The last two years have been hard on working mothers: I-give-up hard; yell-in-your-pillow hard; stand out in the field with a bunch of other moms screaming-into-the-void (really – look it up) hard.
“Everyone has been touched by the pandemic,” reads a New York Times article about the above “primal scream” event in Boston, “but mothers often have no place to escape and no time to take a break.” An understatement, indeed. Let’s just say that while the push-pull between working and mothering has always been a race, these days it’s more like an extreme marathon.
So as working moms everywhere continue to manage strollers and spreadsheets; customer service and car seats; binkies and bottom lines, we’re shouting out to a few things we think every working mother (and the people who support them) should know – specifically, that every day on the job, they’re doing more than working and parenting.
They’re role modeling: Young girls who look up and see (and believe) what’s possible today become women who do the same for the next generation tomorrow. “My mother is also a cardiologist,” a young doctor who’d just had her first child told me not long ago. “She was the reason I knew what I wanted to do, and that I knew it was possible.” It’s true for every woman in every profession.
They’re trailblazing: The headway we continue to make is only possible because of those who came before – and those who will come next. So every first – in a particular field, job, or corner office – changes the game for everyone.
They’re supporting business: Talk about gender equity can cloak what research says over and over: that women are good for business. Our research shows they're also recognized for unique leadership skills, and they’re ace multi-taskers, too.
They’re taking care of kids: The mental load is real. But it’s more than that. Putting food and tables and roofs over heads is no small feat. And contrary to comment threads (yeah, we read them, too), there’s no single one right way to mother. What works for you is what’s best for your family. Wish within a wish: a permanent end to the mommy wars.
A final wish – for next Mother’s Day to look a whole lot different.
To all the moms who get up to do it all every day…and then get up the next day and to do it all again, we say…
You’ve got this.
Happy Mother’s Day.
