Episode #467 – Taking a Power Pause – with Neha Ruch

Cherylanne Skolnicki:

I’m Cherylanne Skolnicki, and this is Brilliant Balance, the show for those of us who still dare to want it all, who have big dreams and bold ambitions. I think we deserve to have a big, full life and the freedom to enjoy it. So let’s design our next chapter together for brilliance, not burnout. Each week, I’ll bring ideas, insight, and a fresh perspective to keep you growing into a life that feels as good as it looks. Brilliant Balance, your life, your way. Now let’s get started.

Welcome back to the Brilliant Balance Show. Today, we’re talking about a question that I think so many ambitious women wrestle with. What happens to your ambition and your sense of who you are when your career takes a backseat for a season or two? My guest today, Neha Roush, left a decade-long career in brand strategy after having her second, and then went on to write the best-selling book, The Power Pause, which we’re gonna talk about a lot, and found a community helping women rethink career pauses and stay at home motherhood. Um, as somebody, I told you this when we started, who took a year off with each of my three children when they were born, I really love her premise that stepping away from paid work doesn’t have to mean stepping away from growth, ambition, or your future. We’re gonna talk about why a decision for this season doesn’t have to become a permanent identity, how to distinguish an intentional pause from simply being burned out, and why coming back to work doesn’t necessarily mean going back to the life that you had before.

So please welcome Neha Ruch.

Neha Ruch:

No, thank you for having me.

CS:

Are you so sick of hearing people read your intros?

NR:

No. <laugh> No, I love it. It is, um, it is deeply affirming to know your story because as we’ll get into, I think story is so much a part of it and the story you tell yourself.

CS:

And hopefully we all do it slightly differently. I think, you know, when you’re interviewed a lot and you certainly have been, uh, I hope every interview is a chance for a unique conversation. That’s the goal for today. Cool. So let’s get started. I want you to like to take us back. You can start wherever you want, but what I really would love for you to end at is the moment that you thought, “This has to be a book.” I wanna really define the power pause and how you got to writing it.

NR:

Sure. So I started my career, like you mentioned, in brand marketing. I was at an agency. I was lucky enough to start at a very small agency, specialized in social media before Twitter was a thing. And so, you know, as with many startups, um, you can grow really quickly. And I ended up being able to pivot out of that into a much more senior role than my age, running digital at a bigger agency, which is where I met our mutual friend, Alexis Kantos. Yes. Um, and I was running digital across mom focused brands, which is so ironic. Oh, it is. Yeah. And I loved it so much. I think it was a great training ground, but I realized at some point in that journey that I think, um, the politics were bigger, were more. I wasn’t mature enough to handle those politics. Interesting. And I was ready for change.

And someone described business school as a train stop to surround yourself with smart people and figure out what comes next. And, um, that was very atypical for advertising. So I picked the one business school that I thought, um, really was open to a lot of various paths, which was Stanford on the West Coast. I was lucky enough to get in. And I spent a couple years there before landing what on paper was my dream job running a brand at a tech startup in New York. By that point, I was already married, so I went to business school a little bit older. And I had my first son on New Year’s Day of 2016. Oh. And I was rocking with him thinking, “I finally don’t have to climb so much because this kid just wants me to be me.” Yes. I, you know, like so many women, but especially as someone who immigrated to this country when I was three, I’d always sort of wrestled with belonging and I found a lot of that in my career.

And suddenly I realized that I actually found a sense of peace and belonging in a really natural scene with him. Amazing. And, um, I say that because you have a myriad of listeners, some of whom are working, some from outside of the home, some of whom choose to be in the home, some of whom exist in between. And I did not choose to, at that point, downshift my career because I thought it was a better choice for him. I did it because I truly wanted more time with him and wanted to really discover what this next chapter held for me. I really wanted to see who I was in this new version. Um, and there were a lot of other sort of confounding factors. My husband was running a tech company at the time and traveling a ton. Financially, it made sense. So at the beginning, I chose to downshift, meaning I went part-time.

And as soon as I decided to take my foot off the gas, I started hearing everything from, “Are you giving up?” Yes. “Are you gonna be bored all day?” And it was, by the way, all very well-meaning from people who love me very much. Yes. And are you giving up? Um, or sorry, did you waste your spot at business school? And I thought –

CS:

Oh, gosh. Yeah. Did you waste your spot? Wow.

NR:

Yeah, because, you know, I think I was. And I was sort of con – holding all of those opinions while also holding these days at home thinking, I’m finally feeling creative. Yeah. I’m finally learning again, because by the way, kids, like, it’s really interesting watching those little babies grow and figuring out, you know, how to set up routines for this new day-to-day. And I thought I’m actually feeling for the first time really intellectually inspired again. And I was meeting women like yourself who were making these shifts and positives who didn’t match the outdated stereotype of, like, a boardhousewife. And so that’s where I started what was then, um, a newsletter, an Instagram community. I launched, um, I started in November 2015th, uh – Oh, my God. Of 2015 and launched 2016, 2017, sorry. And, uh –

CS:

The years run together.

NR:

The years run together. And, um –

CS:

This was Mother Untitled?

NR:

This was Mother Untitled. I think

CS:

This is when I first heard about your work.

NR:

Yeah. I, um, I really started it because I felt like there was nowhere in the backdrop of sort of that lean in girl boss moment that spoke to what it meant and felt like to be an ambitious woman who parted with their paid title to make room for family life. Mm. And it was also to dismantle the sort of old titles of

CS:

Stay at home and work. Yeah. Stay at home and work. And, and that’s really. I honestly, I think for Gen Z, who, the youngest people listening, that notion of there being a false dichotomy between stay-at-home mom and working mom is really. I grew up in that era for sure. There really wasn’t what middle ground even looks like? Maybe working quite part-time, like less than full-time in a corporate career, which I did three separate times during my Procter & Gamble chapter. And that’s, you know, I think that’s often the first move. But when I went back after my first child, I went back at an 80% schedule into a P&L delivery job, which was unheard of. Like, you just didn’t get big delivery jobs and work less than full-time. Now, of course, that was in name only, right? I did that. It was very difficult to hold to that, uh, the, that set of hours, but I had to learn that the hard way several times before I finally got it together.

NR:

Oh, and, and, you know, I do actually, I love this sort of, the part-time downshift for some people. It was a great way to test. I always say to women, you know, if you don’t really know, and flexibility comes in a lot of forms, if you can find a template of a role that might work for you – Yeah. From a peer, someone else, um, in a similar industry, um, whether you’re optimizing for, you know, a Friday to get all your family admin work done and enjoy, you know, be at pickup, or you want school day hours, just ask. Ask, you know, find your sort of champions and mentors, position it as a trial. I was lucky enough to be able to do that. And I think it really helped me get my footing to figure out what to do with my day to. What does my day-to-day feel like when I’m fully at home?

Is it, um, supportive to my family? Do I enjoy it? Yeah. And it, it, does the income sort of trade off work in our home? Uh, and so I love the sort of in between option because not only because it gives you another option, but also because it lets you test and learn and iterate and it just blurs sort of this vast gray area in between so you can dial up and dial down without shaming. Yeah.

CS:

So you started Mother Untitled as a community – Motherhood Untitled? As a community – It

NR:

Was Mother

CS:

Untitled. Mother Untitled first to sort of blur the line in that false dichotomy. And you were testing on your own during that era. And that’s. I interrupted, so that’s where I want you to pick up.

NR:

No, that, um, the perfect place to interrupt. I, uh, yes, there was a, you know, what I wanted was more examples of ambitious women making room for family life and to say making room for family life is a valid want. Yes. And there are many ways to do it. And these women are actually growing in really interesting ways and I’m inspired by them. So it was an interview series. It was my own sort of lived experience as I was navigating in between. Um, and I eventually paused fully to be at home with my then two children. And I, you know, that was really as I was contending with the full sort of stereotypes of the stay at home mom. And realizing I had to rewrite a lot of those tropes for myself. And I, you know, your original question was what inspired the book. Ironically, I had the idea for the book in 2018, um, because I was, you know, increasingly sort of networking this concept on playgrounds and play spaces and people were telling me about all these books about returning to the workforce or thriving in the workforce.

And there was nothing that sort of gave a strategic play by play of how do I stay confident? How do I stay financially dignified? How do I orient my day-to-day to feel like I’m still growing and get sort of a sense of support to unlock this sort of creative possibility and self-studies – Yes. That eventually could shape my next chapter. And that guide, I wanted to write as a. And, but I had to live at first, you know, there was a real tension, uh, for me. I, you know, I’m glossing over this sort of in between messy bits, right? But there. It was really hard having, you know, uh, it wasn’t so hard for me to part with marketing for, or p – you know, for that moment because I think I felt like I’d learned a lot. Mm-hmm. I, and I was ready for a new challenge.

Yes. Except when I had my own idea that I really believed even then was a big idea, and yet I also wanted that time with my babies, that was harder – Yes. To reconcile. And I would look around and say, how, like, at the time, there were sort of some big communities around women in the workforce booming. And I though, if I fully did this, like, you know, le – found c- care for my kids and, and went to the wing, which was really big at

CS:

The moment. Yes, at the

NR:

Time. And devoted my time to this, this could be really big too. Um, but two things. One, I would keep coming back to, like, what would I regret more? And I wanted that time, and I wanted to live it. Like, I hadn’t yet lived

CS:

It. I think that’s so key, Neha, the idea of your. You wouldn’t have written this book if you would’ve written it in 18, even though the premise was the same, because you didn’t have the lived experience to bring to bear, the stories, the emotion. It’s just different when you, when you were at the end of the ride. Mm-hmm.

NR:

Culture wasn’t ready for it. That’s right. And that was where I was going, was, you know, every year I’d be like, “Okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna dial up.” And, the one thing I did do, which I talk a lot about in the book is sort of, you know, orienting your time at home around different personal or creative goals – Projects. I wanted to explore writing. I’d always wanted to explore writing. This was something that I wanted to sink my teeth into and felt interesting to write about. Yes. And I committed some small metrics. Like, for me, it was three blog posts a week, one Sunday newsletter, and five Instagram posts. And I have maintained that since 2017, right? And I used to do it during naps and nighttimes, and I had a babysitter for, you know, 10 hours a week. Uh, and so it.

I was able to hold that space for this project that I cared deeply

CS:

About. And did you lay down monetization at that time? Did you say, “I am committed to the work. I am not committed to figuring out how to monetize it,” or did you have it monetized?

NR:

I did not monetize until my book deal. So until. And so – I

CS:

I think that’s such an important point. I do, because the choosing which pieces of this you’re gonna elevate and which pieces of it you’re gonna lay down for a minute, like, to me, taking the pressure off of the monetization allows the work to be. My commitment is to work. I’m gonna put the best work out, and I am not gonna be chasing what is the most commercially viable or how do I have to twist it to get the algorithm to do what I want it to do. So it’s another way, actually, of creatively creating capacity. It’s like I’m gonna not have that as the only goal, um, which is. I wondered about that. That remarkably brave choice. I love it.

NR:

Well, and I, I think I wrote back then, I mean, that was part of living, having to live it, right? Which was. And it comes up in the, in chapter four about redefining success for yourself. But when there’s no one’s handing you a promotion or a salary, and this sort of side project that you have isn’t, you know, growing optically on the outside and/or turning any profit, how do you keep yourself motivated? Right. And, and for me, it was very specific. I did. I still wrote an annual plan ev – Excellent. Every year for this – Of course you did. Quote unquote business. And it was networking, impact, and learning.

CS:

Different metrics. That’s right.

NR:

It had very different metrics. But I always say when 2021 came around, right, I had been doing this and talking about this, and one of the only voices talking about rebranding at home motherhood and, and, um, career breaks such that in 2021, my kids had just aged into school. So I had more time, capacity, and culture had just opened up to, wait a second, child. Something about the child’s care <laugh> system isn’t working,

CS:

Which – Post-pandemic. The

NR:

Pandemic. Mm-hmm. Family life actually does take work. Oh, wow. Kids are struggling with mental health. Parents need to be there. Oh, wow. Flexibility is actually kind of possible. Maybe this is just a moment to recalibrate. And at the time, they were calling it the great resignation. Yes. And suddenly, journalists started calling who had, you know, found their way – Found the blog,

CS:

Right.

NR:

Community along the way. And it was, you know, that consistent groundwork that lived experience sort of laid a foundation that when I was ready, I was ready.

CS:

Did you know that beyond hosting this podcast, I also directly support women leaders at the intersection of work and life? As a member of Bold, you get direct access to me, the women on my team, and a peer group of exceptional women who are rewriting the rules and redefining what it means to have it all together. Go to brilliant-balance.com/bold to learn more and apply for your spot today. Yes. Yes. And I think, you know, people always say, ready for your closeup, right? Then, and then the 10-year overnight success, which you’re outlining here. Like this book looks like it came out of nowhere maybe to the casual observer, but there’s a decade of work sitting underneath it. And all of the thinking in all of the spaces in between that fed ultimately, like, a really cohesive thesis to this. Um, it’s such a smart book. Like, I think it’s, you’re, um.

It does. It. The thoughtfulness comes through in the premise, and I think that’s not always true. I think a lot of people can get a book out that’s sort of at the edge of an idea, but there, this is a very well-developed thesis. And I think the redefinition of motherhood into something that cannot be defined. I mean, literally, defining it into the undefinable is, um, is a big idea that I want people sitting with as they listen to you today, right? Because we do get swept up in, well, am I part-time or less than full-time or full-time or at home or. And the label doesn’t matter. It’s the, the. It’s N of one, right? You are the one person defining for yourself what collection of things do you want in this season in your life? What feeds you? What feeds your family? Um, and I mean feed in all the ways, right?

Mostly metaphorically, but what is fulfilling to you to have in this season? And that’s what I love about, um, when money is the thing driving the equation, it gets messy really quickly. And if we can just make it a factor instead of a factor, I think it opens up possibilities. When I, I, when I told you I took a year off for each maternity leave, I remember making that first decision and saying to my husband, “There’s no way I’ll ever make this decision if I’m comparing it to the baseline of having this income.” Like, that’s insanity, right? Nobody says, “I’m gonna take this multi-six-figure income and go to zero.” And, like, you can’t. So you have to reset at zero and then start saying, like, what’s worth adding back from that? Because the. It. Who does that? N- nobody wants to do that intentionally. It feels like you’re giving everything up, but it’s not looking at the other side of the equation of what am I getting?

So, like, everything on the other side that I was getting wasn’t necessarily monetary, but it was way, it was worth way more than

NR:

Me. And that situation, you know, I, I said earlier that I had to live sort of discomfort, right? Like the first chapter is about identity and how do you reconcile when, like, you’ve had a big job and have to answer the question, what do you do for the first time – Yes. When you don’t have a big job, and how you, how do you find language that speaks power and dignity into, into the choice, and also allows it to be just for right now without a lot of pressure. Yes. But the, you know, the financial piece is interesting because even if it’s a financial no-brainer for your family, we have been raised in a generation that puts so much stock in us having our own money – Yes. And contributing our own money and feeling equitable in the home. And so I had to, and my poor husband always says he deserves a byline on this book and so throws him under the bus so many times.

And that se- second, and he’s a really phenomenal partner, but there was a moment in, and I bring it up in the second chapter where my husband looked at me and said, “Well, it’s a luxury to be at home.” And I said, “It’s actually a luxury for you to be able to go build your company, get on planes –

CS:

And know that everything’s handled.

NR:

Know that everything’s handled

CS:

At home.” Amen.

NR:

And that was where I came up with that construct of you actually depend on me, and I depended certainly on the income, but we are an independent –

CS:

Interdependent, yeah.

NR:

Organization. And in that way, we have to really redefine household income as true shared income for both of us. And, you know, it, it always said that on paper, but what does that actually mean to believe it? What does that mean to sit down and budget together for it and allocate resources then and sort of. This actually goes back to something you brought up earlier about how you invest in an idea when it’s not turning a profit. Yes. And to me, a big part of that came from the underlying foundation that we believed, we established a mutual respect that we were both contributing, a shared budget for how we keep our family, both partners, healthy and whole, and that included 10 hours of childcare out of the joint household income, right? And, and that was sort of oscillating at different times. Sure. Dialed up, dialed down, and a food delivery service, and a cleaning person was.

I’m not trying to say that I was all the help we had, but I think that that was. The foundational element was how do we rethink money in our home? And there. I’ve talked to different couples, you know, obviously for the book, but there was one couple who said to me, “We just decided it was really important for us to have the flexibility of a parent at home for those few years. And the way we made that work is we together decided not to do some family trips, um, for a while. And it wasn’t hard to not go to someone’s bachelorette during love. Yeah, sure. Sure. But it was more important for us to do this. Mm-hmm. And then there was another family who moved from Virginia Beach. Or sorry, they moved from the Bay Area to Virginia Beach for lower cost of –

CS:

Cost of living. Sure.

NR:

Yeah, right. That’s a much more significant change, but it impacted everyone. That’s right. And it was to your point about deciding what you uniquely value. It’s you uniquely value, your family uniquely values, and how can you make shifts to a- allocate your time and money and your choices to align with that.

CS:

Mm-hmm. It’s winter. There’s so much to talk about in this, and what my brain was exploding with is we’ve been talking a lot in this community about, um, the different reserves of capacity that you have to play with. Like what’s at your discretion? You have your time, which people think about a lot. You have your energy, kind of your emotional bandwidth, your head space. Money is like kind of the fifth resource that’s available at your discretion. So when you were saying,” Yeah, I had a housekeeper and I had a food delivery service or 10 hours of childcare, “money can become one of those resources that buys bandwidth, right? Like, so when we take some of it off the table, and it doesn’t. I wanna. I think it’s important to say that’s not always true. Like sometimes you make a pivot that ends up being more lucrative than your inflexible job.

Um, but there’s often a transition period where it’s not, right? And so thinking about the allocation of those resources, where do I want my time to go? Where do I want my mental energy to go? Where do I want my emotional bandwidth focused during this season? Feels like that’s the dance that you’re helping people navigate. Like it’s not just one thing. It’s not just time. It’s really all of those resources and how they get allocated against the family’s needs.

NR:

Yeah. And your individual needs and wants, right? Yes. Because I wanna underscore that you could choose to pause to make room for family life, but in the end, what determines the health and happiness of your child is not just like time and home, it’s your presence and state of mind. And so unless you are able to sort of walk through this stage and say,” I am actively choosing, “even if, by the way, many women are laid off or one in three women, according to our research, feel forced because the cost of childcare, they take back the power and say,” Instead of going actively back to the workforce, how am I going to set this time up so that the time isn’t happening to me?

CS:

“Yeah. Agency,

NR:

Agency. And I think that that was found. And then how do I have the right conversations, go through the right exercises to decide, like, how. When I make room, yes, for the family’s needs, how can I hold a little bit of room for myself to grow and get, develop a better sense of self, develop my network – Yeah. And my interests so that ultimately, if and when I want to return to the workforce, I’m coming in stronger. And that’s really the difference between the power pause and a pause.

CS:

And, uh, yes. Okay. Very important distinction. A pause that lacks the intentionality or the return strategy and the power pause that is like you’re strengthening and fortifying during that pause. I think that’s brilliant. If you come out of it drained, it is not a power pause any longer. That’s a very important distinction. Talk a little bit about, you mentioned when we were warming up a little, pivot versus pause. Can you. Uh, how pivots, uh, fold into the equation here?

NR:

I think it’s so smudgy. And it goes back to sort of these false labels at some point. I always use this example, how when I shifted into freelance work and consulting work two days out of the home, um, initially with my first child, I kept saying I was at home. I was mostly at home. I would just say, yeah, I’m mostly at home. I’m consulting. I had a friend who really identified me as being a working mother and an entrepreneur. And she kept saying it over and over and over again. That was like this big. And finally someone said, “Don’t you work the same days as Nega?” Like, and we literally worked the exact same. Um, but we find these labels that give us confidence and whatever works, right? Like whatever works for you, whatever helps you navigate the day-to-day. But I can tell you that of the women in our community, the majority, even if they are stepping out of their paid workforce, are using this time to shape how they are going to extend their time and talent for their next chapter.

They’re actively designing it. Oftentimes, especially with the rise of the gig economy and the changing in our, uh, in, in sort of small business and medium business, there is a large appetite to freelance alongside – uh-huh. Family life. There is a large appetite to shape a next venture. And so the la – the, the sort of s – the pace at which women pivot- is sort of probably the biggest distinction because some people sort of sit in the. Women sit in the pause, and sit in the exploration period. It can be. When you have three children under the age of, like, 10, you know, that’s a lot of running around. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for exploration. Some people come in with the sort of ready to go, establish the LLC, still have the wiggle room behind the scenes, but know that, like, they’re ramping up.

Yes. The pace at which they’re establishing their next step is probably the largest distinction between whether people call it a pivot or a pause. Interesting. Um, but I, you know, 84% of women when they return to work. 90% of women on pause aim to return to the workforce. 84% of those cite flexibility as their number one, uh, metric – Criteria. For what they reveal – what they are evaluating future work opportunities. From there, it goes flexibility, less stress, impact tied with salary. So you can see that there’s a reevaluation that happens for all women who have recalibrated at work because they suddenly have a newfound perspective on how they wanna spend their time. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, I think the, um, pivot to pause period is an interesting one because sometimes, not all the time, but I think there’s still shame around saying that they’re taking their foot off, that they’re going to take, God forbid, a career break.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And/or be, you know, fully at home with their kids for a moment. Mm-hmm. And so it’s sometimes easier to say, “You know what? I’m, I’m starting to consult a bit

CS:

Alongside.” Yeah. It’s an identity. It’s like there’s a i- identity reclamation of having something you can say at the proverbial cocktail party, right? Neighborhood gathering of what do you do? I think there’s safety in having language for it. I remember being, um. That was hard for me. Like, I had a lot of identity wrapped up in working for a very well-known company in the city where I live. And so if you said Procter & Gamble in the city of Cincinnati, everyone knows what it is. When you are laid in the department you worked in or the brand you worked on, like, there’s a perceived hierarchy to that that just everyone knows. So taking that away does feel like identity loss. And I think g – again, without the other side of the equation, what am I now balancing that with that I feel as strongly about as an identity marker, people are gonna struggle.

So it, you know, you. The clue might be, do I quickly have to replace that with a professional title? Um, what is the word that feels worthy for me? Like, I think language matters so much, Neha. Like, we have different words we’re gonna feel comfortable with. Your friend who said, “I’m a consultant,” and you who said, “I’m mostly at home,” like, you each had a comfort level with those words for, to describe the same situation.

NR:

Yeah. You know, I offer the script in the beginning of the book because I do think it’s important to get comfortable with whatever it is you’re gonna say, because the first time you word vomit on someone never feels good. It just makes me feel bad. Um, and what I landed on is right now – uh-huh. I got to, because it was a choice. And for me, it was the thing I was most excited about. I get to spend time with my kids. And for a while, and I would add, we’ll see what comes next, because it wasn’t forever, right? So if you don’t have something clearly, I felt like I loved being able to say. And then someone might say, “What were you doing before?” Or the. But it left a little bit of room to say that there was a moment before and there was gonna be a moment after.

CS:

Yes. And like – And there was a priority by – Sorry.

NR:

And then there was a moment af- after, you know, when I started developing this project alongside, I said, “Right now, I get to be with my kids and I’m working on a project about work and family.” You know, because that was something I wanted people to ask about. Sure. In the end, conversation and language is meant to, uh, create connection. That’s right. And so you wanna present whatever you want about yourself to connect to the people around you. And by the way, it’s okay to change your answers. Yes. Like if you’re in a mom group with a lot of women who are, you know, mostly at home, you’re allowed to say, “I’m mostly at home.” If you’re, if you are in a group where you potentially might get a new client, like lead with the consulting bit.

CS:

That’s right. And, and your next, you say your next choice doesn’t have to be your forever choice. So re- recognizing this is a description of a moment in time. It’s not my forever identity. I don’t have to have the same answer every day for the rest of my life. The way I would even describe my career today is different than I would’ve described it in 2010 when I was starting this chapter of my life. Like I just, it’s evolved. So the way I would describe it has evolved. Of course. For sure.

NR:

And by the way, the identity shift happens on the other side too. Like I am obviously living very squarely and in between now, right? With the book and platform and the speaking and the, but I’m still a pickup, you know, many, and my evenings are still sort of scattered between gymnastics and baseball. And obviously because I’ve sort of lived this work, I feel comfortable testing different answers. But it’s still like a stumbling block to go the other way. I got so comfortable saying right now I get to be with my kids that I’m going the other way. Feels awkward. Yeah. Right. It feels awkward. And I, I highlight that because transitions are weird. You know, transitions should feel a little funky because we are creatures of habit. So if you get used to a certain language, having to figure it out should feel a little uncomfy for a moment.

It does take practice. And I, I, I say that also because so often we think like if I feel uncomfortable, there must be something wrong. I think there’s a lot of discomfort with whatever choices and changes we make.

CS:

Mm-hmm. I’m sitting here curious about our emphasis on women. It’s obviously an intentional decision. Um, I don’t wanna guess or put words in your mouth as to why. So why, why does, why do you think this so significantly applies to women? Why are we not having this conversation with men? Hey rock stars, listening to a podcast is the easy part. It’s applying what you’ve learned that’s hard. And I designed the coaching circle to bridge that gap. On Tuesdays, you listen to the episode. And then every single Thursday, I’m there to coach you live. You bring me your questions, your special circumstances, ask me literally anything. Tell me where you’re struggling to make this work in your real life and we’ll unpack whatever the episode stirred up for you. Check out the Coaching Circle at brilliant-balance.com/coachingcircle or find the link in the show notes.

NR:

So the data shows that one in five men are at-home parents right now. So it’s not like it’s completely gendered that at-home parents are always female. That said, first of all, I’ll tell you that men specifically contend with a different set of issues when they step into at-home parenthood. I actually think some of the stigma is probably – is- is actually even more significant because – Great. We do have, um, such strong beliefs about male providers. Uh, I think what’s interesting is that men will often announce career breaks as sabbaticals and people will be like –

CS:

Applaud. Yes. <laugh>

NR:

Great. Like you are enhancing your perspective. You’ve put in so much time. Good for you. And they might not say what that sabbatical is for. Um, they may say they’re in between things. Um, so there are some language things there. Uh, there’s another piece where men get a participation trophy just for showing up. Like you should see the excitement when men are class parents. Oh yeah. Like, you know, and whereas if a woman misses an email as a class parent or like says the wrong thing, and I, you know, I interviewed a woman, uh, who r – who said, you know, she and her husband traded, uh, a couple years as at-home parents. They have one daughter. And she said, “I was so excited for my chapter as an at-home parent because my husband made it look so easy and happy.” She said, “And then I stepped into it and I couldn’t figure out why I was so exhausted all the time.” And one day he said to me, “Why are you auditioning for a good parent committee?

You are baking up big sales. You are like doing craft projects. You have not gotten a babysitter. You have not outsourced anything. Women have a super mom myth as soon as they step into at-home parenthood.” And then they believe not only is there some ideal that they have to reach if they’ve traded their paid work, but that they have to do it all on their own. Men are much the same, the sort of standard is lower and their willingness and ability to delegate is higher. And so while some of them, especially the identity and finances piece from the first chapter, as well as the opportunities obviously to ID and self-study and the career portfolio, some of the blocks in between are different. Yeah.

CS:

And I think it’s a, I thought it was an important choice to focus on women. I do think that I watched some of my younger relatives, like cousins who are, um, young millennials or older Gen Z. I do see more parody in parenting broadly, not, not universally, but more broadly. And I do think we’re gonna see more of this toggling like you’re describing people, um, both partners saying, “I’ll take a turn, you take a turn.” And we’re gonna provide a parent during these really important years of heavy lifting. Um, as somebody who has teenagers, I’ll tell you, I’m not sure that heavy lifting slows down at all. Um, my personal thesis on this is that it shifts from physical presence and parenting to more emotional presence and parenting, um, which is exhausting in a different capacity. And, and omnipresent, you know, the emotional support, the head space and bandwidth around decision making that they need to be supported through, like more coaching of older children versus transporting and feeding, you know, and clothing of younger children.

Um, I’m not sure that ever goes away, but the toggling of parent availability throughout that whole cycle feels like I’m seeing more of flowing into where does your skillset match the thing that’s needed in that moment.

NR:

Yeah. I would say two things. One, you know, when I started with this thesis, part of it was that the, we hadn’t updated the character of the at-home parents since, you know, when we commissioned a survey about what American, uh, public thinks of as an at-home parent, they said June Cleaver, um, that was the most popular response. When we asked about who they think of as a working parent, they said, um, Cheryl Sandberg, Beyonce, and Michelle Obama. No pressure. Like that’s a power chasm. No pressure. That is so extreme and not realistic. And one is, you know, those three are like current. Oh yeah. One is stuck in the 50s. And so one of the, the, the sort of underlying thesis was that we hadn’t caught up for the fact that, you know, we have digital tools and technologies that allow creative and professional pursuit in a new way.

Um, we are coming in with a lot more education and work experience because we’re having children older. But another big piece of it is that our partners are three times more engaged than the partners were in the 1970s, right? And so you’re looking at partners that are more willing to, like in our case, take the morning shift and the evening shift so that you can, um, network while you’re at home or work on a project like I did so that I was doing that in the mornings while my husband was getting the kids ready, right? Um, I think that that part is huge. I think these other pieces around children, you know, the needs never diminishing, what’s interesting is we always think like, okay, you know, you take, if we like to take a pause after the kids are born, then that’s it. I met so many women on this tour who, well, someone said to me, I’m on my third pause.

I kept returning and then like, you know, there were different transition points. Same. Yeah. We saw tr – you know, oftentimes when women pause it’s, um, after multiple. So it’s not actually after the first child, it’s after the second or third child when the equilibrium, especially around childcare changes. Yes. Um, second or third grade when you see diagnoses around neurodivergence or learning differences, big, um, uptick around teens because there was a woman who said to me, ” I just wanted to be available after drop, like pickup so that I could just hear the conversations. Yep. Um –

CS:

You’re more on call.

NR:

Yeah. And then there’s a rise in college applications like that because of the sheer intensity of what that system looks like. Mm-hmm. So you’re like, it’s never, you know, with the underlying sort of thread is, it’s very valid to want any time.That’s

CS:

Right. And there’s no right time. There, you know, your family, you may have sailed through as an individual listening. Uh, you stayed working full in your original career at full-time or more than full-time for, you know, and, but then you’re approaching a difficult chapter or some kind of complexity is increasing in your household. And when you reach a complex, a point in that complexity curve that you don’t have the capacity to service it, that’s where I think we start looking at these creative options. Like it’s out of necessity. I love your premise that it can be out of choice, right? And what are you getting out of it? Because some of what I got out of choosing a different career path ultimately, you know, during the heavy lifting years of parenting my children is, was flexibility. I don’t know if that’s what I was looking for, Neha, when I left.

I don’t know that I would’ve identified that. Like you said, I don’t think I was doing it for my child. I think I was doing it for myself. I don’t know that I would’ve said I was doing it for flexibility, but that was an absolute benefit that came with the choices. I think I was doing it for control and maybe those are two sides of the same coin. But having, I’ve exercised that flexibility to the nth degree over, you know, the 15 or 16 years that I’ve owned my own, uh, destiny, so to speak, right? Like I have a lot of control in this environment. And when I come back to it again and again and again and think about what I would do again, I mean, first of all, the answer is unequivocally yes. Um, and I like what I do better. It fits in with our family life better.

I feel very, uh, well compensated in all the ways, not just financially, but kind of the divine compensation that comes from doing work that matters, which fuels my energy to get, to have something left over to give to my kids. And it’s allowed me to flex into various seasons where they needed a lot, like way more than I would’ve been able to give with the, um, time restrictiveness that that travel would’ve been in my. I would’ve had no control over those elements of my career in my previous life, right? And I’m sure you hear those stories every day.

NR:

I do. I do. And I do think, you know, the sort of naming convention of why we make shifts, I think a lot of people would say the bar went up depending on how I spent my time. Mm-hmm. And so a lot of people talk about meaning and if they’re gonna spend their time away from their kids. Yeah. Some people talk about sharing time – uh-huh. With their children. Some people talk about less stress in the home. Mm-hmm. Um, some people will say, uh, I, I actually had a one really interesting interview with a woman in Marin County, California, who was a teacher who took a lot of pride in being a teacher and said, you know, I gave a very easy answer. Like the surface answer was like my pay didn’t cover the childcare. Right. She was like, but ultimately I realized like, no, I just wanted, I, if I was gonna be teaching other people’s kids, I just wanted to be with my kids for a little while.

Mm-hmm. And I think that there’s, it’s often so many things woven. It’s the finances, it’s craving a different rhythm in the home. It’s, uh, you know, having some sort of self-determination on how you’re spending your day. It means its impact. And, and what it’s leading to is, is a reevaluation. And oftentimes, by the way, this is colliding with midlife for

CS:

Women. 100%.

NR:

And so women also have just clocked in 20 years in whatever their career is, and they’re starting to see the cracks, like something’s not working and/or this isn’t what I thought it was gonna be. Um, or like, I want something else. I’m just ready for new challenges. And so a lot of that sort of recalibration comes to head and where I’ve always taken issue is that we sort of oversimplify the headline to women are getting pushed out of the workforce. Yeah. And sometimes, by the way, they, I, I do think – Sometimes it’s true. The system, the system is inherently broken. And I don’t think women are dropping out. I think women are recalibrating and redefining. I

CS:

Love recalibrating as a word. And I think I agree with you. I think I’ll say a lot on this show. Like I’m really glad there’s people working on the system because I agree that it’s broken. It’s not my work. My work is where is your agency within the system? Because I don’t think we have time to wait for it to get fixed. I think the women who are here right now probably aren’t gonna get served by the system being fixed. Like it’s, it just doesn’t. Change like that doesn’t happen overnight and I’m not sure there’s time to wait while we wait for the systems to be fixed, right? I, it’s a both and someone needs to be working on those while I’m committed to like, how am I gonna instill personal agency? And I think that’s the thread that I was thinking about a guest that I had a couple weeks ago on the show.

Beth Mazza has a book out called Entrepreneur Like a Mother. And do you know Beth? The concept of this book is like you have to build a business that fits your life, right? No, you can’t squish your life into your business. And that’s something I’ve said for so long about the way I work with women to design businesses who are trying to do that. Like what is the life that you want first? And then how do you want your work, often a business that you own, to fit inside of that? And if you’re working for another entity, how do you wanna do that work? I have a woman on my team today who is a young mother, um, expecting her second. And she is, we call it flexible full-time. You know, it’s like, look, I want as much of you as I can get, and this is the compensation for that.

And you’re gonna figure out how you do it and we’re gonna have conversations if the work isn’t getting done. But like, I don’t wanna talk about hours and I just don’t. <laugh> You know, like I think I do, it’s a high trust environment with her and she’s crushing it in that role. But that is, to me, like the epitome of what people want. The number of women I’ve had who said, “I wish I could work nine to three.” Yeah. Like that, you know, I almost wrote a book called nine to three because I’m like, that is just the dream for so many people is like, I really wanna be there in the morning. I wanna go crush it somewhere or for myself, and then I wanna be fully present again. Like that toggle on and off switch. And it doesn’t neatly fit into that, you and I both know, but man, it comes close.

It does. It comes close once they’re in school that, um, you can get a lot done from nine to three.

NR:

So – Yeah. School day, work day, I think there’s a lot of dialogue around that. I think it’s gonna be challenging to push legislation around it. I think the closest we’ll get is like, you know, could part-time still have insurance benefits? Right. Like so many pieces. I love what you just said that everyone’s coming in from different angles. I think ultimately everyone is saying, you know, there is, we did a lot in second wave feminism to prove our capacity in the workforce. It’s my belief that our wave is now saying like, and we, it didn’t, didn’t work. We, well, we, to work in the workforce, we had to act like men. But the reality is we’re different from men and we have different realities in terms of childcare and elder care and birth and, and menopause and our health. And there’s sort of all these factors colliding into, okay, well then how do we redesign systems that better support work that works?

And I think some people come in from systems and policy change. Some people come in from the individual lens of how we support each individual – Yeah. Who’s here right now to thrive because there’s a ripple effect. And I try to think of it from a cultural dialogue and language change, right? Because if we change the conversation, I think we just end up putting more options on the table, which is what we all want. It’s just more options.

CS:

I think that is the perfect place for us to land. If we change the conversation, we end up putting more options on the table. That’s, that’s, that’s where I think we leave it for today because the reality is that’s what everybody wants is, you know, you’re N of one, you know what’s going to work for you or you’re going to find your way to it. Like through experimentation, maybe a little bit of trial and error and a whole lot of courage that, that finding your way to a solution that works for you, that you’re deeply fulfilled by, and your family where you’ve created the, you know, the collection of memories and experiences over their childhood that you want to create. Um, that’s a worthy goal. And I’m, I’m really glad you’re on the team supporting people in NAHA.

NR:

Oh, thank you for saying that. You as well.

CS:

Thanks for being here today. All right, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Till next time, let’s be brilliant.