“You don’t need to take that certification, you’re a mom now, just take care of your kids…”
I remember these words like it was yesterday. While they were intended to be well-meaning coming from one of my loved ones, they cut like a knife. I had been trying to get my Certified Public Accounting license for a few months now, and had failed miserably after the first few attempts. I was on the verge of giving up….Had it not been for my wonderfully supportive husband, I probably would have…
This story is not unique. It’s the story of so many ambitious moms trying hard to juggle motherhood, career and everything in between. On one hand, they have so much merit going after their dreams and purpose while taking care of their families, often at the expense of their own well-being. On the other, they are often discouraged to do so, and even criticized and humiliated in the process.
Despite a growing number of working mothers in the U.S. workforce, even after the pandemic, research confirms the discrimination and negative stereotypes against working moms still persist at the hiring stage and beyond. Yet, working moms are still just as ambitious as women without children. They are also returning to work in greater numbers after the pandemic and using the advantage of remote and flexible work, as well as leveraging digital technology, to juggle work and family life. This is in addition to the general ambition bias against women in general, and working moms in particular. Women, and mothers in particular, are often slammed for being ambitious and stepping out of the traditional roles of wife and mother. Actually, being a working mom has been proven to benefit children.
What’s a working mom to do to face the double-edged sword of ambition?
Here are a few steps that can help:
Clarify your values:
Clarifying your values and priorities is the first step to fight this double-edged sword. What is truly important to you? What impact do you want to make on your family, community and the world at large? What do you want your legacy to be? Who do you truly want to be? These are some of the questions that will help you clarify your values and priorities, and help you move in the direction of what truly matters to your authentic self.
Assume your choice:
Even after clarifying what my values and priorities were, I was still in denial for a long time. It is important to assume your choice as an ambition working mother, especially when faced with opposition from the outer world. Accepting yourself and your career as well as your life choices is absolutely imperative when it comes to fighting the stigma of ambition as a working mom.
Create your own brand of motherhood:
Last but not least, clarifying your values and priorities and assuming your choice will lead you to create your own brand of motherhood. What kind of mother do you see yourself being? How do you mother best?
The reality is, ambition truly is a double-edged sword for working moms, both on the professional and on the personal and community front. Yet it is one that moms can use to improve themselves, inspire their family and create a new brand of motherhood for themselves.
How do you fight the double-edged sword of ambition as a working mom?
As I started my career as a young professional woman, I was barely aware that I could negotiate my salary, let alone anything else. As I became a mother, it didn’t occur to me until a long time that I could negotiate for benefits including flexibility and other family-friendly benefits. While I was too preoccupied with being accepted and valued at work, I did not think I had the room, the authority or the permission
In today’s fast-paced work environment, achieving a work-life balance is crucial, especially for working momsjuggling both career and family responsibilities. This is where negotiating flexible schedules and family-friendly policies can significantly improve working moms’ quality of life. For many, the traditional 9-to-5 work model may not align with the demands of parenting, self-care, social relations and life in general.
According to the U.S. Labor Bureau of Statistics, 73% of moms with children under 18 years of age were employed in 2022. Among these, many working mothers are also the breadwinners in their households, as confirmed by data from the Center for American Progress. With such an overwhelming number of mothers in the workforce, the need for family-friendly policies cannot be overstated. As a matter of fact, research clearly shows family friendly policies such as dependent care and leave benefits have a significant positive and moderating effect on work-family conflict created by work demand.
From enabling moms to pick up their children from school, attend doctor’s appointments, or simply spend more quality time with their families, flexible schedules and family-friendly policies allow working mothers to better integrate work and family life. They also help relieve moms of sometimes overwhelming stress from juggling work and family responsibilities, thus also promoting mental well-being. Lastly, they also tend to increase job satisfaction and loyalty, leading to a more committed and productive workforce. This is not to mention promoting gender equality as well, thus contributing to closing the gender gap in the workplace, allowing mothers to progress in their careers while still nurturing their families.
If you’re a working mom looking to negotiate a more flexible work arrangement, here are a few tips that may help:
1. Know Your Needs and Boundaries
Before initiating negotiations, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of your needs and boundaries.
What type of flexibility do you need? (e.g., remote work, adjusted hours)
How will this benefit both you and your employer?
What are your non-negotiable boundaries?
Having a firm grasp of your requirements will make your negotiation more effective.
2. Research your Company Policies
Familiarize yourself with your company’s policies regarding flexible work arrangements. Some organizations already have guidelines in place you may consult online or through their human resources department. Understanding these policies can help you navigate the negotiation process more effectively.
3. Prepare a Compelling Proposal
Create a well-thought-out proposal that outlines the benefits of a flexible schedule. Consider how it will positively impact your productivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction. Use data and examples to support your case.
4. Highlight Your Performance
Emphasize your track record of delivering results. Make it clear that your request for flexibility won’t compromise your ability to meet work objectives. Demonstrate your commitment to maintaining or even enhancing your performance.
5. Suggest Solutions to Potential Concerns
Anticipate and address any potential concerns your employer may have. For instance, if your request is for remote work, propose solutions for maintaining effective communication and collaboration with your team. Show that you’ve thought through the practicalities.
6. Initiate the Conversation Professionally
Arrange a meeting with your supervisor to discuss your proposal. Approach the conversation professionally and non-confrontationally. Express your desire to find a solution that benefits both you and the organization.
7. Be open!
During the negotiation, actively listen to your employer’s perspective. Be open to compromises or adjustments based on their feedback. Flexibility should be a two-way street.
8. Propose a Trial Period
To ease your employer’s concerns, propose a trial period for the flexible schedule. This allows both parties to test the arrangement and make adjustments if necessary. It also provides an opportunity to demonstrate its effectiveness.
9. Be Aware of your Legal Rights
Familiarize yourself with local labor laws and regulations regarding flexible work arrangements. Knowing your rights can help ensure that your negotiated agreement aligns with legal standards and protections.
10. Document the Agreement
Once you and your employer reach an agreement, make sure it’s documented in writing. Include all the terms and conditions of your flexible schedule, ensuring clarity for both parties.
In addition to flexible schedules, you may also negotiate family-friendly policies to better support you as a working mom. Here are some tips as you prepare to get to the negotiation table:
1. Know the Available Benefits
Research the family-friendly benefits offered by your organization. These may include maternity and paternity leave, childcare support, lactation rooms, or flexible spending accounts for dependent care.
2. Highlight the Benefits for the Company
When negotiating family-friendly policies, emphasize how these benefits can positively impact the company. For example, shorter maternity leave may lead to quicker return to work and reduced turnover.
3. Connect with your Peers
Talk to colleagues who have successfully negotiated family-friendly policies. They can offer insights, share their experiences, and provide guidance on the negotiation process.
4. Align with the Company Culture
Frame your request in a way that aligns with your company’s values and culture. Emphasize how these policies can contribute to a more inclusive and supportive workplace.
5. Consider a Personal Support System
If possible, involve HR or a mentor in the negotiation process. Having a support system can help ensure that your needs are heard and addressed effectively.
6. Negotiate Flexibility Within Policies
While some family-friendly policies may be standard, there may be room for negotiation within these policies. For example, if your company offers childcare support, negotiate the flexibility to choose the childcare provider that best suits your family’s needs.
7. Stay Informed About any potential Changes
Be aware of any changes or updates to family-friendly policies within your organization. This can help you stay current and take advantage of new opportunities.
8. Document Policy Agreements
Just like with flexible schedules, ensure that any agreements related to family-friendly policies are documented in writing. This creates a clear record of what was negotiated and agreed upon.
Negotiating flexible schedules and family-friendly policies as a working With effective strategies, you can navigate the negotiation process effectively and create a work environment that supports your needs as both a dedicated professional and a loving parent.
Are you negotiating family-friendly policies and flexible work arrangements as a working mom?
For many, if not most working women and moms, back-to-school is quite the stressful time. New schedules to coordinate, childcare to secure, administrative duties to take care of, all the while juggling the rest of their commitments because life doesn’t stop because school is back in session. If anything, the intense post-summer rhythm ends up taking a toll on working women and moms, affecting their mental and physical well-being, as well as their careers and even personal relationships…This is especially more acute when working women and moms do not have the necessary support to handle all the related changes, from infrastructure to community support. Not to mention the financial toll that comes with the heightened school-related expenses for parents…
It’s no wonder then that, many working moms and parents in general, dread the back-to-school period. An Indeed survey reveals 84% of mothers and 85% of dads are taken by surprise by the back-to-school challenges. A majority of moms (94%) tend to feel that the chores and childcare are their responsibility, which also puts a strain on marriages and partnerships. In addition, moms also tend to deal with managing the desire to be present during daytime activities at school, welcome the kids home, and take advantage of social opportunities with fellow parents, along with the societal pressure that accompany these. Considering the number of dual-earning households where both parents have to work, this can pose serious problems in terms of coordinating schedules, leading successful careers and having harmony at home.
For many, if not most moms, these pressures directly conflict with getting back to a more intense work and family pace for the last months of the year. This adds itself to the pressure to finish the year well, and successfully meet deadlines and deliverables before the end of the year. While the COVID-19 pandemic may have opened a wider door to remote and flexible work arrangements, increasing the number of women in the workforce, it’s also created increased childcare issues and is burdening women with handling both the home and work front simultaneously.
As such, developing a back-to-school system that works best for each working mom can go a long way towards lessening the frustration, guilt, and even home and work issues that often arise at the end of the summer months. Here are three steps to consider:
Developing a vision and plan for the back-to-school season:
As mentioned earlier, the back-to-school season takes many parents by surprise. The sheer amount of tasks and coordination involved leaves many a working mom especially frazzled and stressed out. One of the main reasons for this is, as many tend to not give thought to it earlier in the summer, they underestimate the breadth of what is involved. If we add to it current childcare shortages, increasing inflation and other societal, political, and economic pressures, the whole thing can end up turning into the perfect parental and family storm.
Hence the need to develop a vision and plan beforehand. This involves starting at least a couple of weeks earlier, considering all individuals involved, including parents and children, but also the communities around, the schools and workplaces involved as well. How do we want the back-to-school season to feel? What errors and mistakes do we want to avoid?
Putting together all the schedules of all individuals and places involved allows to spot and fill in the blanks, that is all those times, commitments and duties that may require assistance and support, and find ways to approach these.
Set up a communication plan:
Very often, especially as working moms, we fail to communicate our needs and expectations, especially during harsh seasons. Being so accustomed to literally doing it all, or doing most of it, has robbed many of the skill to ask for help. As a result, overwhelm, frustration, even burnout ensue, unfortunately leaving us depleted and drained. This is where setting up an effective communication plan is crucial.
This entails communicating personal and professional needs and expectations, as related to scheduling, administrative tasks, school and family events as well as finances to the units that make up our communities, including home, work, schools, and the villages we operate in. Some examples include asking for remote and flexible work arrangements, coordinating schedules with partners and family support, or asking for teachers’ assistance.
Take action!
Last but not least, the last part of this system is to take consistent and dedicated action towards making this back-to-school system work. Change requires preparation and consistent action, and back-to-school changes are no exception. This is where implementing small modifications to personal, professional and family habits come in handy, such as progressively modifying bedtimes and wake-up times or slowly reinforcing daily study habits. Stacking habits, whereby new habits are built upon already existing ones, such as scheduling study time right after breakfast, can also help.
Most importantly, maintain the consistency of small changes over time makes all the difference. Involving the whole family, setting up a rewards system, or regularly motivating everyone can go a long way to keep at it!
All in all, back-to-school, while being a busy time for working moms and working parents/families as a whole, doesn’t need to be a time of struggle, frustration and anxiety. Setting up a solid system based on a strong vision and plan, adequate communication and consistent action can help transform a usually dreaded time of year, into one of successful transition.
What are your tips for a successful back-to-school season?
Picture it, America, 2023 (in my best Golden Girls’ Sophia Petrillo voice)…
It’s summertime… Just picture the working mom waiting to pick up her kids from camp while mentally reminding herself to mute the impromptu Zoom call’s microphone…Or the working mama cooking dinner while catching up on emails because the day was taken up with monitoring the children’s summer work….Or yet again, the mom with her laptop securely strapped onto the car’s front seat, nervously fingering the mouse pad to signal her presence to an overbearing manager while taking little Pablo to robotics camp…Or better yet, cue the happy families traveling in (apparent) harmony, kids running around through green parks and a general sense of leisurely relaxation floating in the air…Right? Wrong. At least for many working mothers grappling with what I would call the “summer ceiling” for working moms…
“Summer ceiling” = conglomerate of professional and personal obstacles faced by working mothers during the summer months as a result of the scarcity (or complete lack) of childcare resources, couple equity and overall gender equality.
Aka the mother of summer hells, no pun intended… Yet, very few working moms will admit to it. After all, the societal pressure to keep it all together and look like one big happy family while holding our collective coffee-infused breaths, wiping sweaty areas that can’t be publicly revealed, and standing on one half-painted toe, all the while posting heavenly (albeit laborious) Instagram pictures, is still very much prevalent, even in this post-COVID era…
Yet, the reality behind many a glossy vacation picture and outrageously expensive summer camp activity, is that working mothers are facing yet another wall as the summer rolls around. A hot, sweaty, expensive, coordination-filled and energy-draining wall of increased childcare, caregiving and household responsibilities…And may I add, while still desperately attempting to perform at work, never mind advancing projects, boosting careers and keeping some shred of motherly sanity. On the family side of things, many, if not most working moms are alternating finding somewhat reasonably priced summer camps minus the months-long waitlist, with figuring out ways to put grocery shopping on a budget and on auto-dial for permanently hungry and bored kids. Oh, and did I mention the constant agonizing reminder that as working mothers, we only have so many summers left with our kids…No pressure at all…
For many, if not most working moms in the US, summertime brings about a sense of dread and overwhelm at the thought of the accumulation of childcare, caregiving and household labor left vacant by school closures, cost-prohibitive and exclusive summer camps and recreation facilities, and the overall lack of infrastructure to support working parents in general. In the post-COVID era when many working mothers are working from home, many by choice, others by the lack thereof, it also means work will be subject to constant interruptions, unending noise and summer brain fog. Indeed, juggling being a fun yet professional summer mom with a fridge in constant need of refill, overflowing laundry (thank you summer camps) and a generally more chaotic household will create almost unbearable pressure. For those working in the office, it means securing reliable and affordable childcare while dealing with heart-wrenching guilt. In any case, the guilt is always there, as something always gets left to the side, everything seems done halfway, and the pressure keeps building day after day…
Research shows working moms’ work productivity significantly declines during the summer months. Data from the 2022 working paper entitled “The Summer Drop in Female Employment” by Brendan M. Price and Melanie Wasserman documents that summer school closures directly impact women’s employment status. Among women between the ages of 25 and 54, their share of employment as a percentage of the total population drops by an average of 1.1 percentage points. The labor force participation among these women drops by 0.5 percentage points during the summer months. Total hours worked are found to decline by 11% during the same period as well. Working moms were found to spend nearly nine hours more per week than usual on child care during the summer months than during the regular school year, with kids from six to twelve years old presenting the biggest caregiving challenge during that period.
This is not surprising as childcare, caregiving and household care regularly heaped on mothers, are multiplied when school is not in session during the summer months. The resuting decline in work productivity contributes to the slowing down of women’s careers, which are already weakened by the arrival of children and the increase in household and caregiving responsibilities, at least in the US.
Now let’s compare this to Sweden where Swedish parents have a right to 480 days of government-paid leave at a rate of 80% of their earnings for each child born or adopted. This applies to single parents as well, and is directly funded through the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, as opposed to individual employers. In addition, Swedish moms also benefit from an excellent childcare system offering the guarantee of a childcare spot from the first year of age at affordable costs. In general, Swedish working mothers are positively perceived by society and companies alike, allowing them to work on reduced schedules without extensive damage to their career progression. This is in comparison to the United States where employees are only eligible for up to 12 weeks of job-protected yet unpaid leave for illnesses, pregnancy or caregiving of an immediate family member through the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). However, this is subject to a couple of caveats, including the fact that U.S. employees have to have worked for said employer for at least 12 months or 1,250 hours over the past year, and said employer employs 50 people or more. Additionally, U.S. workers are not necessarily guaranteed their original job upon their return from leave.
This abundance of confounding and frankly sad evidence confirms the summer ceiling hovering just above the heads of countless exhausted (if not burnt out), guilt-ridden, yet still relentlessly determined mothers. It is the summer ceiling so many of us face as the world reminds us how few summers we have left with our kids, while exhorting us to do it all, and do it all perfectly.
The reality is, there is no quick solution, or get-delivered-quick scheme, to the summer ceiling. Like so many other obstacles faced by women and rooted in a combination of social, economic and political factors, it will not be solved through a quick fix. Rather, it is the same combination of political, economic and social factors that created the problem in the first place, that have to be addressed in order to solve it.
Here are some suggestions to do so:
It’s not you, it’s the system!
Remember the phrase, ”it’s not you, it’s me”? Well, in this case, it’s not you, it’s the system. To be more precise, the patriarchal system designed to nurture privilege and non-inclusive, diverse or equitable access. So the next time you feel inclined to wallow in unending mother’s guilt or give up on your dreams and goals, remember: “It’s not you, it’s the system!”
Rethink the structure of your work and life
One of the main culprits of couple inequity which contributes to working moms’ exhaustion lies in the very gender inequality fostered in the traditional structure of work and gender roles. Work, as we traditionally know it, was not made for women, and certainly not for mothers. Just compare regular school schedules ending at 2 or 3pm, to the traditional work hours of 9 to 5…Yes, my point exactly…
In the same way, rethinking how we work and live, from considering remote options to adding increased flexibility to our work, can help lessen the impact of the summer ceiling. At the very least, it can start honest conversations in the workplace and at home around setting honest expectations during a period that is so impactful to families, yet can be so challenging and costly to navigate.
Get engaged!
Last but not least, getting engaged at a level that targets the structural nature of the problem not only can, but is crucial to, change the status quo for working mothers. As mentioned earlier, this is more than just about school closures or the scarcity and cost of summer camps. Certainly, these are important factors that heavily weigh in the balance for working parents in general.
Yet, at the root of these, and so many other similar issues, are structural, institutional and political roadblocks that have been embedded in the fabric of society for a long time. These are the real obstacles to address, the ones that require working women and mothers to get engaged in their communities, at the institutional and political level to contribute to effecting the changes needed. Some of the organizations doing the work to advance the cause of working mothers, include the Chamber of Mothers and Moms First. In addition, getting involved in your local political and social community can contribute to creating change for working moms.
All in all, the summer ceiling is a harsh reality for working mothers during the summer months. Rooted in the scarcity (or lack thereof) of childcare, caregiving and household support, it is a reality that harshly pulls working mothers between family, career and even finances. Yet, it is a reality that also calls us to consider the social, economic and political factors behind it, and take action by removing the guilt, rethinking the structure of our work and lives, and getting engaged.
Have you ever said to yourself, whether it was as related to a life or work situation, there’s got to be MORE? Have you ever been so sick and tired of being sick and tired of the status quo in your workplace and wondered if there is more to your career? Have you been stuck in your business to the point of wondering if there is more to being an entrepreneur?
I suspect most of us have, especially as working women and mothers with so much on our plates day in and day out. Especially as the blatant lack of infrastructure supporting working women and moms often leaves us depleted…Especially as the various and oh so unfair biases affecting us, from gender stereotypes to the glass ceiling and concrete wall, leave us wanting for more fullness in our careers and businesses… These are also some of the issues I’m grappling with in my new book “More: The Journey to Unleash More of Who You Are”.
How can, and do we unleash more of who we are as working women and moms despite the obstacles facing us in and outside of work? There are 7 principles I discuss in the book as part of the conversation to answer this question:
Principle 1: Don’t miss your wake-up call wrapped as disruption
Unleashing more of who you are and what you want out of your career and life often requires you to step out of the very routine that is keeping you stuck. This often comes wrapped as unwelcome disruption at the seemingly most inconvenient times. Learning to recognize the wake-up calls wrapped as disruption is key to beginning and continuing the journey of unleashing more of who you are.
Principle 2: Begin with what you have and where you are
What keeps most of us stuck is the inability to even know where to begin in order to embark on a new journey. One of my favorite inspirational set of phrases from tennis legend Arthur Ashe is “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” To me, it speaks to the power of small change and consistent, resilient progress. In this sense, harnessing the incredible power of your unique individual stories, skills, talents, quirks, and everything that makes you YOU becomes your very unique greatness proposition and best competitive advantage.
Principle 3: Use your season of preparation through experience and release
In line with beginning where you are and using what you have, harnessing your past experience and re-purposing your skills, talents, and story is also key to unleashing your own MORE. This also requires letting go of the version of you that no longer exists to welcome the new, evolved version of who you are becoming. This is your season of preparation.
Principle 4: Managing progress
There’s a mindset to progress and growth. One that must stand strong in the face of the backlash women experience as they dare to rise. One that must learn to celebrate progress rather than shrink and hide. Ultimately, one that knows how to manage the ebb and flow of growth and evolution while still moving forward. This mindset is indispensable to managing the progress and growth that thankfully and inevitably come as you unleash MORE of who you are.
Principle 5: Handling your season of promotion
The very promotion you may yearn for may also be terrifying to you, as it is to many, if not most working women and mothers. While being aspired to and celebrated, women’s success is also threatening to the status quo, and often rewarded by harsh backlash. This is where dealing with the fear of success and re-defining success on your own terms can make a world of difference.
Principle 6: Daring to celebrate
For working women and moms, joy and celebration constitute resistance at each step of the process of becoming their best selves. Daring to celebrate, while cultivating and preserving your joy is an act of sheer resistance.
Principle 7: Focusing on the process, not the destination
Last but not least, focusing on the process and not the destination through continuous improvement is essential. At the end of the day, it’s a marathon and not a race.
All in all, unleashing more of who you are as you get closer and closer to the fullness of who you were created to be, is a gift often wrapped in disruption and requiring a challenging, albeit rewarding, process of growth and evolution. This is a necessary and brave journey of un-becoming much of the negative and damaging stereotypes women were taught and socialized into, and instead becoming all you were meant to be.
Motherhood is beautiful. Yet, for many working mothers, especially in the US, especially in the past few years peppered with global pandemics, political and economic woes, motherhood has been “hard”. Hard is not often a word that we want to associate with being a mother, at least not one we dare to speak out loud when it comes to mothering. Yet, it certainly is the reality for many, one we soften with cute Instagram videos and funny stories, but a reality nevertheless. As many women after the COVID pandemic especially are turning to a “softer” approach to life and work, they’re also turning to a “softer” kind of motherhood. One that seeks to relieve the pressures of modern motherhood, allowing women to mother more lightly, more happily, more authentically…
I remember having a conversation with a fellow mom at my kids’ school. She laughingly was recounting how one of her daughters had told her on the ride to school one morning, that she did not want to be a mother when she’d grow up. When asked why, the young girl responded: “ Because it is so hard…” That made me think about all the times my own children may have thought the same thing. All the times our kids, nieces, or nephews look at us , between drop-offs, pick-ups, after-school activities and overflowing laundry baskets, and vow not to have children of their own, because…it looks so hard. And this is considering that most of us make it look easier than it actually is…
Many women are hitting walls of exhaustion and burnout, and bravely acknowledging it, as New Zealand’s ex-prime minister Jacinda Ardern did by stepping down earlier this year. As they do so, they are also sending the signal that things cannot keep going as they have been. Even as the world needs increased gender equity, diversity and inclusion, what it doesn’t need are mothers too exhausted to fulfill their potential in and outside of the home. Yet, with companies reneging on work-life balance measures and slowing down their diversity efforts, this is also signaling an urgent need to step back, stop glorifying the “hard” path to working motherhood, and instead re-imagining a softer way.
Often, when we hear of taking a “softer” approach, we may be tempted to think the latter would be less effective. In a society focused on over-performance at the expense of effectiveness, we’ve unfortunately come to equate “hard” with “effective”, or even “worthy”. Yet, the opposite couldn’t be truer. When it comes to motherhood, “hard” erodes the foundation of healthy mothering. Hard motherhood is motherhood that lacks flexibility, motherhood that barely survives rather than thrives, motherhood that is not full or complete, but only a shadow of its true potential. When mothers are submitted to unbearable pressure to perform, produce and deliver in the midst of a blatant lack of social, economic and political support, they are not set up for purpose, fulfillment or success. On the very contrary, they are set up for failure. And when mothers are set up for failure, families, communities and entire societies are set up for failure.
So what are we to do when ditching hard motherhood for softer mothering? In our modern society focused on productivity and results, it’s a tall order. Yet, it’s a change that can occur gradually starting with a few underrated, yet oh so effective principles:
Changing our minds about what it means to be a working mother
It all starts with mindset. For many, if not most working moms, motherhood has become an endless performance. From the wee hours of morning, to late night, they’re performing and giving of themselves without so much as a respite. The tiredness, the exhaustion, even the resentment have become a badge of honor, and the source of many acclaimed social media memes. If you’re a working mom, you must be tired. If you’re a working mom, you must not have time for self-care. If you’re a working mom, you must deny yourself, day in and day out. I remember an acquaintance telling me when my kids were still babies, that I did not look like a working mom because I was too well-put together. So does looking disheveled and piling on the under-eye concealers otherwise qualify us to be valid, worthy working mothers? Nope.
This journey towards softer motherhood begins with a changedmindset around what it means to be a working mom. It means redefining working motherhood in terms of better work-life integration, increased fulfillment and purpose. No, we don’t have to look like we’re on the brink of burnout to be approved as good mothers.
Reframe our careers and lives
The next step is to reframe our careers and lives around this mindset of fulfillment, purpose and fullness on our own terms. What are our non-negotiables? How do we take better care of ourselves in order to take better care of others? What can we take off of our plates rather than adding in? Where, and how can we get the support we need? These are a few questions to begin and continue the conversation.
Reframing our careers and lives is a matter of re-envisioning what a sustainable schedule looks like, from work obligations to kids’ activities. It is creating margins and boundaries in otherwise impossible timetables. Sometimes, it may be a matter of getting rid of the entire timetable altogether.
Taking back our power
Last but not least, softer mothering is about taking back our power to live fuller, more authentic lives that do not reflect a fraction of our potential, but as close to its entirety as possible. It’s about reclaiming the time that is so freely given away and under-estimated, and requesting the infrastructures and support needed, whether it’s childcare, flexibility or equity in the home. Finally, it’s about getting rid of the creeping, generational, overwhelming fear that keeps us from prioritizing our needs, and regaining the confidence to be the mothers we were created to be.
At the end of the day, motherhood was not supposed to be hard. Not this kind of societally-imposed, articificially-made “hard”. Is it bound to be challenging? Yes. Is it supposed to be easy? No. But this hard shell of modern motherhood that seems to be offered on the platter of “having (and doing) it all”, is not it. Rather, re-imagining a softer, effective, and sustainable approach to modern mothering is a better path to creating and sustaining societies that can thrive, and not just survive.
When we think of working women and moms, we often think of work-life balance, this elusive Eldorado of perfect (or semi-perfect) equilibrium between motherhood, work, and life in general. An elusive Eldorado that has yet to be proven true, and whose impracticality and subjective nature keep pushing working women and moms everywhere over the edge… Countless articles and arguments have been written and built around this concept, only to slowly end in the sober realization that
work-life balance for working women and moms simply does not exist…Instead, shouldn’t we focus more on work-life integration?
How can one balance the deeply personal, unpredictable and subjective journey of motherhood with the creation and nurturing of a partnership or marriage, and the demands of a purposeful career interspersed with the many obstacles all too common to working women and mothers? How can one talk about balance when your average working mom performs at least five jobs before even leaving the house in the morning? And how can there ever be a sense of balance after the way women bore the brunt of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, from the home to the business and work front?
The simple answer, after all these years of building theories and concepts around work-life balance, is that there is none after all, at least not for working women and moms. The good news? There is a link between work and life, one that can finally be beneficial for working women and moms. It is not balance, but rather an integration of the various aspects and areas of our lives as working women and mothers.
While I, as a working woman and mom, do not pretend to or even desire to balance work and life, as it would suggest an equality of weights that does not even begin to exist; I can integrate them into the ever-evolving puzzle of my life. Here are a few steps to get started:
See your life as a whole
The first step is to stop giving in to the temptation of compartmentalizing the various areas of our lives. As effective as it may sound, I have found in my own experience as a working woman and mom it doesn’t exactly work. Planning for my work schedule without taking into account the kids’ school and activity schedule is a recipe for disaster. So is considering what my priorities at home are, without taking into account my professional life. Hence why it’s so important to see our lives as a whole, with inter-dependent and integrated areas as opposed to separate and independent aspects…
Consolidate what you can
When I started really understanding how connected the various areas of my life are, I began using the power of consolidation to bring them together. I have to say, my first motive was to make my life easier. The more I was able to consolidate tasks together, the better I was able to build and maintain habits that would otherwise be unsustainable for me. For instance, when I started building my schedule to allow me to go to the gym right after dropping off the kids, building a consistent exercising habit became easier. Since I already had to be out dropping off the kids, why not wrap my exercise into this continuum of activity? The more you can consolidate your habits, tasks and ultimately your day-to-day schedule, the more you can achieve a more integrated work and life. This way, switching from one activity to another goes from being this impossible task, to just being part of a flowing schedule.
Create and maintain margins
One of the biggest problems I face as a working woman and mom is having enough margin in my schedule. Instead, I often face, as many working women and moms, a packed-tight schedule with very little breathing room. The result? Feeling a sense of always running from one thing to the other, without enough breaks in between. Ultimately, this results in a sense of going from crisis to crisis and never catching a break.
This is when intentionally creating margins and breaks in your schedule can help. When we see and approach work, life, parenting, relationships, etc, as separate blocks to attend to, we tend to want to allow as much time as possible to each, thus foregoing the necessary spaces between them we need to breathe and recover. However, when integrating work and life, we’re able to allow the various areas of our lives to flow into each other, creating the much-needed margins we crave. For me, it means limiting multi-tasking, scheduling breaks, and allowing for at least an extra ten minutes for each task.
Overall, planning for more work-life integration as a working woman and mom requires the willingness to see our lives as a whole, instead of buckets to fill up and boxes to check at the end of the day. It also demands intention and some level of planning to consolidate what we can, and create the margins we need to breathe, recover and refuel. This year and beyond, I hope we can commit to more work-life integration and allow ourselves to live fully, rather in a compartmentalized way.
How will you integrate your work and life this year?
