BALANCE!
How many working moms cringe at that word? The debate over balance is real. Some of you consider it an urban legend. Some of you swear it exists. Like Bigfoot, there are working moms who claim to have experienced it first hand. Some say it was fleeting yet magical and others say it can’t be done, it's never going to happen so just stop trying.
Whether you believe in balance or not, we want to arm you with a few resources that could save a working moms a little sanity:
Prioritize
If cupcakes for your son’s class party isn’t a priority for you – don’t sign up. There are plenty of moms who love to bake. Someone has to bring the cups and napkins. No time for the store? Offer to chip in some cash for the pizza party.
Is being home for Taco Tuesday a priority? Maybe that means you need to leave an hour earlier that morning so you can be home on time or let your clients know that you have a hard stop of 4pm on Tuesdays.
Set Boundaries
When you’re with your kids, be WITH your kids. Turn off your phones, don’t look at email(no matter how hard it is).
Don’t get sucked into gatherings you’re not really interested in or have the time to attend. Save that time for things/and people you really want to spend time with.
There are blurred lines between Step One and Step Two. Trying to find a balance can bring up feelings of guilt. Sometime we working mom’s set ourselves up for failure by trying to do and be everything everyone needs us to be.
Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo recommends having processes and coping mechanisms in place.
Nooyi was recently interviewed at The Aspen Institute – Afternoon of Conversation (at minute 22:12) and admits, she doesn’t think women can have it all.
"We pretend we can have it all...You know, you have to cope. Because you die with guilt. You just die with guilt." "We plan our lives meticulously so we can be decent parents," she said. "But if you ask our daughters, I'm not sure they will say that I've been a good mom. I'm not sure.
The Five Things Successful Working Parents Have to Give up to Reach A Work-Life Balance
While managing a career and family leaves some parents feeling guilty and frazzled, others seem to be able to effortlessly balance parenthood with full-time work. Here, Amy Morin list’s five things many parents give up to achieve a successful work-life balance
Why Women Still Can’t Have It All
In this much talked about 2012 essay in The Atlantic, Anne Marie Slaughter says, “It is time for women in leadership positions to recognize that although we are still blazing trails and breaking ceilings, many of us are also reinforcing a falsehood: that “having it all” is, more than anything, a function of personal determination.Millions of other working women face much more difficult life circumstances. Some are single mothers; many struggle to find any job; others support husbands who cannot find jobs. Many cope with a work life in which good day care is either unavailable or very expensive; school schedules do not match work schedules; and schools themselves are failing to educate their children. Many of these women are worrying not about having it all, but rather about holding on to what they do have.”
During a 2013 TEDGlobal talk Anne Marie tells the audience “Real, full gender equality does not just mean valuing women on male terms. It means creating a much wider range of equally respected choices for women and for men. ‘If family comes first, work does not come second -- life comes together.’ "
6 Things You Lose When You're A Working Mom, & 6 Things You Gain
“Whether they have jobs out of preference or out of necessity, working mothers are bombarded with questions and judgments, consistently at the mercy of other people's fictitious assumptions or different parenting choices…..When it comes to being a working mother, I lose as much as I gain, and I gain as much as I lose.”
A Tale of Three “Workdates” with Female Mentors
Susan Wenner Jackson decided recently to schedule her own adult version of playdates to help her with her working-mom life/career.
Dads - Balance Work and Parenting is Not Just a Mom Thing
Hanaan Rosenthal says, “As a dad, you're free to have a career, work late, travel and do it all under the pretense of feeding your family. The pressure to do more dad stuff is fairly light. Parenting is not a hobby, though, and you do not babysit your own kids. This leaves us dads with a great opportunity: To be better parents.”
How many working moms cringe at that word? The debate over balance is real. Some of you consider it an urban legend. Some of you swear it exists. Like Bigfoot, there are working moms who claim to have experienced it first hand. Some say it was fleeting yet magical and others say it can’t be done, it's never going to happen so just stop trying.
Whether you believe in balance or not, we want to arm you with a few resources that could save a working moms a little sanity:
Prioritize
If cupcakes for your son’s class party isn’t a priority for you – don’t sign up. There are plenty of moms who love to bake. Someone has to bring the cups and napkins. No time for the store? Offer to chip in some cash for the pizza party.
Is being home for Taco Tuesday a priority? Maybe that means you need to leave an hour earlier that morning so you can be home on time or let your clients know that you have a hard stop of 4pm on Tuesdays.
Set Boundaries
When you’re with your kids, be WITH your kids. Turn off your phones, don’t look at email(no matter how hard it is).
Don’t get sucked into gatherings you’re not really interested in or have the time to attend. Save that time for things/and people you really want to spend time with.
There are blurred lines between Step One and Step Two. Trying to find a balance can bring up feelings of guilt. Sometime we working mom’s set ourselves up for failure by trying to do and be everything everyone needs us to be.
Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo recommends having processes and coping mechanisms in place.
Nooyi was recently interviewed at The Aspen Institute – Afternoon of Conversation (at minute 22:12) and admits, she doesn’t think women can have it all.
"We pretend we can have it all...You know, you have to cope. Because you die with guilt. You just die with guilt." "We plan our lives meticulously so we can be decent parents," she said. "But if you ask our daughters, I'm not sure they will say that I've been a good mom. I'm not sure.
The Five Things Successful Working Parents Have to Give up to Reach A Work-Life Balance
While managing a career and family leaves some parents feeling guilty and frazzled, others seem to be able to effortlessly balance parenthood with full-time work. Here, Amy Morin list’s five things many parents give up to achieve a successful work-life balance
Why Women Still Can’t Have It All
In this much talked about 2012 essay in The Atlantic, Anne Marie Slaughter says, “It is time for women in leadership positions to recognize that although we are still blazing trails and breaking ceilings, many of us are also reinforcing a falsehood: that “having it all” is, more than anything, a function of personal determination.Millions of other working women face much more difficult life circumstances. Some are single mothers; many struggle to find any job; others support husbands who cannot find jobs. Many cope with a work life in which good day care is either unavailable or very expensive; school schedules do not match work schedules; and schools themselves are failing to educate their children. Many of these women are worrying not about having it all, but rather about holding on to what they do have.”
During a 2013 TEDGlobal talk Anne Marie tells the audience “Real, full gender equality does not just mean valuing women on male terms. It means creating a much wider range of equally respected choices for women and for men. ‘If family comes first, work does not come second -- life comes together.’ "
6 Things You Lose When You're A Working Mom, & 6 Things You Gain
“Whether they have jobs out of preference or out of necessity, working mothers are bombarded with questions and judgments, consistently at the mercy of other people's fictitious assumptions or different parenting choices…..When it comes to being a working mother, I lose as much as I gain, and I gain as much as I lose.”
A Tale of Three “Workdates” with Female Mentors
Susan Wenner Jackson decided recently to schedule her own adult version of playdates to help her with her working-mom life/career.
Dads - Balance Work and Parenting is Not Just a Mom Thing
Hanaan Rosenthal says, “As a dad, you're free to have a career, work late, travel and do it all under the pretense of feeding your family. The pressure to do more dad stuff is fairly light. Parenting is not a hobby, though, and you do not babysit your own kids. This leaves us dads with a great opportunity: To be better parents.”