The Real Struggles of Working Moms: A Personal Story

How do you juggle a full-time job while parenting three young children during a summer with no camp? I share my raw and relatable experience, uncovering the stress and challenges that come with balancing professional and personal life. With three kids aged seven and eight, and the particularly trying month of August, This episode is a heartfelt call for more grace and empathy toward working moms, emphasizing how understanding our circumstances can lead to improved job performance and deeper loyalty.

In this candid conversation, I shed light on the systemic biases working moms face, such as passive-aggressive comments and a surprising lack of support from fellow women at work. I discuss the emotional toll of balancing childcare with professional responsibilities and the importance of creating a more inclusive and supportive workplace environment. Sharing my own journey, I highlight the urgent need for systemic change and mutual support, ensuring that all employees, regardless of their parental status, feel valued and respected. Join me in this episode of Still Rose's podcast to gain insights into the real-life struggles of working moms and the crucial role empathy plays in fostering a better workplace.

Chapters

• 0:00 Working Moms Need Grace and Support
• 6:17 Navigating Workplace Bias Against Working Moms

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everybody. This is Still Rose's podcast. This podcast was created for women, by women, to elevate women's voices. I hope everyone's doing really well getting through these last couple of weeks of summer. Excuse the noise in the background If you end up hearing this in the final recording probably not, but I have the rare opportunity that I'm alone in my car so I was like this is a great place to record For everyone who's been following along. You already know that things have been kind of tough professionally for me, but this is something I wanted to share, so I'm going to highlight how things have been going.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Um, so this summer you all know that I kind of was. I was basically conducting my own little social experiment on myself, um, to see if it would be feasible for me to have my kids home with me while I was trying to work. Um, they're older, the twins are seven and my son is eight Now. For most of the summer they were in half day camp and they would be home by like 12, 12 o'clock. I'd have to leave at about 1130 or so to go pick them up. That in that little block. In the morning I would obviously, you know, hustle to get as much done as possible and the afternoons were a little bit lighter. So I could, you know, maintain them being home and it wasn't a big deal. But for the month of August it was a gap and with this gap month they had no, they didn't have any camp to go to, so it was just home. So I previously shared with everybody that I actually had used up pretty much all of my PTO time during the summer to take off every single Tuesday so that I could have a day where I'm wholly focused on them and, you know, kind of balancing things with my husband and his job. The on paper logic was that I would only be having to work a hundred percent from home on Mondays, um, and then the rest of the week I would either have off or my husband would be home Um, it didn't exactly work out as smoothly as I had hoped it would have, um. So I actually already made a note to my cousin and was like remind me in April, may of next year not to do this again because my mental health let me tell you guys, my mental health has taken a brutal hit. So I was totally fine. June and July, totally fine. That half day was like a godsend. It really was, because it allowed me some flexibility to get things done and to have meetings and schedule things in the morning, and then what have you? Work in the afternoon. Two weeks of them in August. So I'm wrapping up my second week now, and this has been the most brutal week.

Speaker 1: 3:01

I talked about it on the episodes that aired this week, but I want to go into a little bit more granularity around what it was like for me to have to try to be a professional person, but then also feeling like I was being targeted because my kids were home and because it was noisy. So, yes, like when they're home, there's noise in the background. It kind of is what it is. Now I do what I can to get them to quiet down. I'll go to another room, I'll have them go to another room, you know, but there's just going to be noise in the background. It kind of is what it is. If you were our manager and you're hearing me talk about this and you're thinking to yourself well, you know, but you're paid to do your job during the day, or you're paid to do your job, we need to make sure you're focused, and you know. Obviously that would be a concern from a manager standpoint? Yeah, sure, I understand that. However, every myself included, every working mom I know double times it, and if you don't get it done during the day, you are sure as hell logging on at night and getting things done or you're logging in at 5am. So giving moms some grace when they have, you know, to have their kids home with them will take some pressure off of them and it will actually allow them to do their jobs better.

Speaker 1: 4:23

A huge component of my stress this week was, yes, my kids were home. But the biggest element of my stress this week wasn't actually stemming from my kids. It was stemming from the fact that I was feeling like I was being targeted and kind of picked on and treated, you know, with passive, aggressive, like comments and you know nonsense, because I have this noise in the background. So the people that were treating me this way obviously didn't like it, but didn't know what to say about it and really weren't being supportive to me having my kids home and allowing me some grace, knowing and trusting that I'm going to get my job done regardless of my kids being home or not. I just need some grace. So I know it's a fine line to walk because you don't want your employees to be abusing it, and I understand that. I truly, truly do. But when you have someone who's been with your organization for a couple of years and has proven themselves to be valuable to you, allowing them a little bit of grace and support is only going to benefit you because it's going to make them want to work harder for you. If you do the opposite, then you're going to get kind of the bare minimum. You're going to get what I know needs to be done to get the job done. If you're not supportive and you are putting me down and you're questioning my skills, then I'm certainly not going to double time it, because now I'm just frustrated that you didn't seem, you didn't understand or you didn't see through. Okay, she has a couple of weeks where things are going to be tough. Let's all just, you know, bear with her, but then she'll be fine, she'll be back in action.

Speaker 1: 6:17

You know, once the kids are back at school, like the, you know as an organization, like, like, why do we have to be so cut and dry? Why do we have to be black and white? There's no gray areas. People don't have lives outside of their jobs. You know, I, I I get really frustrated with this and it upsets me a great deal, because I am the kind of person that's incredibly dedicated to my job. I am the kind of person that I am dedicated to my clients. I want my clients to succeed. I want to showcase my clients. I want to be the agency that really helps them to achieve their goals so that they can get promotions, because that just means better things for us. That means we're doing our job right. I pride myself on that kind of stuff. I pride myself on developing really firm, strong relationships with my clients.

Speaker 1: 7:06

And to be to feel like, to end my week feeling like I've been belittled and I've been questioned is not a good feeling and it makes you not want to come back the next week. I'm going to be honest. And it makes you not want to come back the next week. I'm going to be honest. Like it makes you, already, closing out on Friday, want to think of an excuse not to come back on Monday. Like it's just, it is what it is.

Speaker 1: 7:34

If the support had been you know different, if the approach had been different, you know, even if the approach I was telling my husband the other day if my kids are loud in the background on a call and and let me also be clear again, this is all internal stuff Like I would never have loud noises on a client call Like I'm. Obviously I care very much and I and I would have found a way but for for calls that are internal and just internal folks and we're just talking, we're just trying to figure things out. The best way, the best approach really is to lighten the conversation a little bit. And if you're all like on a call and someone's kid is making a lot of noise in the background, I think it's appropriate and okay, depending on your relationship with the person, to say something the effect of like oh, um, you know, even if you said, jenny, you know I joke about my kids all the time, so for me this is okay to say to me Jenny, it sounds like you have a carnival in the background. Can you mute your line? And I would laugh and say I'm so sorry my kids are home.

Speaker 1: 8:38

I'll mute my line and I'll come off when I have to talk, because I always put it out there as like a joke, like I always say oh, yeah, it's, it's a lot, I'm going crazy. 10 days. I'm counting down, like. I'm very open about that. So for people to bristle at me and for people to very obviously appear disgruntled at the fact that I have kids home with me really just pisses me off, and it should piss everybody off, because I'm still doing my freaking job. I'm still doing it. It's completely uncalled for to.

Speaker 1: 9:16

You know, nitpick at somebody and, honestly, if you're on a call with someone and their kid is making noise or whatever, you can also shoot them a note on the side and a hey, hey, just a heads up. I can hear so-and-so in the background. Can you mute your line? That's it. That's all it takes what I will say not to do oh, I'm having trouble, like, if someone's talking, oh, I'm having trouble hearing you, there seems to be a lot of noise. That is the most passive, aggressive, frigging way you could make someone feel like shit because their kids are home in the background. That's the most passive, aggressive, frigging thing you can say, depending on your agency size, depending on your corporate size, depending on your team size, depending on the.

Speaker 1: 9:58

There's a lot of dependencies here, but the underlying message is you don't need to make moms feel crappy when they can't always control what's happening with their kids. It's not always in our control. What's in our control is being able to produce work for people. It's in our control to make sure that we're hopping on at night to get things done or get it, getting online early to get things done or making sure you know, like there's. There's all these other things that we will, as mothers, try to do to achieve our goals professionally, and all we need is a little frigging grace from people and some support. And that support is systemically not there.

Speaker 1: 10:36

And it's not just, it's not coming from men, it's worse, from women. The worst of it comes from other women. If you can believe it or not, I have had other women who have had, who have kids, complain about oh well, I can hear Jenny's kids. Oh my God, you have children. How could you throw another woman under the bus? Like, what is wrong with you? You're supposed to be supporting each other, not tearing each other down. But that brings me to my next point People who live in scarcity. So if you have a colleague that is living in scarcity and is just grabbing at anything so if you have a colleague that is living in scarcity and is just grabbing at anything they will use your kids against you and they will say and they will have that rhetoric that oh, you're, you're, you have kids, you're distracted, you're not doing your job. Well, that's it Not. Oh, you're a human and sometimes humans make mistakes. It's because you have kids.

Speaker 1: 11:36

I can't express how much this enrages me and I think you guys are hearing it in the pitch in my voice as I'm talking because this is something that I have experienced since my kids were born, and you all know that since my kids have been born, I have worked harder. I have never worked so hard in my life before. When my kids were infants, from the age of one to three, I used to work until three o'clock in the morning some days just to make sure I was getting everything done that needed to get done, and then some, and then I'd be preparing for the next day and making sure that everything was all set and I was good to go and getting all my schedules done and all the stuff that needs to get done. That was I did that for several years Every agency I've ever worked at. I've always done it like that.

Speaker 1: 12:27

So for for people to treat you poorly and to automatically get all disgruntled and like ruffle their feathers because you have your kids home is the most disgusting thing I've experienced and it happens all the time and it's just so freaking. Sickening because I know all of us are going through it. Do you know what it takes to have to tell, to put someone in their place, to say you know what? I realized that my kids are here. But no, it's not a loss of focus to me, because I know how to do my job and manage my kids at the same time. Appreciate your concern, but unless you've missed it, unless I've missed any major deadlines, there should be no discussion here. It's like oh well, you missed an email. Okay, well, guess what? I'm a human. People without kids also miss emails. Tell me something else. Like it's, it's ridiculous and it's sickening and at this point, like I don't even know what to say about it. Like how, how this is still a thing is beyond me, and I know I'm not the only one going through this, which is why I wanted to put this out there today, because it's so frigging frustrating.

Speaker 1: 13:34

But you have to stand up for yourself If your boss or colleague comes to you and says, oh, there's concern because you have your kids home, or there's concern because of noise level. As long as you're still getting your job done, you have every single right to push back and say I appreciate your concern, but as far as my jobs are considered, we're hitting our milestones appropriately, we're ahead of schedule. Or you know that, you know, and that's it, like there is no further discussion to be had. Would you say the same thing if somebody had a noisy dog at home all day? No, you wouldn't. Like. Come on, okay. Like people, we can do our jobs Like. So, absolutely a hundred percent. Speak up for yourself. If you don't speak up for yourself, you're going to regret it, because I always did, I never did before and I only started doing it recently. And you cannot let people put you into a judgment pile just because you have children, because I can guarantee you you're double timing it a lot harder than other people, because you're trying to prove your worth and you don't have to do that either.

Speaker 1: 14:39

It's. It's just a disgusting cycle that we're all stuck in and I have hopes that one day that it won't be like this, but very little hopes because the way that I see things now, at this point in my career, I don't see it getting any better like in the near future unless there's major shifts in people's thought process, because if it's still women tearing women down, how can we expect men not to treat us any differently? I know I'm ranting. I apologize. It's been a rough week. Clearly. This has been top of mind because of what I've been going through. Um, wish me well.

Speaker 1: 15:12

This is airing in week three and I have high hopes that the next two weeks will go by somewhat less painfully than what has already transpired. Um, I appreciate you all hanging in there with me. Please stay tuned. Make sure you're subscribed, because the fall series is going to be dropping in like two weeks and I'm super excited. Um. If you're not already following on Facebook and or Instagram or LinkedIn, um, please do so so you can get all the updates for all the new things happening. We have new people coming to the resources page, so there's just a lot more that's going on that I want you guys to be a part of.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Um. If you have any potential topic recommendations that you'd like to see for the little mini-sodes that will happen in the next couple of months, send them along my way. You can DM me or reach me at steelrosespodcastgmailcom, and I greatly appreciate all of you who've been leaving reviews. Please keep it up. It's a huge, huge, huge help to me. We need to spread the word for women, we have to make sure that our stories are being told and we are really lifting each other up. So take care, everybody. Thank you so much for listening and I will catch you on the next one.