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| Photo by istock.com |
As a little girl, taking care of dolls was not my thing. Instead, I imagined being a Nobel Peace Prize winner by making sure my stuffed animals all got along, or a doctor who discovers a cure for cancer using those same stuffed animals as patients. For me, motherhood was a long-distance neighborhood from Be Something Big Street. Little did I know how far off that would be from my current thinking. Now instead of navigating a direct path to success, I’m tracking my kids’ milestones and their achievements along the way. I’m still on course to achieve a successful career – it’s just that I’m taking all the back roads as well, enjoying every moment of my children’s lives, and choosing to have my kids remain close in my driving view at all times.
So right out of the garage, parenthood has its pros and cons for people who want to be successful both at work and at home. Their roadmaps to success change. It’s no longer a clear map of staying focused on a route to success, taking responsibility of your own career choices, and continually building on your qualifications. When you add a family to the equation, there will be more detours and stops along the way but you will get more out of life and there is more sense of purpose. Your focus becomes blurred between your professional and personal goals. The choices you make not only affect your career but also your family, and building on your work experiences takes a back seat to building the foundation for your children’s growth and happiness.
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| Don't let this photo fool you. My kids are not "angry" that I work and unable to stay at home with them full-time. Photo by Mimi Kuehn |
As a working parent, it takes longer to achieve career goals because of our priority to balance a family and a career. There are new choices and unforeseen challenges because of that decision. It’s more than just work-life balance, but all about work-life sustainability (sus-sane-ability, if you will) – choices I make must let me sustain my personal life in order for me to be sane and happy with working. Simply put, my children come first and keep me sane. If working doesn’t interfere with how I raise my children, then that is when I truly achieved work-life sustainability. I will have plenty of opportunities to get that big raise and that big promotion after my kids have left the nest and when there are fewer of my kids' milestones to celebrate. I only have one opportunity to raise my kids.
So when did I reach this epiphany? It started when I was reaching my last month of pregnancy when I fainted at work and then was ordered by my boss at Ernst & Young and my doctor to go on modified bedrest – meaning I can continue to work at home as long as I wasn’t overdoing it. (Thank goodness my boss and obstetrician didn’t know of my overextending tendencies at that time – yet.) And my epiphany grew into fruition when my maternity leave was drawing to a close. I had enjoyed witnessing all of my son’s first milestones and was scared to death that I’d be missing his future milestones once I return to work.
I knew my dread of heading back to work were common like any other new working mom. Making the transition back to work following a parental leave can be a difficult time when many women struggle with being a mother and a professional, and not being with their children physically 100% or more of the time. Working moms begin to question themselves if they can do it all.
Fitting a career and children into one’s life is like trying to do everything in one family vacation – limited time, lots of arguing, loads of fun, and looking forward to doing it all over again. If you vacation like I do, I try to fit two trips into one vacation – aiming to make the most of my time off when there is little time off from work to begin with. As with many family vacations and road trips, children would incessantly ask, “Are we there yet?” As a working mom, I find myself asking that same question. “Am I there yet?” “Can I do it all?” “Am I making the right decisions to make my family happy by working?”
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| Trophies from my kids for being a great mom. Photo by Mimi Kuehn |
Because I work at Ernst & Young, there were options that I can try to do it all – have a career and be at home with my son as often as I can. I decided to take a 5-month maternity leave with my first-born, three of which were paid leave, including vacation days and parental leave. Also, I put in a formal flexibility request to only come into the office two days a week. Trying to be a working-at-home mom (WAHM) was still uncommon at the time for any company. But with the support of my supervisor and with the determination to be the best mom that I can be, my new flexible work arrangement got approved. Being a WAHM is a career milestone for me that allows me to enjoy most of my son’s milestones. Now I have three kids and telework at home three days and in the office twice a week (and at one time teleworked full-time for a few years). Few people can say that about their job unless they work for EY.
When I became pregnant with my first son, my perspective on how I pursue my career and parenthood changed. I had fainted at work and had a minor seizure while unconscious. That office scare frightened my colleagues and also made me more aware of my pregnancy symptoms. I was nauseous day and night, and appreciated my little one making himself known that way. I made a mental checklist of each pregnancy symptom, as if I was taking attendance. If a symptom was missing a day, I would make a note of it being absent and look for it to appear the next day. So the more miserable I felt physically, the better I felt emotionally. Looking back, I view my fainting spell as a blessing. Crazy you may wonder, but because I was at the right place at the right time when my blackout happened, Ernst & Young granted me the opportunity to work from home full-time the rest of my pregnancy. And that opportunity combined with my dedicated work ethic created more flexible work-at-home opportunities as I had more children.
And of course, the most vivid of my pregnancy memories was when my first son was born, which also happens to be my best milestone yet – parenthood. Becoming a mother, I realized I reached a new milestone that carried with it hundreds of new challenges, scores of lessons to learn (and teach), and days with ordinary and extraordinary experiences. Parenthood is no ordinary milestone. In fact, parenthood would be the most difficult and rewarding career move that I’ve ever made. Thankfully for the flexibility at Ernst & Young, I get to enjoy more of the rewards than the challenges that comes with being a working mom. But the most important realization for me is that a working mom owns the biggest lot on Be Something Big Street after all.
If you are a working parent, what have you encountered are the challenges and rewards of balancing a job and a family? What advice do you have to sustain a positive balance?
