I Am One of the 14% Percent

Thoughts on Returning from Parental Leave

Meghan Keaney Anderson
ThinkGrowth.org

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In honor International Women’s Day, we’re exploring how to be bold for improving the policies and patterns that support women (and families!) at work.

Out of 123 million full-time workers in the United States today, only 14 percent have access to paid parental leave. By some inextricable blend of luck, choice and circumstance, I am part of that minority group.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2016 Data

And so, on December 4th, 2016 as my daughter took her first red-faced gulp of air, I was able to press pause on the rest of my life and commit to the dizzying experience of reinventing myself as a mother.

It was not a smooth transition.

I may be losing some polish to say this, but learning to “mother” for the first time was not all that instinctual. It was destabilizing and foreign — the computer equivalent of a hard reboot.

Panic at the Disco

None of my prior work experience applied. The entire directory of endlessly chirpy online forums were totally useless. Minute by minute reality was the only real tutor, and it required my complete attention.

Mid-way through my first month I wrote my team to tell them so. I had planned on being at least partially available at all points. I had to eat my own words. “I’m [now] convinced there is no way to multi-task this parenting thing in the first couple of months,” I explained. “So I just wanted to make a point to say thank you.”

I got lucky. I have a team and a company that supported me fully. I flinch a little to use that word: luck. Because calling it such makes paid leave seem like a luxury — a workplace perk in the same vein as commuter reimbursements or employee stock purchase plans. It shouldn’t be this way.

Of 41 major nations charted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States remains the only one without mandated paid parental leave. Without any legal requirement, the numbers of U.S. companies offering paid parental leave are pretty bleak across the board.

Some industries do fair better than others. According to Kaiser Family Foundation, nonprofits lead the way with 40% offering paid parental leave for the birth or adoption of a child. It also varies regionally and by wage level. The Northeast has the highest rates of paid leave, led by 17% in the mid-Atlantic states. Across the country as wages (and competition for talent) go up, so does the incidence of paid leave.

By and large however, treating paid parental leave as an option rather than a mandate has resulted in only a precious few having access.

My husband and I got to be part of that precious few. So just as we were realizing how overwhelming first-time parenting can be, we were afforded the time to focus it. Today, I’m at a new juncture. That time to focus has come to an end and I have headed back to work.

(Click to tweet this stat)

Returning From Leave — Advice From My Peers

A week or so ago, as the end of my maternity leave was starting to materialize on the horizon, I opened my work inbox to find an email from a colleague. She had just returned from leave herself the month before. The email contained a document filled with advice from other HubSpot parents on what it’s like to come back from parental leave and how to navigate life as a working parent. Priceless doesn’t even begin to describe the guidance I got in this collection. Having no advice of my own to offer yet, I’d like to share some of the bigger themes I found within theirs.

It Takes Time to Get the Schedule Down

The most resounding thing I heard from other parents on returning to work had to do with developing near ninja-level skills when it comes to scheduling. Every one of them mentioned it and confessed to a sort of wrangle or be wrangled mentality when it comes to their calendars. Some said it took months to feel on top of it. Others said they still have weeks when they struggle to stay above water.

“It took me about a year to figure out a good life cadence now with a baby, so give yourself some time, test out new things and be confident that it gets easier with time. There’s no right way to do it. Everyone has their own unique situation, baby, job, etc., so try not to copy what others are doing, but adapt a few tips and figure out your own cadence.”

In all of the feedback, communicating clearly with whomever is helping you far in advance and keeping commitments was paramount.

Create a shared google calendar with your daycare/nanny/husband/parents, whoever is helping you. My husband and I sit down every Sunday and review the next two weeks with travel, work events, drop off etc. to make sure things run smoothly during the week.

This may seem like a minor point, but every parent underscored it to such an extent I realized they each must have learned the hard way not to underestimate it. Be intentional about your schedule, they said. Leave when you say you will. Split up responsibilities. The calendar is make-or-break when it comes to the first year.

[Insert Emotion] May Be Unproductive, But You’re Going to Feel It Anyway

As I have been getting ready to return from leave, I scraped together the time to read one book on the subject. Thankfully it was a remarkably good one. In Here’s The Plan, Allyson Downey compiles interviews with nearly 2000 working parents on how to steer your career through pregnancy and parenthood. One of the underlying messages in the book was developing the perspective to separate a bad day from a bad decision.

“Take note,” she writes. “There may come a point when you start to question whether it’s worth it — whether you should quit work because you can’t be great at both your career and parenting. “That is a day,” one woman advised, “for a glass of wine, not rash decisions.”

This same “there are going to be hard days” sentiment was near universal when talking with new mothers and fathers from my company. The type of emotions they described feeling ranged from guilt…

Try your best to not feel guilty about “only” being in the office ~9–5 most days.

to anger to self-consciousness…

“Don’t be surprised if you feel a bit irrelevant at first. After all, things have been getting done without you, on your own team. It’s a weird feeling. Like all good managers, you know that if you’ve set the team up well, they were able to thrive in your absence. At the same time, it might leave you wondering if the void was filled, why they need you in the first place. Combine that with the hormonal changes and you might think, “Damn. Am I even still needed here?” Trust me… they need you. It will only take a few weeks before you realize how much you were missed.”

This flurry of emotions makes sense. Work and family each matter immensely, and they are often inextricable from your own self-perception.

In the past I’ve told people I intentionally choose jobs that aren’t nine-to-fivers. I like working with people who are so passionate about their work they throw their whole selves into it. But I can now say the same thing about parenting. So what happens when you want to throw your whole self into two separate things? Tears. Tears happen.

But, as one parent told me, time balances everything out:

“Expect things to be a mess during the first month, and don’t allow yourself to make a decision about whether you “can do it all” during the 1st month. Your schedule will be a mess. Your work cadence will be thrown off. Your emotions are a mess. Everything gets easier after a month and you’ll be in a better place to make the right decision for yourself.”

Across the board, the advice was the same: you may not be able to avoid negative feelings but you can out-live them.

It Is Impossible to Multitask This Thing

I said it before and it seems that it rings as true for life after parental leave as life within it: It is impossible to multitask this thing.

“When you need to stay home with a sick child, don’t try to hop on calls or get any work done. You’ll feel terribly stressed out when you’re not giving work or your child 100% attention. Cancel all meetings and let people know you have a sick child at home — everyone understands.”

That advice went both ways.

“If you need one night a week to just focus on work, choose a night to work late and be ok with not seeing your baby that night. Switching gears is really hard. Sometimes, it’s easiest to commit to working late one night a week to stay on top of things and be less stressed when spending time with family.”

Avoiding multitasking was a common recommendation for how to keep your head clear during work. One parent told me she has stopped checking her inbox continuously throughout the day and instead has designated time-boxed blocks for email. You need to become incredibly efficient as a working parent because your schedule is often bookended by day care deadlines. By closing her inbox tab outside of a few designated blocks, she’s been able to focus more completely on her work and move through it more quickly.

We Need to Talk About Breast Pumps

I know. The whole subject is uncomfortable. It feels unprofessional somehow, which is absolutely bonkers and 100 percent the reason that of all the aspects of parenting I was most caught off-guard by breastfeeding. Jessica Shortell, author of Work. Pump. Repeat, addresses this dissonance from the very first page of her book.

“Here’s an idea,” she writes. “Pretty soon after we have babies, let’s use machines to extract breastmilk from our bodies several times a day while we are working demanding jobs. Let’s do this when we are already exhausted, anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed — and trying to prove to our employers that we’re ‘back.’”

It’s fair to say I had no idea how much would be involved in making food for my child. I certainly had no idea how much time I would spend attached to a pump. Mothers who are breastfeeding are advised to pump every two to three hours during the workday. Finding the time to slink off for 30 minutes every two hours is daunting. And despite the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandating that workplaces allow lactation breaks, often women feel they need to do so surreptitiously.

In an interview with Every Mother Counts Shortell who had her first child while working at TOMS shoes emphasizes the importance of talking about pumping:

“We’re a sorority of women combining breastfeeding and work and it can be isolating. We’re literally locking ourselves in closets and bathrooms.”

Being more public about the need to pump mid-day can help change the narrative here. This idea was echoed by one of my colleagues at HubSpot:

“If you plan to pump at work — make your pumping schedule public, don’t let people book over it, and don’t be apologetic for needing that time. If you work in a male-dominated org, your colleagues will feel uncomfortable even mentioning the topic. The more you talk about it and the sooner you talk about, the earlier people accept it as the norm in your schedule. You’re also paving the way for the future moms in your organization who need to do the same.”

It’s not easy. Even with family, I find myself lowering my voice sometimes when I talk about pumping. I catch myself using euphemisms or talking around it. When I do, I try to remember this advice. Pumping is as much a part of parenting as diapers are, and we need to talk about it.

Make “Working From Home” Work

If you’re lucky — there’s that word again — you work at a job where working from home occasionally is an option. Particularly if you’ve got a family member, friend or professional who can care for your newborn while you work, this option can make all the sense in the world. It can cut out your commute, minimize pumping breaks, and give you more time to focus. There’s a lot you can do to make working from home work for you. But you may find it’s your team that needs to be reminded that a WFH day is just like any other day:

“ I find my team will sometimes react to a WFH day with “oh ok, I can move that meeting we have to another day” and I’m trying to really reinforce that we don’t need to do that, I can be effective from home, etc. I just keep saying, let’s zoom, call my cell whenever, slack me.”

Having a child is not just a partial reinvention of yourself, it also changes the way you act with others. Retraining your team to understand that out-of-sight doesn’t mean unavailable is key to getting the most out of work-from-home days.

A Final (Love) Note

I am a planner. My mind is married to the future. While I was pregnant people would often ask me if I was going to find out the sex of the baby. I would respond “Of course! Listen, if I could find out where this kid is going to college I would.” The more information the better.

The knowing ones would laugh and say you can’t prepare for everything. They were right of course. There are plenty of things I didn’t anticipate about this whole experience.

The nicest surprise of all came in the form of a community of other new parents that emerged around me. I didn’t seek it out. I didn’t sign up or enroll. And yet my toughest, most solitary moments have all been met by support from the most unexpected places. The emailed collection of advice I just wrote about. Middle of the night messenger conversations with other new parents. Care packages and “yes, that is normal” texts sent to reassure me by mothers and fathers just a few months further into this than I am.

There are countless women and men out there who have navigated parenthood on their own. I have not. The support from my peers, plus the true and essential partnership I’ve experienced with my husband have carried me through these first few months. I could not have done it without this support or the time — absent of financial stressors — to focus on my child’s first days. I hope one day that every new parent will have the same.

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Head of marketing for Jasper AI. Formerly @HubSpot | @TheGrowthShow . Interested in tech, social impact and just about any action movie from the 90s.