Are you better or worse at your job since you had kids?
I’ve been thinking about this question ever since Jennifer wrote this comment last week to my post Something to Whine About:
It’s ironic that mothers make less in the corporate world … My ability to be an effective leader has grown exponentially from the experience of being a mother.
I was so glad to hear someone say this. We often think of ourselves as being worse at our jobs when we have kids. Moms joke about having “mommy brain,” (which isn’t really that funny. It’s kind of scary, for example, to find yourself losing your train of thought in the middle of a presentation.). We talk about the crazed multitasking we do to survive, which can leave us with work notes in the diaper bag, and an extra diaper in the laptop bag.
Becoming a parent means there are new demands on our time and for many of us–moms and dads–we feel strangely disloyal to our jobs after we have kids. I certainly did. Although my co-workers rarely complained, I still felt like I was two-timing my job every time I helped out in my daughter’s classroom or stayed home because my son had (another!) fever, or skipped a client dinner so I could have mac n’ cheese at home and argue with the kids about whether they would get two stories or three at bedtime.
And yet, when I take stock of my work life, I think having kids made me so much better at my job. I became extremely efficient at getting things done, of course, but that was only part of the story. I also became more grounded, more humble, more serious, and more ambitious. Time became a precious commodity that I did not want to waste, whether it was in a meeting or in my career as a whole. My company benefited from this.
So why do mothers make only 68% of what men earn? [2] And forgetting about the disgraceful pay inequity for a moment, why is it that we feel so horribly guilty when we skulk out of the office at 4:30 (Egad! You leave so early?) to pick up our kids from daycare, or when we have to work from home because the school called and our daughter has head lice (again!). And could these two things (guilt and pay inequity) be related? Why can’t we feel proud of our contributions, despite the compromises on our time?
This is my experience. What about yours? Moms and dads. You can disagree. Just be honest. Has having kids made you better at your job or worse?
Crossposted to momsrising.org
[1] Photo of women working from Library of Congress
[2] International Trade Union Confederation report 2010.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe not better at my jobs. But definitely better as a person.
Certainly more efficient. I spent the first four or five years of parenting getting the same amount of work I used to do done in less time, but now in year seven, I am so completely burnt out I sometimes feel like I hardly function at work.
So many of the moms I know are super efficient at work, never stopping for little water cooler chats. Head down, door closed – get it done! Certainly they are great at their jobs. But perhaps like me they are burning out or passing up opportunities for new projects that ultimately they should take if they want to advance.
Better, no question (especially now that they’re older.) I am motivated to work as efficiently as possible so I can spend time with them – and I’m motivated to work as effectively as possible so I can keep out with their cash outflow! You might be interested in a book by Jamie Woolf called “Mom in Chief” where she tackles this question, as well as how you can bring your work skills to bear in your home life – http://www.mominchief.com/.
I think be a working mom has fine-tuned my focus at work. Like Holly referenced above, I am in “head-down, get it done” mode when tackling projects; the quicker I get it done and the better my client likes what I do, the less revisions I must make (cutting into my free time with family). In that way, being a working mom has increased the quality & efficiency of my work.
But this productive ethic has its bad end of the stick, too. So much work in the entertainment industry (where I consult) is done by who you know and how well they know you…so networking, coffee talks, lunches across town, etc are an essential element to getting things done.
I have watched my tolerance for this part of my “work” plummet in the last few years. My face time with peers and clients is less, so in that sense, I am probably doing a disservice to my career.
Definitely more effective at work. The more tactical reason is that I’ve gotten better at juggling the details (my mom, who started & ran her own company, always said ‘if you know how to manage carpool, you can manage a company’). The more impactful reason that I’ve become more effective at work, is that as a mom I have become more confident as a person – more comfortable in my own skin. And, my priorities are clearer. As a result, i’m more comfortable with clients, more forthright with “c-level” execs, more willing to put my neck on the line in situations where stating an opinion may be risky, and better at identifying what’s important (and the corolary (sp??… no time to spell-check… running to meet the temp nanny who will take care of the kids next week because their spring break and my husband’s don’t jive!): what to let go of.
I think parenting gives me more perspective about work– which makes me better at my job. I don’t get as stressed about work deadlines, etc etc. I can be more efficient. I have developed better skills at working with others- my ego is not as caught up in workplace dynamics (similar to what Liz said?) and generally I feel more confident- maybe that’s just getting older, but parenting does require a new level of perseverance, which is helpful at work too. Work can also feel like a “break” from family life– which is a good thing. Of course I do stuff related to parenting while at work, like reading this blog and writing this reply, but that time to reflect as made me feel more motivated at work too. Ahhhhhhh.
It helps a lot to work at a place where parenting and other family/caregiving responsibilities are highly valued.
Good question Katrina!