Getting over the working mom guilt
The double weights of leadership and motherhood
While this blog is focused on nonprofit sustainability and how I’m leading transformation at our nonprofit through social enterprise, I need to tangent us a bit and talk about what it’s like to be a human who is also an executive and mother. I need to acknowledge the constant pressure and guilt that comes with being an executive and a mother.
Good leaders create space for putting people first and allowing people to be their whole selves. I talk a lot about those things in this blog. You can’t successfully lead teams through change without seeing them as people.
But, few executives really bring their whole selves to work. When our every word is scrutinized for double meaning and a flippant comment can be perceived as bad leadership, it is really hard to be vulnerable and authentic with positional power. I’m proud of the ways we’ve done that at Chicago Scholars and I’m grateful for our staff-led affinity groups including the inter-faith group, moms’ group, book club, photography lovers, fried chicken club, and the many ways we build community.
Despite my best efforts to be my authentic self as a leader, an introvert, a mom, and every other part of my identity, I feel a responsibility to always have it together with my team. I have to be the calm one and the strong one, even when I feel the complete and utter opposite of that. Even when all I want to do is breakdown and cry.
Moms are always supposed to put their children first. We are supposed to be superheroes who take care of everything, kiss every ouch, and are present for every single moment in their child’s development. We’re supposed to go out of our own way for our children and still work over 40+ hours a week. I, fortunately, married a saint who takes care of most of the cooking and cleaning, but most moms have that responsibility too.
There are a lot of parallels between the pressures of being an executive and the pressures of being a mom. I can’t fail or people’s lives will be impacted, I have to get every meeting/childhood moment just right, and always say the right thing to make people feel better and understand their roles in work/life. I can’t be mad or show my frustration. I can’t get irritated and say something I’ll regret. I can’t run away from the high-pressure moments. I have to be the one that always shows up with grace and care.
To be very clear, I’m not in any way trying to imply that I’m the “mother” of the organization that I lead, cause that’s really problematic. But sometimes the pressures of executive leadership and motherhood have the same unrealistic expectations. And combine them together, and it feels like I have to be everything to everyone without ever getting to be myself.
At times, I feel like I lose myself. And then there’s the guilt if I spend too much time at work and not enough with my child and vice versa. Or I feel guilty just being alone and going on a walk by myself for myself, which I very much deserve. I have yet to meet a mother who didn’t feel guilty and I have yet to meet a father who admitted to me that he ever did feel guilty for working.
As women, we are socialized to meet the needs of everyone around us before meeting our own. If I miss this childhood moment or let my child spend 3 hours on a tablet, then I’m a terrible mother. If I find it infuriating to put my child to bed 10 times in a row on a single night and then finally snap, I’m a terrible mother. If I work late and miss dinner, I’m a terrible mother.
If I skip work for a family obligation, I’m going to get behind and have to do more work after hours anyways.
And so, to every mother out there. I scream this from the top of my lungs: Fuck the mom guilt. I can be badass leader and a mom – and I can just be me, a human who sometimes gets tired from both the weight of an organization and the weight of motherhood.
We can be good moms and still take care of ourselves. We can be responsible for everyone and still take a break. We’ll actually be better leaders and mothers BECAUSE we take care of ourselves. Putting ourselves first is how we can manage to put our teams and our families first.
We can be humans too. To every mom out there who has felt the mom guilt, commit to being an accountability buddy to another mom. Tell her, fuck the mom guilt. Take care of yourself too. You’ll be a better mom and leader if you take care of yourself.
To every working mom who utters the word “guilt” in a sentence, say to her “you are a badass.”