Speak Louder About Parenting at Work
I still remember the embarrassment I felt when one early morning a young colleague walked past my booth and stopped to say, “I see a snack that smiles back in your bag? Wow, you’re really a mom. ” In his usual rush to walk out the door and crash my son in kindergarten, before heading to the office, his snack must have been dropped off in the wrong bag, because of course there was a sandwich full of Goldfish crackers almost spilling out of my wallet.
I laughed, shoved those crackers deeper into my bag, and quickly changed the subject to something work-related, trying to distract attention from the fact that I did have a Goldfish-loving toddler at home.
Those early years of being a parent were tough. My husband and I lived 2,000 miles from the family and our son was sick a lot . There were endless ear infections, allergies, specialists, minor surgeries, and one really horrible chest X-ray – not to mention all the common germs that kids pass on to daycare. We were constantly weighing who had a more important meeting and who might have slipped away early to pick him up when they called again from kindergarten and said he had a high fever. But there is nothing professional about a sick child, so as far as I could, my role as a mom was separated from my role as a (then) PR manager.
This is what parents – especially mothers – do all too often: we hide evidence of how our children affect our daily lives out of (real) fear that it somehow undermines our trust or indicates that we are less productive or dedicated. career. While my husband was not worried about openly sharing our struggles and his need for flexibility in working with his female manager (who also happened to be a single mother), I did not feel the same comfort when I shared this with my boss. -the man who ‘I never had children.
But if we continue to hide the tension between our parenting responsibilities and our professional life, we maintain the stereotype of a worn out, absent-minded mom and ignore all the ways parenting can improve our work. These children, who can cause unpredictable inconveniences, also push us to become even better organizers, multitaskers, project managers and communicators.
This is why, as Alexia Delner writes for PureWow , we need to ” parent the kids loudly” at work:
Simply put, parenting loudly is the act of not hiding the fact that you are a parent from colleagues, co-workers, or managers. “It means not being ashamed of having kids to take care of and actually being proud of how parenting helps you do your job better,” says [Lorna] Borenstein, [workplace well-being expert and author of New Book “ It’s Personal: The Business Case for Caring”] . “It means talking openly about your children, their impact on your life – both negative and positive – and showing interest in other parents who share this experience.”
In other words, the next time you’re late for a work meeting, instead of blaming your Wi-Fi or commuting, be honest that your 7-year-old needed help getting into her discussion session, or find her. school supplies. Or say a colleague writes an appointment at 5:00 pm on your calendar and the parents say loudly, “Sorry, but I have to cook dinner for my child at this time – can you meet earlier?”
To a certain extent, we had no other choice but for parents to work louder at work during the pandemic, especially for many of us who work from home with children who study at home. Children show up in Zoom calls and announce their presence, whether we like it or not. But when they get back to class, and we eventually get back to the office, we need to keep raising the kids loudly. Our children do not disappear from existence just because they no longer interrupt our meetings. They continue to affect our daily routine, and because of them, we continue to grow.
In particular, parent CEOs and business leaders need to take care of their parents even louder because a boss who talks about his children or announces that they are leaving early to catch the spring concert sets the tone for everyone else to feel comfortable doing it. same. And those who are not parents can urge people on their teams to parenting more loudly by asking them about their children from time to time.
The fact that I make a living writing about parenting makes it easier for me to loudly parenting at work these days. My literal job is to identify pain points that parents experience in their daily life and try to come up with solutions. But I try to share with colleagues not only my parenting experience, but also ideas for articles. I tell them funny things my child says. I tell them when I’m offline because I need to pick him up from school, or because I need to take him to the doctor’s appointment, or even when I take a break because he’s having a hard day and needs one-on-one once. I do not allow any of these things to undermine the productivity of my day; I just admit they exist, deal with them, and then go back to work.
Also, that’s not all I’m talking about – they also know about neighbors who scream a lot, about a broken water heater, and about a dog chewing things into small pieces. Parents and non-parents alike have to combine hardships, breaks and health problems. This does not make us less dedicated, more unproductive, or less professional, like parenting.