Tip #1: Build a support system
Tip #2: Build a culture of 50/50, at least at the beginning
Tip #3: Don’t leave until you leave
Tip #4: Don’t be afraid to do pregnancy & parental leave your way
Tip #5: Take stock of what’s happening at home
Tip #6: Find a supportive employer
Content Warning: motherhood, parenthood, pregnancy, Mother’s Day
I like to joke sometimes that I have three kids: two human kids, ages five and a half and four, and then one non-human kid, Juno. And of course, my role as a parent is my most important role, but my role as founder and CEO of Juno matters to me, too. Figuring out how to elegantly (and sanely) manage both roles has been a major theme of my life over the past handful of years.
With Mother’s Day around the corner, I want to share six of my hard-learned tips for balancing motherhood and career, for those interested in attempting to balance. I want to say at the outset that these tips largely apply to all parents, not just moms, but I am sharing from my perspective as a mother in a cisgender heterosexual marriage.
Additionally, I want to state that I recognize that balancing motherhood and career isn’t something everyone cares about, nor does it need to be. I have never understood the importance of a homemaker role, no matter who it is held by, better than I do right now with two young kids at home. I deeply respect those who choose to or are required to focus mainly on keeping a household and family running smoothly.
Onto the tips!
Tip #1: Build a support system
You can’t write a blog post about balancing motherhood and career without talking about the most important factor, which is having a support system. Whether you are partnered up, a single parent, in a co-parenting relationship or something else, choosing carefully the support system you’ll have around you is key.
Choosing carefully the support system you’ll have around you is key.
Many of us have the goal of partnering up, and the decision of who to choose is probably one of the most important decisions you’ll make. As Tim Urban writes in a post on his popular blog Wait But Why, “when you choose a life partner, you’re choosing a lot of things, including your parenting partner and someone who will deeply influence your children, your eating companion for about 20,000 meals, your travel companion for about 100 vacations, your primary leisure time and retirement friend, your career therapist, and someone whose day you’ll hear about 18,000 times. Intense shit.”
No kidding. In his post, Tim shares some thoughts on how to choose the right partner which are worth a read, and can apply to choosing your border support system as well. In my own experience, learning about attachment styles feels important for those looking to be in successful long-term partnerships, so if you’re single and interested in partnering up (or even if you’re in a partnership or co-parenting relationship), I would start there. A great book that I loved and have recommended to a few people is Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love by Amir Levine and Rachel S.F. Heller.
Tip #2: Build a culture of 50/50, at least at the beginning
My husband is eight years older than me. We met in 2011, when I was 24, and he was 32. At the time, I had just quit my job working at a startup in order to focus on growing Ladies Learning Code, and my salary was exactly $0. My now-husband was a couple years into co-founding his agency, Nascent, and was making... more than me.
In the early days and as our relationship developed, I insisted that we live according to what I could afford, so that I could contribute 50/50 to everything. This had two great results for us: first, since I was contributing 50/50 financially, there was no reason for our whole relationship culture to not be 50/50. With time, the culture of splitting expenses as well as housework and errands 50/50 became well-established. The other benefit was that my husband was able to save a lot of his paycheque, giving us more options for the future. He was also really excited to help me grow my career, because as my career grew, my 50% share would grow and we’d be able to enjoy the occasional fancy dinner and nice vacation. Having him as a champion of my career was priceless in those early days.
The 50/50 culture we developed early on has resulted in a partnership that I see as truly ideal, and one that I know will continue to evolve over time in a way that suits us both.
Over time, and especially once kids entered the picture, splitting everything exactly 50/50 stopped being so important. But that culture of 50/50 remains - a culture where we both contribute financially to the family and we both share childcare, errands and homemaker responsibilities pretty evenly. We don’t do the same things - there is a lot of “divide and conquer” - but the culture we developed early on has resulted in a partnership that I see as truly ideal, and one that I know will continue to evolve over time in a way that suits us both.
Tip #3: Don’t Leave Until You Leave
After reading An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel, I have a lot of feelings about Sheryl Sandberg and definitely don’t idolize her the way I once did, but there’s one thing she said in her book Lean In that I definitely agree with: don’t leave until you leave.
A lot can happen between the moment you decide it is time to start a family and when your bundle of joy enters the world, which is why I recommend not taking your foot off the gas at work until you truly have to. Things may not happen on your timeline. If it ends up taking longer than expected to get pregnant or adopt, you may end up with a very different career trajectory than if you had kept striving at your usual pace. An extra year or two of exciting projects, promotions and raises can put you into an even better position for when baby arrives.
Continue at your regular speed, whatever that speed may be, and be thoughtful about when that speed should change.
My recommendation is to continue at your regular speed, whatever that speed may be, and be thoughtful about when that speed should change. For me, I’ve enjoyed working right up until my due date. Others prefer to start their leave a few weeks or months before baby is set to arrive. Some are unlucky with tough pregnancies and end up needing to slow down shortly after becoming pregnant. Whatever the right time is for you, be thoughtful about it, and if you have the capacity to strive up until the moment you choose to leave, I think it’s worth it.
Tip #4: Don’t be afraid to do pregnancy & parental leave your way
I’m now about three weeks away from giving birth to my third child, and one of the questions I’ve been asked the most often leading up to all three due dates has been “do you plan to take maternity leave?” As a business owner, I have a lot of responsibility, but I also have a lot of flexibility to decide how to make parental leave work for me, my family and the business, and I’d love to see others bring more creativity into their own leaves as well.
When my last two kids were born, I took a couple weeks off and then enjoyed leaving my baby with my husband or a trusted caregiver and spending a couple days a week checking in on the most important things at work. I’ve enjoyed returning to work pretty much full-time around the four month mark.
Everyone should feel empowered to think about what form of leave would make them happiest, and not be afraid to challenge assumptions or mix things up.
That’s just me, and I think it is important to recognize that every parent can and should do things their own way, without judgment from others (we all know there’s enough of that going around!). Think deeply about how you can do your leave your way. Challenge assumptions. Here are some ideas to consider:
- Would you rather take a couple weeks or months off and then work part-time for a period of time, rather than being fully off? Talk to your employer. They may be more willing to accommodate than you might think, and you might be able to make more money working part-time than you would get from being on EI, which could be a win-win.
- Can your partner take significant time off? I know many families in which the parents split leave pretty evenly, each taking 4-6 months, which gives both parents an interesting experience and is probably wonderful for the baby as well. (One of the most important things we can do to support greater equality in the workplace is to have men take parental leave as often as women do. To the men who have taken significant leave, thank you.)
- Can you take advantage of your leave and live in a different place for a chunk of it? This might be easier post-pandemic as so many jobs are now remote.
- By taking a longer leave, can you use this as an opportunity to re-train for a career you’ll love more than the one you’re on leave from? We’ve had many people join us at Juno during or immediately after their parental leave. It’s now even easier to manage a career change during your parental leave thanks to our new Part-Time Web Development Bootcamp format. Classes are three days a week in the evenings. I would love to see more parents taking advantage of this brand new format!
- If entrepreneurship has always been a dream, can you somehow use your leave as a way to finally take the leap? I’m currently helping a new mom in my life purchase a unique business that is going to allow her to bring her baby to work, while also being rewarding and helping to support her family financially.
Of course, a traditional maternity or parental leave can make a lot of sense too and again, the choice is very personal. My point here is that everyone should feel empowered to think about what form of leave would make them happiest, and not be afraid to challenge assumptions or mix things up.
Tip #5: Take stock of what’s happening at home
According to a recent OECD report, the modern woman still does nearly three times as much unpaid domestic work as a man. Across all regions of the world, women spend on average between three and six hours on unpaid care activities, while men spend between half an hour and two hours. There are only so many hours in the day, and every minute more that a woman spends on invisible labour to support the home and family is one minute less she can spend on her career or investing in her education or vocational skills.
This might be a phenomenon you’ve noticed in your own life, especially once you have kids. There is just SO much to manage. The morning hustle to get out the door to school. Scheduling and chauffeuring the kids to dentist, doctor and vaccine appointments. Donating clothes that are too small and stocking drawers with clothes that are the right size and for the right season. The list goes on and on.
I can easily say that I completely understand now why so many women at my life stage who have the opportunity choose to leave the workforce. I really didn’t get it before, but now I do.
So what do we do about it?
I recently read an excellent book called Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (And More Life to Live) by Eve Rodsky and I can’t say enough good things about it.
Eve interviewed more than 500 people from all walks of life about what the invisible work in a family actually entails and how to get it all done efficiently. Out of this research, she wrote a book and developed a figurative (and literal) card game that you can play with your partner designed to help couples prioritize what’s important to their families and determine who should take the lead on every household and family task. The nice thing about Eve’s approach is that it doesn’t just make the woman or primary parent’s life easier - there are clear benefits on both sides. I highly recommend giving the book a read.
Even in very equal partnerships, there are improvements to be made to how the invisible work of home and family life is shared.
Even in very equal partnerships, there are improvements to be made to how the invisible work of home and family life is shared. It’s also good to be open to the idea that things aren’t as equal as you might think. Making invisible family and home-related work visible and making adjustments to make things more equitable is probably the most important thing a family can do to make balancing motherhood and career more manageable.
Tip #6: Find a supportive employer
One of the best ways to consistently feel like you’re both a great parent and a great employee/team member (a challenge some days, I know!) is to work for a supportive employer. Certain companies have made it a priority to support parents and since over 80% of women have children by the end of their childbearing years, any company not making an attempt to support women who are parents is missing out on a boatload of talent.
Any company not making an attempt to support women who are parents is missing out on a boatload of talent.
Look for companies with policies that make it clear that they’re supportive of parents. Hint: if it’s hard to find that information on their website (meaning you have to ask during the recruitment process), they’re probably not the employer you’re looking for.
Some indicators that an employer will be supportive of parents might include any of the following:
- A published pregnancy and parental leave policy (which hopefully includes top-ups)
- Openness to flex time or the opportunity for flexible schedules, and remote/hybrid work opportunities
- A four-day work week (which we’re in the process of adopting at Juno) might be especially appealing
- Look for companies where there are lots of parents, relative to the company’s size, and especially ones where the leaders of the company are parents - take special note of the number of moms
And don’t be afraid to ask about parent-friendly policies and other supports during the recruitment process. I encourage fathers to ask as well - it’s one of the ways that fathers and can be allies, by showing employers that these policies and supports aren’t just needed by mothers, they’re needed by all parents.
Balance will mean something different to everyone
Before I close off, it’s important to remember that balance means different things to different people, and at the end of the day, the decisions around how to organize one’s career and family life are very personal. That’s one thing I’ve learned since becoming a mother and as a result, I no longer judge. Most parents want to be absolutely great. But it’s hard, and sometimes all we can do is our best.
For those interested in balancing career and motherhood, I hope these hard-learned tips from my first handful of years as a mom and career-oriented person can help you on your own journey, one way or another, whatever that journey may be.