I’ve been a mom for more than 3 years now. For most of this time, I’ve been a working mom. Being a working mom brought a whole new level of complexity to my life. I struggled. A lot. I second guessed myself more often than not and held myself accountable to unrealistic standards. I failed, I learnt and I tried again. This post shares some tips on how to thrive survive as a working mom, learnt through my personal struggles.
1. Accept you can’t have it all
Do you know those thriving moms of four with incredibly successful careers, that always look impeccable, prioritise their health, tuck their kids to bed every single night, have meaningful relationships with their partners and bustling social lives, all while cooking quinoa-avocado muffins for their kids’ snacks every single day? No?! Neither do I, although there seem to be plenty of them on social media.
The hard truth is you can’t have it all. This doesn’t mean you need to choose between work and being a mom, contrary to a famous Romanian producer who shamelessly declared that ”Career women don’t have kids or are lamentable mothers”. What this means though is that there’s not much time left between being a mom and being a professional. And this gets us to the hardest part…
2. Fiercely prioritise
Career, motherhood, relationship, personal health, social life, hobbies, house chores. Add to this list anything else that’s really important to you or you just have to do. And then pick 3. Just 3, no cheating. The hardest part is to come to terms with yourself and understand that you’re not going to have time for the rest for the foreseeable future.
Fierce prioritisation is the only thing that’ll get you going (mentally sane, at least) through your new life as a parent. If you’re a working mom, you’ve just chosen 2, so there’s only one more left to go. I tried cheating by cramming more in: I failed gloriously. That’s because you simply don’t have time to consistently work on multiple areas in your life and do it well.
As a disclaimer, if you don’t choose your social life or your relationship, it doesn’t mean that you will no longer see your friends or you’ll consistently ignore your partner. What it means is that you are not prioritising these areas in your life right now. As a result, you will go out less often or proactively do fewer things for your relationship for a while. Not acknowledging this leads to frustration. Consciously prioritising brings you back in control versus feeling overwhelmed.
3. Stop multitasking, start focusing
Prioritisation goes hand in hand with the next item on my list: radical focus. When you don’t focus, you’re being drawn in a whirlwind. You’re reactive and end up only tackling what burns, not what’s really important for you, according to your personal priorities. This drains your energy: you put in a lot of effort, with very little impact. Been there, done that!
Contrary to popular belief, motherhood doesn’t make you better at multitasking. That’s because no one is actually good at multitasking. Research has shown that multitasking actually reduces your productivity by up to 40%. Our brains have limited cognitive ability – multitasking only reduces this ability further.
When you are multitasking, your brain is NOT working on multiple things simultaneously. Instead, it switches context frequently, consuming its limited bandwidth. Our multitasking as parents does in no way make us more efficient – if anything, it’s responsible for the so-called ”mommy brain”, the brain fog that affects our short-term memory and impairs our cognitive abilities.
There is a solution to this: radical focus. Radical focus means you relentlessly (and ruthlessly) focus on your key priorities, one thing at a time. Just stop spending time with your kid while checking just that one Slack message, or be in a call while prepping your kid’s lunch. Compartmentalisation is key: divide your day between your key priorities and be there, fully focused on the thing at hand. Easier said than done, I know. For me, Daniel Goleman’s ”Focus” has been a game changer. Just start small: focus on the thing at a time, reduce distractions and get things done. Only jump at the next thing on your list once you’ve finished the one you started.
4. Get help
You might have heard that “it takes a village to raise a child”. Unfortunately that village is not readily available in the world we live in. The good part is that you can create your own village. The moment you realise you can’t have it all, getting help is no longer optional. It’s essential, particularly if you chose to be a working mom. And here are three ways in which you can do it.
4.1 Ask for help
I hear way too frequently women that complain that they don’t get any support, but they shy away from actually asking for it. Just ask, loud and clear. People oftentimes don’t realise what you’re going through and what you actually need. They shy away from getting involved, afraid not to intrude. Speak up and just ask for the help you need, from whomever you need it.
4.2 Externalise
You don’t have to do everything yourself, although you might be tempted to think no one on the planet will do things as good as you do. Even if you’d be right, sometimes done is better than perfect. This is a lesson I’ve learnt the hard way, after getting on the verge of a burnout. Just make a list of all things that can be externalised: cleaning, cooking, house chores. Externalise everything you can. And if the first person you externalise to doesn’t raise to your standards, just keep searching and don’t revert to doing it yourself
4.3 Automate
Technology can be both a blessing and a curse. Use it to your advantage to make your life easier. Forget about spending hours shopping, just use an app instead. Use cooking devices when you need to cook. Convenience goes a long way to free your time and the already scarce mental bandwidth.
- Disclaimer: your partner doesn’t count as ”help”. You both created a human being and it’s a joint responsibility to raise them. The father of your child doesn’t “help you” when he’s getting involved: he’s just doing his part. Thinking of him as ”helping you” reinforces the misconception that it’s your responsibility to take care of the kid(s). It’s not, irrespective if you’re a working mom or not.
5. Accept Help
Getting help is not enough. You also need to be willing to accept it, as counterintuitive as this might sound. Accepting help means accepting that things are not always going to be as you would like them to be. And that’s perfectly fine, as long as it frees your time and mental bandwidth, such that you can focus on your priorities.
To give you just an example, for the first months after my kid started eating solids, I didn’t let anyone else prepare his food or feed him. I was organising my entire life around his meals. Despite the fact that my mother in law is a chef, with cooking skills that I will not match in a lifetime, I didn’t trust her to prepare purees and cut some raw fruits & vegetables for my son. The irony is lost to no one.
I know plenty of people who don’t accept help from their children’s grandparents, concerned that their kids are going to spend too much time in front of a screen, eat homemade food that contains sugar or be raised differently that they’d like. And that’s perfectly fine, provided you realise the opportunity cost of this. Otherwise, yes, the world has changed since our parents raised us and our kids are growing up differently. But no one is going to raise your child other than yourself – you are the one that’s instilling their life principles. They should be able to spend time with other people and be exposed to different communication styles (provided they’re not toxic / abusive).
Accepting help also applies to everything that’s not related to your children. As I was writing above, you might be tempted to think that no one is going to do things as good as you do. That might well be correct, but the mental bandwidth you free up by accepting help can be put at work towards your core priorities. Just accept the help and focus on what’s important for you.
6. Ignore unsolicited advice
The moment you become a mother, a lot of people around you will think they know better than you how to raise your child. And this doesn’t only apply to motherhood. Just a couple of days ago, a famous Romanian artist said she doesn’t want kids. All Hell broke loose, with people criticising her for her decision. And that’s dead wrong. It’s her life, her decisions. Similarly, the decisions regarding your life and your kid(s) are yours and yours alone. You get to live with the consequences, it’s no one’s business to discuss your life choices. I’ve written at length about this here.
I vividly remember a conversation that I stumbled upon on a mom group that takes pride in being an awarded community for educated moms. A mom of a 2-months old received a really good job offer and wanted to hear the experiences of other moms that started work soon after their children were born. Unbelievably, what she got instead was disguised criticism for her decision along the lines of: ”there’s no such thing as an offer you can’t refuse”, ”mommy, think twice, your kid needs you”, ”this time doesn’t return, you will miss so many important things in your kid’s life”. Needless to say, I unfollowed the group for good – staying away from these unsolicited advisors will save your time and energy.
Unfortunately though, they’re everywhere. You’ll still be judged, mostly by insecure people that have nothing better to do or are unhappy with their own lives and decisions. Get comfortable with being judged and dismiss the unsolicited advice that’s going to be thrown your way. Self-confidence goes a long way here – don’t let these a**holes get to you and don’t second guess yourself.
7. Family doesn’t always come first
This is such a cliche and I expect to be bludgeoned by the internet police for calling this out. Of course, family is our Northstar and we love them wholeheartedly. This doesn’t mean though that family always comes first.
Putting your family first all the time, irrespective of the circumstances, will only lead you to feeling frustrated or, even worse, will throw you into burnout or depression. First, it’s because family is a sum of individuals that are related to you and very important to you. For the family construct to function well, each part of the family needs to function, including yourself. That means that you should always come first. It’s like in the plane: you always put on your own mask first if you want to be capable of helping others.
Work wise, there are also going to be circumstances where family doesn’t come first. It might be that important board meeting, the pitch for a VC, the performance review cycle that impacts the lives of everyone in your team, or simply the fact that you need to be at your best and give it your all while you get **it done. Output is a function of input and expectations are no different if you’re a parent (and they shouldn’t be): you have to deliver impact with your work, despite all your other commitments.
The implication of this is that family doesn’t always come first and you might miss some moments in your kid’s life. I did miss his first steps because I was in a work call. And I’m fine with that, because I’ll be there, holding his hand, for a billion more steps to come. All this while also being a professional and investing time and resources in what matters for me.
You’re a full-time working mom
Being a mom is hard. Being a working mom is harder. And, irrespective of whether you chose to work during the early years of maternity, you are and always will be a full-time mom. Motherhood is not a role you can assume part-time or when it fits: it’s a new identity that you will never loose, even if you choose to work full-time. In the same time, you’re more than just a mom. You’re a human being, a partner, a friend, a daughter, and many more. And you can also choose to be a professional and keep the parts of your identity that define you and are important for you. Being a parent should not be the end of your life as you know it.
It’s definitely not impossible to grow a human being and a career simultaneously. Just don’t lie to yourself and stay true to your choices and personal priorities, no matter what other people stay. Forget about those guilt trips, don’t blame yourself and keep pursuing what matters to you. I think this is the only way to thrive as a working mom, at motherhood and at work!