Reflections on the Past Decade as a Working Mom

2023 feels big to me. Today (!) I celebrate eight years in which I’ve been lucky enough to work at LinkedIn . In a few months, I’ll join fellow classmates and friends for our ten-year reunion since finishing grad school. And, this spring, my older daughter will turn ten, marking a full decade that I’ve been a working mom.

I don’t have to tell you: A lot has changed for working parents in the past decade.?

As a new mom in 2013, I was fortunate to have paid maternity leave - a privilege, I recognize, that most women in the U.S. are not afforded. I remember kissing my 12-week-old baby goodbye at 7 a.m. as I’d shove my postpartum body into a pencil skirt, black tights and a not-buttonable blazer. I would sling a ten (twenty?) pound laptop boulder over one shoulder and, over the other, my Obama breast-pump (I liked to call it that, as the Affordable Care Act had recently provided full coverage of this several-hundred-dollar piece of equipment). I’d ride six stops on the Red Line, wend my way through the underground pedway traversing Macy’s basement luggage department and ride an elevator up to my office on the 55th Floor of the Aon Center. This was 2013, so this was the routine, Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm.?

By the time my husband, Brian, and I got home from opposite ends of the Loop around 6pm, Baby Bea was exhausted, shrieking and ready for bed. I’d rush to give her a bath, singing to her as I slathered her in lotion and shimmied her lavender-scented limbs into pajamas before Brian orgiamied her into a bedtime swaddle. Soon she’d fall asleep, for a while at least, until she’d wake up - once, twice, thrice (ugh) - in the middle of the night. Our time together during the week was painfully limited to short windows before and after “business hours” and commuting - or in the dead of the night.?

As a new working mom, I was lucky to work with amazing women that propped me up throughout the long workdays. As our laptops would slowly (like, really slowly, this was 2013!) boot up, we would sip our third cups of coffee of the morning and exchange war stories from the prior nights when the latest head cold or sleep regression kept us up more hours than we were asleep. Over lunch, we would share tips on the best Wiggleworms teachers at the Old Town School of Music and debate the virtues of different diaper creams (#TeamTriplePaste). And before rushing out to catch our trains home, we’d ogle at each other's pictures we’d printed at Walgreens and pinned to our cubicle walls. But what connected us the most was our common, if mostly unspoken, anguish at being working moms who spent a lot of time in - and getting to and from - work but longed to be moming more.

Ten years later, the stark lines that separate “work” from “parent” life have mercifully softened. As a working mom today, I’m blessed with the opportunity and privilege of hybrid work. This has enabled me to be a more present, involved parent while also loving the work I’m doing and growing in my career.?

Hybrid work, for me, means most days working from home and, a few times a month, going into the office to connect in person with colleagues. Rather than working on opposite ends of the Loop, more often, Brian and I now work on opposite ends of our home, though we rarely see each other during the day, except to deliver an occasional cup of coffee or sandwich or reminder of whose turn it is to take out the trash (not it).

On the days we work from home, Brian and I are able to get the kids ready in the mornings and drop them off at school. At the end of the day, in the time we would have been commuting, we are instead able to get dinner started. Or help work through a particularly tricky long division problem. Or Google what a rhombus is again.?

Sure, a lot of that time is also filled with gripings about meal selections, socks with problematic seams, too much hair brushing (Stop! It hurts!) or not enough (This ponytail looks terrible! Why didn’t you brush it more?!). Let’s also just say that my attempts at “helping” with homework, however well intended, are very often not helpful. Yes, Baby Bea is almost ten (!) now and beginning the inevitable arc from never wanting me out of her sight to communicating pretty directly that yeah, Mom, you can go now. Fortunately, I’m still extremely cool in the eyes of little sister, Zoe, though I’m also accused, on occasion, of being a “poopie head”.?

Of course, all these moments are gifts. Little treasures of bonus time that I get to spend with my kids that I simply would not have had - a did not have - a decade ago. The extra home-cooked meals, another oreo-dinner averted. The chatter on the sunny walks to school speculating about the identity of today’s “Mystery Reader”. Sneaking a peek into the last five minutes of dance class as the seven-year-olds learn how to raise the roof, raise the roof and break it down, break it down. A frantic trip to deliver a forgotten violin just in the nick of time for 4th Grade orchestra rehearsal.

None of it, none of it would be possible without hybrid work.

Enjoying hybrid work does not, for me at least, mean disliking being in the office. In fact, for me, it’s the opposite. I genuinely love going into the office. I look forward to my in-office days as times to recharge on the positive energy and spontaneity that in-person connections uniquely bring. I feel inspired by LinkedIn’s beautifully designed workspaces and the chance to catch up with colleagues who are also friends. I’ve begun to take a more intentional approach to how I schedule and focus my in-office days, planning in advance to align with local colleagues and using that time for live brainstorming, more introspective conversations with mentors and mentees and engaging with the community.?

Whereas before I begrudged being in the office, flexible, hybrid work has in fact made me appreciate and value my in-office time more and, in turn, get more out of the in-office experience. The fact that I can wear jeans and Nikes is a cherry on top.?

I’m not suggesting that I have a perfect working mom algorithm figured out or that I don't have to make accommodations and sacrifices. Of course I do. I occasionally miss dinners or severely delay bedtimes as I connect with colleagues overseas in the U.S. evening hours. There are many mornings I have to join calls early and Brian flies solo assembling lunches and wrangling the day’s ponytails. I’ve had business trips that conflicted with Spirit Week at camp, basketball practices and school project deadlines. One time last year, I FaceTimed into a Parent-Teacher conference from a chic New York restaurant bathroom during a work dinner.??

But I come to those off-hour calls and business trips from a place of presence and contentment because of how harmoniously I’m able to experience my work life and my mom life.

I’m lucky to have a new tribe of women and men who celebrate and empower me to be my best self as a professional and as a mom (and sister, daughter, wife) and to work at LinkedIn that supports hybrid work. I feel so much gratitude for the “bonus time” I have with my kids when I’m not commuting that when work requires me to travel or be online after hours, I’m happy to make those accommodations. Because I happen to love my work. And I love being a mom. Especially in 2023.?