It’s challenging to be a mom boss, even in the best of times. But because of the pandemic, many are now home taking on another role of full-time teacher and caregiver.
Our CEO Pam Kostka spoke with three founders on the ins and outs of working from home as a mother during this crisis. Sarah Lacy, CEO and founder of Chairman Mom, Shilla Kim-Parker, CEO and founder of Thrilling, and Sofya Polyakov, CEO and co-founder of the Noun Project and Lingo, shared helpful insights for all women going through these challenging times.
Here are their personal experiences and tips and tricks for staying sane.
Q. How are you structuring your days at home with kids?
Shilla: The biggest trauma for me as a parent was going from zero kids to one kid. Those first six months felt like I was half drowning and half swimming. This is how it feels for me going from pre-Corona to post-Corona.
It’s been overwhelming, maddening, and terrifying with one- and four-year-old kids at home. We tried structure the first week, but my husband and I both have very intense full-time jobs, and it just didn’t work. We have simultaneous, competing urgent priorities every day. Our kids are bouncing off the walls.
The only thing that has gotten us through is triage: a moment by moment, hour by hour look at who has the most urgent need — so one of us can work and one takes care of the kids. I have found that whatever I am doing, I just need to focus on that, whether it’s doing the dishes or writing a report. If you try to do both at the same time, you’ll be terrible at both.
Lastly, I have let go of the guilt. If you need to park your kid in front of the TV, have a glass of wine, eat 10 cookies, or whatever you need to get through it, then so be it.
This is not the time to be hard on ourselves. We need to be generous and kind, because that’s the only way we are going to survive.
Sofya: This has been madness and giving your employees a break is crucial during this time. Obviously, you need to extend that to yourself as well.
My husband and I have a two- and four-year-old, so what works for us is taking turns. Every night, we sit down with our calendars and see who has calls that can’t be missed. I put in my calendar, “my time to work” or “my time with the kids” so that we know what our day will be like.
I also want to reiterate what Shilla said.
We are all overachievers and are hard on ourselves. Multitasking does not work. Little kids know when you are not paying attention to them. I found that I cannot “kind of” work and watch my kids at the same time. When it’s your turn to work, put in your headphones, lock the door, and trust that your spouse is going to take care of the kids.
Sarah: This is my kids’ second week of Spring Break and I never thought, as a working mother, Spring Break would be easier than school. I am having anxiety dreams about going back into homeschooling next week. The world is upside down! But it helps me to know that I am working in a business that helps other women get through their day.
It’s important to note that there’s no such thing as a bad mom. I hate video games, but the day before we went into lockdown, I bought my kids a Nintendo Switch. It was an emergency situation. I needed a place to park the kids for several hours because that’s better than my company going out of business and us starving.
My kids are seven and nine years old. Our kids cannot do Google Classroom all day. I basically have to run first and second grade every other day, and my co-parent does the same. So the days where I work, I stay within my working hours and spend time with them at night.
I think there’s a positive side to this as well. Our kids get to see the professional side of us that we don’t usually show them. As mothers who try to be everything to our children, we often leave the working mom part of us at the door. My kids know the difference between the person who pays the bills and the mom who takes care of us. It deepens our relationship.
Get your parenting partner to step up. Don’t allow your job to be sidelined.
Because of all the biases, women make less money than men generally, but that doesn’t mean your job is less important. If you allow this to happen in this crisis, you are saddling yourself with a second “maternity leave” that you did not sign up for.
After this is all over, we do not, as women, want to fight this bias again. It’s called “fatherhood bonus” and ”motherhood penalty.” Fathers will get rewarded for stepping up and teaching class while we will look like unreliable mothers. But our kids are watching us.
See this time as an investment in your relationship with your kids in terms of closeness and intimacy. Both parents should take that on, even though it’s very draining.
Q. How do you perform self-care and avoid burnout?
Sofya: I have been ignoring the curriculum the school is sending home each day. It’s either my business goes under or my kids get to learn to cut out shapes. I promise he will not go to college failing to learn how to cut shapes and color inside the lines. If we have time for it, great, but if not, that’s fine, too.
I found a great website that is essentially gaming with an educational twist that allows my kids to be busy yet get some learning in.
Shilla: We also ignore the school curriculum. My objectives for the day are for the kids to get fresh air and do something academic, only if possible. I don’t put that pressure on myself — that’s my self-care.
As an introvert, I regain my energy from being alone, which is obviously really hard right now. I need an hour of silence and not engaging with anybody. You have to be honest about what you need. My husband will see that look in my eye and he takes over so I can get a break to reset.
A game-changer for me this week is that our nanny has come back part-time. We struggled with it, but we had to have her come or we were not going to survive. We are being as careful as we can in this environment to make sure we are all healthy and safe.
Sarah: We have our house cleaner coming as well. That’s part of my self-care. As a single mom with two children, I rely on my house cleaner. She also wants the sanity and normalcy of work. Ultimately, we have to do what’s right for our whole family because we need to be sane.
I also need to get exercise every day. I need to be outside running or walking alone and listening to an audio book. If I can do that, I can cope with everything else. This is the only thing that I really need to keep me grounded.
Beyond that, we all need to be honest and feel all the feelings and let our kids do the same.
It’s OK for them to feel bad. They can’t go to school or see their friends. But remember there is also real human tragedy with loss of life and livelihood going on in the world. It all feels senseless and it’s OK to feel sad.
Q. Are our male colleagues understanding our situation in this crisis? Do you have advice on giving feedback to them if they aren’t?
Sarah: I find it helpful to use data and facts to prove any points about inclusion and women as leaders. We need to challenge them on their unconscious bias.
A Chairman Mom member did a survey of a few 100 senior-level, corporate women who had at least one kid under the age of 18 living with them. According to the study, only 9% of women say their co-parents are picking up the childcare slack during this WFH time.
The degree to which domestic duties have all fallen on women is astounding. And it’s not generational. Millennial men are not doing more housework despite having a working wife. The more a woman makes financially, the more work she does at home — to compensate for the fragile male ego.
Looking at the facts is the best way to have a conversation with men at work. It’s about our societal system, not a particular man or set of people. We all live in this patriarchal society and need to change the system. No finger-pointing is needed.
Celebrate the men who are doing the right thing and have stepped up. Acknowledge their work. We are all in this together.
Sofya: We have a responsibility to talk the talk and walk the walk. My husband is my business partner so we as co-founders lead through example. I fully expect him to do his part around the house and we divide our responsibilities.
My philosophy in running the company is to put my employees first, not my customers. I believe that if I take care of my employees, they will take care of my customers. I told them we stand behind them during this difficult time.
Let your employees know you understand what they are dealing with, and that you don’t expect the impossible. Have that empathy and set a good example.
We set an expectation that they should be generally available between 10–4 pm and to let others know when they’re going on baby time or taking care of a loved one. That helps everyone understand each other’s schedule.
Shilla: We are lucky as company leaders that we get to set the culture. We need to remember to focus on encouraging intangible, interconnective social bonding and informal relationships through virtual happy hours, best meme Fridays, etc., and allow them to connect.
And remember that right now, we are not just working from home — we are working from home during a crisis.
