When I was growing up, my mother used to tell me that she wanted me to be better than she was. I thought this meant I should make more money, have a better title, a nicer house, and a better car. I climbed the corporate ladder for decades, and now that my children are older, I realize that I had the wrong idea of success, my goals were misplaced.
Today, I realize my mother meant something different. Success involves the relationship I have with my children and the relationship they have with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Sure, I accomplished many great things in my career, but with a great deal of sacrifice. The measurement of artificial success I once evaluated my life with, has resulted in some broken relationships that I would like to mend as soon as possible. Now, at 42 years old, I’m trying to make things right with my children and to do that I have had to prioritize and set goals.
Family Related Goals
I believe it is the desire of each parent to be involved in their child’s life. No parent wants to miss school events, games, and recitals. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to make every activity and still meet workplace goals. Setting clear goals and planning is the only way to manage a career and family life. Find out the dates for your children’s activities as soon as possible and plan ahead. Decide which events are most important then communicate with your employer months in advance.
In addition, to be involved in extracurricular activities, parents also want to be able to spend quality time with their children. When our children were younger, we lived in a county with some of the best schools in the state. Unfortunately, in order to afford to live in that county, we had to work in a bigger city. This meant we had a commute from our house in the morning to daycare and then to work about 1-hour each way.
By the time we picked up the kids, it was about 6 pm. Then we had another twenty-minute drive home. We only had time to make dinner and get the kids in bed. If you’re in a similar situation, I urge you to think about your options. We only have our children at home for a short time and the time goes by so fast. Every parent must decide if it will be more important to have more quality time with your children or a better job?
Making Time for Your Children
We’ll talk about negotiating pay in the next section but did you know that you can also negotiate your schedule? If you have proven to be an asset at your place of employment, your supervisor is usually open to accommodating reasonable requests.
Devise a plan that includes the hours you would like to work and how this flexible schedule benefits both you and the employer. Some options are half-days on Fridays or telecommuting twice a week. Here are some facts to share with your employer on telecommuting that may seal the deal:
• Increases productivity – Best Buy, British Telecom, Dow Chemical, and many others show that teleworkers are 35-40% more productive.
• Increases employee empowerment – Remote work forces people to be more independent and self-directed.
• Saves employers money – Nearly six out of ten employers identify cost savings as a significant benefit to telecommuting.
Once your employer agrees to a schedule, find ways to make memories with your children. Make it a weekly event where maybe you visit them at school, pick them up from school and go out for ice cream or bowling. Use this time to enjoy bonding with your children and talking to them about their lives and goals.
Work-Related Goals
In the book, Ask For It: How women can use the power of negotiation to get what they really want, Babcock and Laschever wrote that women do not advocate for themselves as men do. In their study, they found that only 7% of women will attempt to negotiate. On the other hand, 57% of men take the challenge to negotiate for better pay, benefits, time off, title, and so on. I never thought of negotiating or advocating for better compensation until several years ago when my mentor coached me regarding a promotion I was offered. Until this point in my career, I assumed that if I did a good job, I would get what I deserve. I was wrong.
What I found is that I was grossly underpaid. I could even make the argument that I was also not promoted to the upper levels of leadership as fast as I should have been. Was this because I had kids, because I am a woman, or that I didn’t advocate for myself? My guess, after over 20 years in corporate America, is that my lack of workplace success was a direct result of not negotiating and communicating clearly with those who make those decisions in the organizations.
What are your workplace goals? Is your goal transitioning to a telecommuting opportunity so that your time in the office decreases? Is your goal to climb the ladder? How can reach your goals as a working mother?
Planning
I often do an exercise with those I supervise, students, and clients to think about where they want to be in five years. I have them draw a wheel on a piece of paper and divide the wheel into eight pieces. Each piece represents a different aspect of life. The labels include:
- Finances
- Career
- Physical environment
- Personal & spiritual growth
- Friends, family, community
- Spouse
- Health & self-care
- Social/fun
Next, I have them use the SMART process to fill in goals for each piece of the wheel on a worksheet. See below to view what SMART stands for.
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound
We do this in our workplace each year, but I challenge you to use this process for you and your family. Figure out what is important to you, then start taking the steps required for reaching those goals.
There are many obstacles that a working mother, or mother-to-be, must plan for and overcome. While everyone’s experiences can be different, there are usually many similarities. I believe the most important job we have in our lifetime is to “Raise our children in the way they should go” (Proverbs 22:6). There are many resources that may help you with this journey. Some of the resources that helped me when I needed them are listed below. This list is not exhaustive.
- Focus on the Family Clubhouse and Brio Magazine for the kids
- James Dobson’s radio broadcasts
- Proverbs 31 Ministries
- Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover,
Share your working parent stories and experiences with us. How does your employer make work-life balance possible for you?
