A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a fire side chat hosted by a panel of working moms.
I am in a phase of my life where I look for inspiration from other moms, namely other working moms. I love receiving advice on how to find a complementary lifestyle between career and home, but also other important facets of one’s life like hobbies, fitness and personal growth.
Being in a technology / software development industry, I mainly hear from women in IT. But this group of mom’s was different kind of panel: they were a group of working mom’s in health care.
Yep doctors…! The type of people who give up their lives for the wellness of others. Surprisingly, what they deal with as mom’s is the same as what every other mom deals with!
Thought I’d share some of the topics that were discussed:
- Ask for help: Everyone’s need and type of help is different, but the important thing is to actually be okay with asking and accepting help. For some of us it can be full time paid help (like a nanny / daycare) or it could be having a baby sitter two times a month to help out for date night. One idea that I hadn’t thought of is befriending other parents. Invite your child’s friends over for playdates and work on those parent friendships – they could come in handy when you are in a pinch.
- Sacrifice: Every day is a sacrifice when you are mom who works outside of the home. (Hell when you are a mom period!) You are either a great mom and not giving your career your everything or you are a killing it on the career front and neglecting your duties at home. One thing to remember is that your kids will be okay and better for it seeing you pursue something that challenges you and makes you feel happy. Ditch the guilt and quiet the voices.
- Time away from your career: Taking a mat leave will effect your career or business – there is no doubt about that. Your career and business will struggle during mat leave and afterwards for a bit. That’s inevitable! Create a plan to figure out how you want to move up and keep your eyes on the prize.
- Plan when to have your babies: There is no right time but having a solid handle on your finances will help.
- What motivates you to keep going in your career: All the mom’s had really interesting reasons so I feel the need to share them all:
- “I felt a need to do something just for me”
- “I wanted to provide for my kids, give them the things I couldn’t have in my childhood”
- my passion became my purpose”
