding my way. It wasn’t until I focused on where I was on the way to wherever I was heading at the time, that I was able to make some semblance of progress.
Unlike the many theories being shared from social media to magazines, it doesn’t necessarily take a drastic change at first to find and apply one’s purpose. Most often, it begins with re-assessing oneself, looking at where one currently is and what opportunities are present, and use what one has to expand and grow into the next best level:
Re-assess yourself
What are your values, beliefs, gifts and talents, both natural and acquired through school or life experience? So often, we drift through life and work not fully aware of WHO we are, especially as working women and working moms who spend so much of our time tending to others’ needs at the risk of forgetting about ourselves. I remember stopping at one point, soon after having my second child, asking myself: “But…who am I now?” So many things had changed and shifted, from my daily schedule to my body and even my thoughts, that I was no longer sure that I even knew myself, hence the need to stop and re-assess, not just once, but periodically throughout my journey. Have you taken the time to stop and re-assess, as a working mom, what your values, beliefs, talents and gifts are, and how you can best use them in your personal and professional life?
Use the opportunities in front of you
As an overwhelmed working mom and woman a few years back (and a few times a year now), I would mentally stop myself from growing and evolving, both personally and professionally. If you asked me back then, I didn’t have the right connections, the right background, the right education, the right look, the right “anything” really, to get ahead. What I did not consider was the plethora of opportunities in front of me, in my daily professional and personal life, that I could use to put into practice the very values, beliefs, gifts and talents that could serve me well. These were opportunities like this blog, or the networks I was part of, or the countless lessons my job at the time was paying me to learn, in areas such as management, people skills, writing, and so much more. Are you discounting the opportunities in front of and around you, that could serve your growth and evolution well? Are you waiting for the right time, the right degree, the right partner, the right “something” before you put yourself out there? If so, you may have to stop waiting and start leveraging the opportunities that are right in front of you, such as your current job, network, talents and gifts.
Expand!
You know that feeling of restlessness you may experience in the first hour you get to work, or as you perform the same repetitive tasks day in and day out? It’s not just frustrating, it’s also a warning sign that you’re stagnating into an occupation, a lifestyle, or a relationship that you may well have outgrown. It’s a sign that there is more out there, and that you’re deserving to expand and grow into your next level. Does it mean you should up and quit your job? Or that you should start over today? For some, it might. For most, it’s a sign that it’s time to expand, whether it’s into an extra project at work, another department or company, a new business model, or a side venture that will push you to your next level.
All in all, finding purpose in what you do as a working mom and a working woman, is less a matter of applying some magic, drastic change formula, than of starting where you are and using what you have. What are your values, beliefs, gifts and talents today, at your current personal and professional station? How can you use the opportunities that are in front of and around you to leverage your abilities and personality? Is it time to expand and stop stagnating? If so, what is the smallest step you can take in the direction of growth and expansion?
When you hear this phrase, you may picture someone at their desk, holding their cup of coffee, seemingly pumped at the prospect of a productive day ahead. Right? Well, not exactly for everyone, and certainly not for working moms…
By the time many, if not most working moms reach their place of employment, they would have been up for at least two hours, busying themselves to get the kids ready, lunches prepared, and other logistical details all set. This is before frantically jumping in the shower, swiping on a bit of lipstick while doing the kids’ hair, and rushing out the door to fight traffic and beat the clock for kids’ drop-off. Then, only then, do they finally get to make it to what I lovingly call our “second shift”, where we now are expected to conduct business as usual, as if we didn’t just wage a full-on war on time, roadways and the sheer meaning of life itself. The best part is that these same working moms get to do it all over again, in reverse this time, at the end of the day, braving questioning bosses, delays, and exhaustion to pick up tired kids, only to head to more work at home. And it starts all over the next day again…Are you tired reading this yet? I know I am…
As a working mom, like so many others, this is my life. When I consider the ordeal that some of my fellow sisters find themselves in, just to keep their family and work afloat, I consider myself lucky. One of my readers posted earlier today that she has to bring her kid in to work every day, before dropping her off in time increments, so as to be able to put in some hours at the office. One of my friends had to go part-time entirely, while another was forced to make the heart-wrenching decision to give up on the job of a lifetime. And there are so many other similar stories of working moms out there, whose unpaid labor is so costly, yet is not being acknowledged, appreciated or recorded for that matter.
In her book “Invisible Women: Data bias in a world designed for men”, author Caroline Criado Perez illustrates the real cost of unpaid labor for women, brought on by a society historically built for men and as such without women’s input, with staggering statistics that brought tears to my eyes and indignation to my heart. Not only is this unpaid labor, from childcare to elder care and household chores, literally killing women, it’s also destroying our economy. Studies have shown that if the cost of unpaid labor for women were properly accounted for, it would positively affect the GDP of many a country in amazingly positive ways. Most importantly, it would allow for better physical and social infrastructures for women, which in turn would create more opportunities for the latter to be more productive thus improving the performance of businesses and the economy as a whole. Can you talk about a ripple effect?
As working moms, this catastrophic, and worsening, unpaid labor, translates into high costs we should all be aware of, if we want to begin to turn the tide around:
Unpaid Labor for women means lost wages and a rising wage gap
Having to take care of children or elderly parents, which is often women and moms’ burden, translates into women having to decrease their working hours or leave their jobs altogether. This also means lost wages for these working women and moms, which in turn widens the wage gap in general. According to a recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) December 2014 survey, the gender pay gap is noted to be higher in countries where women spend more time on unpaid labor.
Unpaid labor for working moms means declining physical health
Women in general work more than 40 hours a week, which takes a toll on their physical health. Although women tend to live longer, they tend to be sicker than men towards the end of their lives, which puts into question the number of hours working women and moms put into both paid and unpaid labor. A 2011 study published in Psychological Medicine reports that working more than 50 hours translates in heightened risks of anxiety and depression for women. Moreover, a 2016 U.S. study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that women’s hospitalization and mortality rates increase with longer work hours.
Lastly, unpaid labor for women means lost time
How many hours would working women and moms gain if they could only recoup some of the precious time they spend on household chores, childcare and elderly care? This lost time can amount to days, weeks, months, and even years in the long run for women, creating a massive loss of time. Additionally, working women end up in occupations below their skill level in order to get the flexibility they need to carry out their unpaid care work, which also lengthens the time women spend progressing in their careers.
All in all, unpaid labor stands as a major obstacle for working women and moms. Ultimately, we have to be aware of it so as to make others aware of it, in order to turn this unfair share into a more equitable one.
