There are many false myths surrounding working mothers, most of which carry their fair share of negativity and judgment. These are oftentimes erroneous ideas about what it means to be a striving, growing and thriving working mom. Unfortunately, these are also ideas that pervade our society, workplaces and social environments, and work against positively understanding and supporting working mothers in and outside of the workplace.
These misconceptions are at the root of most of the systemic inequities in pay, benefits and perceived ability and competence, encountered by mothers in the workplace. As a matter of fact, research by the National Women’s Law Center’s shows U.S. mothers working full-time being paid on average $18,000 less per year than fathers. This loss in earnings is compounded for mothers of color and in some states. This financial loss, also coined as the “motherhood penalty”, further affects working moms’ ability to be hired, promoted, and generally recognized and rewarded in their careers. The COVID-19 pandemic, with the combined impact of remote work and amplified childcare demands, has managed to amplify these biases against working moms. As a result, one in four women is considering a career downshift or exit post-pandemic, according to the 2020 McKinsey & Company’s Women in the Workplace report.
Outside of the workplace, these false myths contribute to the existing and growing “backlash effect” against professionally thriving working women and moms alike. These are the negative social and economic effects women and moms experience for behaving counter-stereotypically by engaging in self-promotion, or showing themselves to be competent and ambitious.
As a working mom, you may have experienced the impact of these misconceptions in and outside of work. You may as a result have had to deal with being perceived in a negative way, and maybe feeling guilt as a result of it, or having to defend your personal and professional choices at your own expense.
Here are some of these false myths and misconceptions you may recognize:
She must not have enough time to dedicate to her career and her family
Working moms have notoriously been penalized for, well…being working moms. One of the wide-ranging assumptions made about them is that once they have children, they are now limited in their careers. It’s widely assumed that working mothers do not have the necessary time and dedication to grow and advance in their careers, and as a result, are kept out of advancement and growth opportunities at work.
She must be less competent because she has kids
Another false assumption surrounding working mothers, is that they tend to be less competent. It is as if having children somehow lessens one’s intelligence and ability to function in the workplace. The reality is much different however. Mothers bring an unprecedented and unique set of skills at all levels of organizations, from the administrative desk to the boardroom. Yet, as revealed by the Modern Family Index, 60% of working Americans admit to career opportunities being afforded to less qualified employees rather than more competent working moms.
If she spends time at work, she must not be spending time with her children
While many of the misconceptions around working mothers are centered on their imagined professional deficiencies, many are direct attacks at their very ability to mother. Many a working mom has had to deal with the muted, or not-so-muted reproaches as to their career and schedule choices. Somehow, the antiquated notion that women cannot combine work and family casts a shadow of doubt on working mothers, relegating them to the ranks of lesser mothers by virtue of the time they spend at work or at home.
If she spends a lot of time at work, she must not have a good marriage
The same assumption as the one pervading working moms’ relationships with their children, also surrounds their marriages relationship with their significant others. False ideas about working mothers may have us believe they make poor partners or wives, and may not be dedicated enough to their relationships. Yet, a 2011 study in the Journal of Psychologyreveals higher marital satisfaction in couples where the wife continued working after kids. As women work more outside of the home, their partners may be more inclined to step up more at home and with the kids. On the other hand, there may be more of a perception that women working from home, or stay-at-home moms, may be available to handle all of the household duties.
If you’re been reading and nodding your head along, you may very well have experienced one, or many, if not all of these false myths about being a working mom. Beyond being just grossly inaccurate and borderline insulting, these are also misconceptions that carry too heavy a weight for mothers. It is up to each and every one of us to not only acknowledge these, but also to stop feeding, even if unconsciously, these false ideas. Instead, in each and every one of our capacities as women and men, it is our responsibility to change the narrative around what it truly means to be a working mother, and prompt our organizations, structures and society, to r-create a more accurate and better suited story around working moms.
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If you’re a working mom, and have ever gotten home after work, and stood in front of the fridge wondering what in the world of nutritious and tasty meals you could whip up in about 30 minutes, you’re certainly not alone…I’ve certainly been there, especially considering that I’m not the most creative or skilled cook out there…
I remember running to pick up the kids after work, only to face terrible traffic with cranky little ones in the back of the car, sometimes running to extracurricular activities and sports before getting home. This was all to get home just a short couple of hours or less before bed time, and squeeze family time, dinner, bath and bed time in a record amount of time. As African immigrants whose traditional recipes tend to be quite elaborate, cooking can be quite time-consuming.
According to this U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, women tend to handle the bulk of grocery shopping and cooking in the household. As a matter of fact, mothers are the household members usually in charge of meal preparation, compared to only 19% of men preparing meals. On average, moms spend 68 minutes a day cooking meals, as compared to 23 minutes for dads. This pattern is consistent among both households with children and childless couples.
As working moms, getting good food on the table on a daily basis while juggling work, house chores, administrative tasks and healthy relationships, not to mention our own self-care, is certainly an exercise in flexibility, resilience and creativity. Even for the most efficient of moms and parents our there, daily meal freshness is not always possible, as we can be tempted to batch otherwise healthy meals to save time and maintain some level of a sane schedule. As a result, mealtime can often turn into a stressful time, instead of allowing for the fun of togetherness and healthy nutrition. Considering how limited the time we spend together as working families is, reclaiming meal time is essential.
This is where Yumble Kids comes in. Created by Joanna Parker, a mom of three who, like the rest of us, understands the pressure of spending hours every day planning and cooking healthy and delicious meals for our kids. Like so many among us, she understood perfection as a mom is not only impossible, but unnecessary. So she came up with a solution. Nutritious, delicious and ready-to-heat and eat meal choices requiring zero cooking but making possible lots more quality family time…
To do this, Yumble strives to deliver meals right to your doorstep that combine the freshness of regionally-sourced ingredients, the sustainability of 100% recyclable packaging, and the balance of healthy and yummy recipes…All this freshly delivered in a refrigerated box with a fun and engaging packaging…Speaking of fun, Yumble also goes above and beyond by sending out kid-approved activity extras, such as table topics and sticker sheets so the whole family can be entertained…
The best part? All the meal subscriptions are flexible, so you can order when you need to, and cancel or snooze too. The prices are quite reasonable, ranging from $7.99 a meal for 6 meals a week, to $5.99 a meal for 12 meals a week. You basically select a plan based on the number of meals desired, and your kids can choose from the weekly menu. The food is cooked and delivered to your doorstep every week. All you have to do? Refrigerate and heat for 90 to 120 seconds before serving.
I have to say, my kids loved the options available, and so did I. Who here does not eat their kids’ food, seriously? Our favorites as a family include the Creamy Mac and Trees (mac’n cheese and broccoli), the Vegetarian Bean Burrito and the Cheesy Veggie Casserole.
Overall, we enjoyed the delicious and nutritious meals, and the break it gave us from having to come up with good, healthy and fresh food every day. While as a family, we will still be cooking at home and bonding over our traditional African recipes, mostly on weekends and holidays when we have more time, we definitely welcome the yummy break and extra quality meal time during otherwise packed weekdays…
As I was preparing for a presentation on women at work , one of the recurring questions that came forth was: “Will this career allow me to be a mom and have work-life balance?” First, the term itself, work-life balance makes me cringe at every turn. In a modern society and at a time where the lines between work and life have been so blurred, especially during a pandemic with a predominantly virtual “new normal”, where is the balance to be found? Second, the mere consideration of women weighing motherhood against work is upsetting enough to take yet another coffee break. Truth is, working moms have been trapped by the false idea of work-life balance. And it’s high time it stopped…
As a working mom, like most, many, if not most of my career decisions have been shaped by motherhood. From transitioning careers, to letting go of travel and certain aspects of work not compatible with motherhood, it’s meant making choices that others did not have to make. What it also means is that these choices, and the doors they lead to, are predicated upon such a natural and human occurrence as becoming a mother. In the tight space between these difficult choices and motherhood, lies the dilemma of so many working moms being told to strive for an elusive work-life balance…As a result, young women are entering careers that are neither aligned with nor fulfilling to their purpose. Mid-career women are having to leave a part of their identity through work, having no choice but to save their families as caretakers. More experienced career women are being victims to even more false misconceptions, including ageism.
While the boundaries between life and work have become increasingly blurred, more and more working women are getting clearer about their priorities. As the resulting health, economic and mental crisis as disproportionately affected working women by shifting the caretaking and household burden almost exclusively on them, it also allowed for a reckoning of the issues faced by women. As such, it is also making the conversation around women and work, including work-life balance, louder and hopefully more constructive and conducive to real solutions:
Work-life balance is elusive
While the term work-life balance has been thrown around left and right for the longest time, the concept behind it is quite elusive in practice. How do you establish a balance between overlapping areas such as life and work? As a working mom, being at work inevitably means missing out on precious moments as a mother and caretaker. Conversely, stepping down from or reducing work obligations to devote more time to caretaking activities can be rewarding, yet it can also translate into lost dreams and delayed aspirations. There’s really no win-win here, and no true sense of balance…
Find what matters to you
At the end of the day, it’s less about establishing an artificial sense of balance and equilibrium, than it is about pursuing your own path and purpose. What matters to you may be insignificant or irrelevant to someone else, yet it may truly define what you are about. Identifying what truly matters to you and makes a real impact for you and others is key to escape the entrapment of a traditional work-life balance, and live life on your own terms.
Prioritize your well-being
The relentless search for work-life balance can often lead to exhaustion, as you strive to juggle the personal and professional in an endless quest for the perfect equilibrium. In all the loud arguments for and against work-life balance, true well-being may be left out of the loop. Each individual’s need for and understanding of their own well-being does not necessarily fit into the neatly folded corners of work-life balance. It’s often tucked somewhere in between moments of extreme busyness and eerie calm, or can be found in the exhilaration of goals accomplished or the tugging call of transitions. Whatever it is, and wherever it may be found, it is infinitely more important than a carefully studied idea of balance.
It is high time that the concept of work-life balance not only be re-visited, but even most importantly, held against the light of modern reality for working women and moms. If its goal was to help make the latter’s lives and work easier, then it should never become a prison of expectation and performance.
“It’s hard to explain what it feels like to be a Black woman at work.
“It feels like a long, invisible uphill battle.”
“I feel like I can’t be myself at work, that I constantly have to perform.”
These are a few of the words and feelings echoed by many Black women at work, indicative of a general sense of unease and even struggle in the workplace. This struggle is largely reflected in the general state of Black women in the workplace, as documented in the 2020 State of Black Women in the Workplace report published by McKinsey& Company.
Stuck at the intersection of race and gender, Black women have faced for decades heavier challenges than most other employees, including wider lack of representation and large pay gap, to cite a few. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated health and economic crisis, which has disproportionately impacted the Black community, these barriers have grown tremendously. At a time when one in three mothers is considering leaving the workforce or scaling down their career plans due to carrying the brunt of the crisis both on the home and the work front, Black women are even more at a disadvantage.
Yet, this gender diversity crisis is also an opportunity to identify what has not been working in the corporate and business world for Black women. Without understanding the unique problems faced by Black women and women of color at work, it’s virtually impossible to create the appropriate solutions.
From mine and so many other Black women’s experiences in the workplaces, here are 7 common struggles they face at work:
Feeling judged more harshly and subject to higher expectations
One common observation of Black women at work has all to do with not benefiting from the same treatment as most other employees. This is often referred to as a feeling of being judged less impartially, and falling subject to higher and more stringent expectations. This is in addition to being even punished for being ambitious. Unfortunately, this also leads very often to a sense of being set up for failure, potentially fostering early career disappointment, lack of motivation and ultimately complete career abandonment.
Lacking support
Support in the workplace is absolutely pivotal for employees, especially those who are part of minority or disadvantaged groups. Manager support especially, can make the difference between motivated, high-achieving employees, and employees who lag behind. During the COVID-19 crisis, and as a result of the racial incidents in the United States, Black women have had to carry a heavy emotional and mental toll and report not feeling supported by their management.
Playing the role of the token
Tokenism is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “the practice of doing something (such as hiring a person who belongs to a minority group) only to prevent criticism and give the appearance people are being treated fairly”. While research has shown that tokenism can also afford minorities a competitive edge, being used as the representative of an entire race can also have the adverse effect, resulting in felling overwhelmed, over-burdened, and isolated.
Lacking deserved recognition
Lack of recognition is another struggle Black women have faced for decades in the workplace. Having to work harder and being “twice as good” is not uncommon for many, if not most, Black women. While it’s considered to be the price to pay to attain higher and unprecedented levels of achievement, it also limits the potential of these women and sets a negative precedent for all.
Being the only one in the room
Faced with low numbers of women in management and leadership, many Black women find themselves to be the “only one” in the room. Without the opportunity to see themselves in others, isolation and self-doubt, combined with rampant imposter syndrome, can easily set in. What this also creates is the expectation that there will always be a limited number of Black women at the table, thus exacerbating this feeling of otherness and exclusion.
Less interaction with leadership
Along with the lack of support, limited opportunities to interact with company leadership and management also creates a significant source of blockage for Black women at work. Without the opportunity to reach senior management, there are lessened chances to convey the ideas, performance, as well as issues faced by Black women at work.
Experiencing micro-aggressions at work
Micro-aggressions are “comments or actions that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally express a prejudiced attitude towards a member of a marginalized group.” For Black women at work, they are a big deal, often creating and reinforcing layers of structural racism. As such, they can have a macro and life-changing impact, affecting Black women on an emotional, mental and physical level, with long-standing personal and professional implications.
All in all, these struggles, and so many others, not only stand in the way of career success for Black women at work, but they also have the potential of scarring them on a deeper mental, psychological and emotional scale. This is why it’s so important to understand not just their impact, but how they manifest in and outside of the workplace. Only when we begin to break the taboo around the walls faced by Black women in the workplace, that we can begin to collectively heal and grow.
What struggles are you facing in the workplace as a Black woman?
In times of crisis, your career is bound to experience some significant changes. Whether you find yourself in the middle of a pandemic, as we are at the moment, are going through a health-related ordeal, a life change such as a divorce, death of a loved one, or move, your work is not going to remain the same, especially as a working woman and mom. Yet, these are exactly the times you can use to grow your career.
I know every crisis I have faced has had an impact on my career, sometimes for the best, other times for the worst, always for a bigger purpose in the end. Over time, I’ve learnt to welcome these changes, and not desperately fight to maintain my career above water. After all, as working women and moms, all the parts of our lives are intricately inter-woven as we often don’t have the luxury of compartmentalizing the various areas of our lives. Instead, were’ most often pressured to wear our different hats at the same time. So can you really grow your career in times of crisis as a working woman and mom? As a matter of fact, times of crisis and challenge are often what take our careers to the next level, or on a much better trajectory.
From mine and so many other working women and moms’ experience through crisis and challenges, here are three tips to use times of crisis and challenges to grow your career:
Dare to be vulnerable and keep the communication open!
One of the biggest mistakes I made when facing life changes and crisis was to keep these to myself. As working women and moms often faced with false, diminishing stereotypes in the workplace, it may be challenging and intimidating to show vulnerability at work. Many have actually been burnt when showing their vulnerable side at work. However, the negative reactions of a few should not set the tone of how we should work better.
While you should be cautious as to who you open yourself up to at work, not opening yourself up at all, especially when dealing with life-altering circumstances, can prove more hurtful than anything else. Don’t be afraid to show some vulnerability and keep the lines of communication open, especially with your boss, direct team and colleagues. Not only will this help you from having to carry an unjustified burden at the wrong time, but may even help to bring you closer to your work team!
Set clear boundaries and expectations
In the same token, set clear expectations and boundaries of and with yourself and your team at work. During the COVID-19 crisis, many working moms are facing unspeakable challenges with child and home care, yet many are remaining silent, shouldering unrealistic and life-threatening at times burdens.
Have the courage to set expectations that make your load bearable and realistic. For some, this may mean setting alternate hours, or having frank conversations with your manager about workload, or even taking some time off. Whatever expectations and boundaries are needed, be brave enough to address them. They will not only help you lift a too heavy weight off your shoulders, but will also gain you the respect of your colleagues and team for speaking up.
Re-assess, re-evaluate, and re-assess some more!
Times of challenge are also times of growth and expansion. It’s very often when we find our backs against the wall, that we are now forced to re-consider our patterns, habits and decisions. Use these times to constantly re-assess, re-evaluate and re-consider your options. You may find out that you were wasting precious time on inefficiencies in your work processes, or that you are ready for a career transition altogether.
Sometimes, we get too bogged down on the details, so much that we lose sight of the need to take some time to assess where we stand, where we’re coming from and where we’re headed. In our careers, this exercise of constant re-assessment is not an indulgence, it’s actually a necessity.
Don’t be afraid when hard times bring on change. That’s exactly what they are meant to create. Instead, commit to using the rough patches, the life-altering moments, the wrenching decisions and transitions of work, to propel you instead of slowing you down.
How are you using the current COVID-19 crisis to grow your career?
