the working mom dilemma
Motherhood is a strength at work.
Studies suggest that women are great for a company’s financial performance — but if those women are mothers, it’s safe to say they’re probably more productive at work, too. In my interviews with hundreds of mothers, they reported being more efficient, better at pivoting between tasks, and better at saying no once they had children. I prefer to turn that last idea around: Moms give more committed yeses. Broadcast that.
Working makes you a good mom.
Research that Kathleen McGinn, a Harvard economist, conducted in 2015 found that the daughters of mothers who work outside the home grew up to be higher achieving and that their sons were more likely to share in household chores. Last year, McGinn built on those results, determining that those children end up just as happy as they would have been had their moms been home with them.
We also need changes at home
Without a more equitable distribution of caregiving responsibilities at home, and company culture making room for it, there’s a danger that female participation in the workforce will suffer long after the pandemic has passed.
What does this look like? It’s not just parents dropping out of the workforce altogether, but being forced to pass up opportunities for advancement, or burning the candle at both ends for many more months or even years.
Seventy percent of mothers with children under 18 work.
Time spent on activities like reading to children, doing crafts, taking them to lessons, attending recitals and games, and helping with homework has increased the most. Today, mothers spend nearly five hours a week on that, compared with 1 hour 45 minutes in 1975 — and they worry it’s not enough. Parents’ leisure time, like exercising or socializing, is much more likely to be spent with their children than it used to be. While fathers have recently increased the time spent with children, mothers still spend significantly more.
NY Times: How to Be Mostly O.K. (and Occasionally Fantastic) at the Whole Working Mom Thing Interview with Amy Westervelt, “Forget Having It All,”
We also need changes at home
All working parents will continue to face undue pressures that keep them from making their full contribution either to their families or their companies, unless we commit to real change by continuously seeking and defining new ways of working.
We asked our team about the challenges of balancing career aspirations with family life. Here’s what they had to say:
PARENTING: How do we make this thrilling, terrifying roller coaster ride a little bit easier?
Hit mini-series from Lemonada Media, covering America’s childcare crisis and the people of all ages who are crushed by it.
Brené with Emily and Amelia Nagoski on Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle
