Motherhood, the school of hard knocks

I had several interviews with the agency [Mocean]. And one of my last interviews was with the owner, Craig Murray. He saw that I had a wedding ring on and he said, ”Oh, do you have a family?” At first, I kind of hesitated to even answer the question because I’d had some not-so-positive experiences with that same question. And I said [to myself], if it’s going to be a problem, I’d rather know now. So, I shared with him (at the time I had a four-year-old daughter), and he said, “Well, she needs you, so we need to make sure we get you support so that you can be there for her when she needs you. And you can do the stellar job for us that I know you can.” I nearly cried in his office.

Organizations may sometimes shy away from being direct about what’s needed from a particular role. The employee will sense that and won’t understand where the flexibility may lie. And so, everybody’s holding their cards up, not out of deceit but from not understanding what’s expected or what’s desired. When you have these really transparent conversations, when you figure out giving Friday off actually isn’t helpful and [they] would rather start at noon and work until 8 PM—we [the company] can accommodate that. We’ll let the team know and make sure that we have you covered so clients don’t see a drop-off in service or things of that nature.

[The biggest misconception about working moms is] that women will underperform men, especially moms. I became the best delegator and multitasker out of necessity after becoming a mom, but also from having high standards and being competitive. I want to win that pitch. I want to get that new business. It also drove me to try to find paths toward excellence that allowed me to satisfy all my roles.

You can’t pick your kid’s personality and [in the workplace] you often can’t either, especially if you inherit a team. You have to figure out what motivates them. You know how to set boundaries for them. And hopefully, you don’t have to get to performance issues. But if you have a performance issue, help them course-correct.

Being a 30-something mom versus a 20-something mom helped prepare me because I had that experience of managing other people. Building patience. Having empathy for other new moms in the workplace—hopefully, my experience will help them carve their path. My path can’t be their path, but hopefully [it] gives them some insights into how to architect a life for themselves.

[There is] no such thing as perfect work-life balance. You’ll always have moments when you’re sacrificing one thing for another, but the art is making sure that you define a life that is fulfilling to you and meets your obligations. For me, it’s feeling as if I’ve given my all to attain the strategic goals of Mocean as its president, which includes happy clients and repeat clients, and that my daughter and husband know that they are my priorities.