Essay: Push

How Mamas Can Make Work Actually Work for Them & Their Families

How will you push yourself in 2024 to accomplish your professional and personal goals?

Women often feel ambivalent about “being pushy.” Girls in the ’80s were told getting pushed on the playground was an acceptable way for a boy to express he liked you. As teens, many of the high-achieving women I now treat for anxiety pushed aside their opinions to fit in. Moms often describe pushing their babies out of their bodies with an innate strength they didn’t know they had.

For me, like many millennial mothers, I felt the push-pull of professional ambition and present parenting when trying to navigate a corporate career with young children. At that time, I noticed far too many of my peers were getting pushed out of the workforce.

And so, I decided to push back.

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If millennial mothers haven’t directly experienced workplace discrimination themselves, they surely know someone who has. It comes in many forms – implicit or explicit, constant or discrete. It’s the underlying reason a woman earns significantly less than her younger male colleague for the same role. It shows up via seemingly innocent questions from loved ones before the baby even arrives: “Are you planning on returning to work?” is not usually (if ever) directed at the father. It’s behind the fear a woman feels regarding telling her supervisor she is expecting. It’s inherent in a mom’s performance review with comments like, “You give the appearance of unavailability,” even though neither her hours dedicated nor her work quality changed since becoming a parent. It’s reflected in the faux jokes made by her female managers: “My children forget what I look like!” It’s a consequence of return-to-office mandates.

Talk about career paths with one of the millions of millennial mothers who left the traditional paid workforce not entirely of her own volition (even before COVID), and she’ll likely lament inflexible schedules or draining commutes. She’ll probably say, “I just couldn’t do it anymore,” referring to the stress she suffered for starting work after school drop-off, or the exhaustion she experienced signing back in after her kids’ bedtime. Perhaps she’ll recount her boss’s eye rolls when she had to leave the office for a parent-teacher conference or management’s refusal to consider her request to work from home despite a proven record of productivity.

These are themes I continue to see among my clients and my community, a diverse collective with shared challenges. I recently described as much to my friend Maura Carlin, co-host of The Balance Dilemma, a podcast about balancing work, life, family, and self. She stopped practicing law in favor of a more family-friendly career about 20 years before I did. She reflected: “Has nothing changed?”

Indeed, far too little has changed when it comes to the motherhood penalty. But I do believe change is possible – and that we must fight for it. Better policies for caregivers are so obviously needed, with such obvious benefits, including (for a company) gender equity and employee retention/recruitment, and (for a mom) financial security and improved health/mental health. Now we tell girls that any violence from someone who claims love is unacceptable and adolescents to be authentically themselves. Now we must come together and push for change for working mothers.

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My own path to pushing started with parental leave policies – or rather, the lack thereof. A few years after graduate school and when I was considering starting a family, I found myself working at a firm that provided limited parental leave protections. I hadn’t asked about the policy during interviewing because I was both naïve (I thought, an uncomprehensive policy would just be… unjust!) and cynical (I knew, even mildly indicating I would soon have children would not serve me well; New York State, for example, acknowledges that while pregnancy discrimination is illegal, it is “still a widely accepted practice in many businesses and industries.”).

My mother (also a social worker), who had returned to the paid workforce when I was a teen, always taught me: “If you don’t ask, you won’t get.” I decided to use my privileges and my principles to promote change. It was not without risk – but I asked myself, what would I stand for if I didn’t stand up for what was right?

Over the next several years, I advocated for more comprehensive parental leave policies at that firm and others. I got assistance and support from some amazing colleagues, and I got snide comments and cold shoulders from others. Each time, I eventually achieved the change for which I pushed. And each time, ultimately and upon much reflection, I quit.

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Today I help women identify their values and pursue aligned opportunities. My work includes consulting on best parental leave practices, helping mothers craft requests for more flexibility, and being a supportive resource for women considering their options, including quitting if it’s the right choice in this chapter of their lives given their family’s needs or their emotional wellbeing. Women should leave because they want to, not because they feel they have to or that they can’t ask for what they need.

All moms work, and the mental load of caring for children is enormous, yet too often undervalued and inequitable for women. If you want or need to work for pay, please assert your needs and boundaries. That can mean pausing to prioritize yourself, pivoting to self-employment, or collaborating with allies to adjust corporate policies like parental leave. It can also mean encouraging your partner to take on more at home and with caregiving so that you can focus more on your career if that is what you want. And even if (sometimes especially if) you are done having kids, you can be a leader who demands family-friendly company culture. As Maya Angelou said: “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”

Let this be the push you need to believe in yourself and get the support you deserve. Happy New Year!

Lauren A. Tetenbaum is a writer, a mother, and a social worker specializing in supporting millennial moms and young women through life transitions. Through her counseling practice, Lauren facilitates psychoeducational groups and workshops to empower postpartum and other women in corporate settings, provides therapy in New York & Connecticut, and contributes to media on topics like maternal mental health, gender equity, and working parenthood. Learn more about Lauren at www.TheCounseLaur.com or connect with her on Instagram (@thecounselaur) or LinkedIn.