I sat in a board meeting today, surrounded by my colleagues and our great board members. During a break I was chatting with two of my executive teammates, both women, both mothers. All three of us are at different stages of motherhood, with our kid’s ages ranging from pre-schoolers to college age. The three of us are quite different in a multitude of ways, but the bond we share as working moms unites us in a way that the men in the room will never be able to comprehend.
I’ve never been a huge one to focus on women in the workplace issues. I am a big believer in doing awesome work and letting it speak for itself, no matter what your gender. If people aren’t taking notice, it’s not your gender, it’s you. Granted, I’ve worked in primarily progressive companies my whole career. That said, they have always been male dominated. I haven’t had a woman boss since I was 22. I haven’t had many women examples to pave the way for me to help me understand what it means to balance work, life and children. So I created my own model of what I think works to “have it all,” and what works best for my family and I. And I do my best to share the positives and negatives of those choices to other women who seek to do the same when I am asked.
I was the first woman on either side of my family to be fortunate enough to attend college. I believe my parents thought education was important for me, but never assumed I would build a career. I think the general consensus was that I would get an education, find a “job,” meet a nice boy, and then raise a family. Very similar to how my own nuclear family had played out. Wrong bet to make.
I grew up in a very “Leave it to Beaver” family. We lived in an incredibly idyllic town, with a successful father and a wonderfully loving stay-at-home mom. And while it was an incredible experience for a child, as I become a teenager, I became acutely aware that was precisely want I did not want for my own adult life. That is not to take anything away from the way my parents chose to operate their own family structure - I just knew it wasn’t the right one for me.
While I knew there was a piece of me that knew that to raise children of my own would be an experience that I was sure I wanted to embrace, I was fairly confident it didn’t need to be mutually exclusive of having a job that I loved. I thought that somehow I could carve out something that not only would financially contribute to my family, but would additionally emotionally contribute to my soul. Not an easy balance by any stretch of the imagination; but if I could manage to marry a career that I love with children that I love raising, perhaps I could - somehow - manage to “have it all”.
Then comes the hard part. Defining “having it all.” I am incredibly fortunate. I can afford to have the help of a nanny who aids me shuffling my kids to and from their after school activities and helps them with their basic homework. I know they are well cared for when I can’t be with them for those few hours. I chose to let go of those after school hours so I could be at work and afford a better life for us.
But I also choose to leave work almost every night at 5:30 so I can get home for dinner with them. I put my phone and computer away until they go to bed so the three of us can engage and connect. I attempt to make them feel like they are the most important thing in my world for those few precious hours. And after I tuck them in, I log back on if I need to…because sometimes that is what my work demands of me. But I do it willingly, because that time with my kids makes it worth it.
I’m incredibly fortunate. I am well educated, and I have had a blessed career. Yes, I have worked my ass off for it, and made some good decisions along the way. However, it’s not lost on me that not every working parent has the same level of flexibility and support I do. However, I will say the one thing that likely any single working parent shares in common - no matter what their lot in life - is that we all feel like want to do the best we can by our kids. There is always that nagging feeling of guilt that you aren’t present enough; that maybe you should could have done something a little different/better.
But I’ll make this statement. I learned this early on in motherhood: not to judge. Not to judge ourselves, not to judge others. I know stay at home moms who are miserable, and resent their lives. I know stay at home mothers who absolutely thrive in that role. I know working moms who have all but abandoned their children, and I know some who are the most engaged parents I’ve ever seen. And we all can site examples of people on every place on the spectrum in between. The point? There is no way to be a perfect parent, but there are a million ways to be a fantastic one. You just have to figure out what works best for you and your family.
I figured out pretty early on that if I am happy and passionate in my own life - largely which is driven by what I do for work - I bring all of that energy home to my kids. I’m feel incredibly fortunate for that. In my mind, I might have some serious dark circles under my eyes and a dreadful distaste of traffic, but I seriously “have it all.”
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