Please help woman do a career.
April 7, 2017 7:35 AM Subscribe
I work in a start-up and hold an intermediate level, technical position. Complications: start-up is almost busted, and I am trying for babies. Halp?
I hold an intermediate technical position in a start-up in a field that is heavily male-dominated. My position has helped me grow a lot and I am respected for the work I do. My husband and I are trying for babies, and I hoped to go on maternity leave at my current position. Unfortunately, looks like we only have 4-5 more months before the start-up is totally busted, though there is some chance we will survive this, as these things go in start-ups. The field of my work is somewhat niche, and is not very common and not too many positions exist within this career path. What should a woman do to minimize the damage to her career?
1. Ride this out: maybe we'll fail maybe we won't. Maybe I'll get pregnant maybe I won't. If I lose my job when pregnant, I can go on employment insurance for a few months, and look for new jobs after the baby is around. Relevant: we have enough saved up for this, but I worry about looking for jobs amid baby-induced hormone fiasco.
2. Look for a place-holder job: get a position that doesn't challenge me, is safe, and not a career maker or breaker. Have baby. Take my time. Dial up ambitions when baby is a bit older. This seems reasonable but makes me sad as a person who gets a lot of validation from her work.
3. Go for it: take the next big step and go for the ambitious next career move, and deal with the consequences of going on mat-leave when brand new at a job when that happens. My concern with this option is the damage this move will do to my reputation in a field which is already very unforgiving to women. I have heard a lot of anecdotes of new mothers being passed over for promotions/new projects/big responsibilities, & basically getting punished for going on mat-leave. I know the "lean-in" mentality but suspect it's a ruse. I wonder if I need to establish myself first for a few years before going on mat-leave at such a position in order to minimize the damage.
One more point: we ideally would like to continue trying for babies and prefer not postponing. I am in "the" age bracket and really got to get on with it.
What are your thoughts? How has your careers/your female partner's careers suffered when having babies? What did you wish you had done differently when first becoming a parent?
Thanks for your thoughts.
I hold an intermediate technical position in a start-up in a field that is heavily male-dominated. My position has helped me grow a lot and I am respected for the work I do. My husband and I are trying for babies, and I hoped to go on maternity leave at my current position. Unfortunately, looks like we only have 4-5 more months before the start-up is totally busted, though there is some chance we will survive this, as these things go in start-ups. The field of my work is somewhat niche, and is not very common and not too many positions exist within this career path. What should a woman do to minimize the damage to her career?
1. Ride this out: maybe we'll fail maybe we won't. Maybe I'll get pregnant maybe I won't. If I lose my job when pregnant, I can go on employment insurance for a few months, and look for new jobs after the baby is around. Relevant: we have enough saved up for this, but I worry about looking for jobs amid baby-induced hormone fiasco.
2. Look for a place-holder job: get a position that doesn't challenge me, is safe, and not a career maker or breaker. Have baby. Take my time. Dial up ambitions when baby is a bit older. This seems reasonable but makes me sad as a person who gets a lot of validation from her work.
3. Go for it: take the next big step and go for the ambitious next career move, and deal with the consequences of going on mat-leave when brand new at a job when that happens. My concern with this option is the damage this move will do to my reputation in a field which is already very unforgiving to women. I have heard a lot of anecdotes of new mothers being passed over for promotions/new projects/big responsibilities, & basically getting punished for going on mat-leave. I know the "lean-in" mentality but suspect it's a ruse. I wonder if I need to establish myself first for a few years before going on mat-leave at such a position in order to minimize the damage.
One more point: we ideally would like to continue trying for babies and prefer not postponing. I am in "the" age bracket and really got to get on with it.
What are your thoughts? How has your careers/your female partner's careers suffered when having babies? What did you wish you had done differently when first becoming a parent?
Thanks for your thoughts.
1) Have recommended it before on here - get this book about managing motherhood and career "Here's the Plan"
2) I got pregnant (unintentionally) two weeks after starting a new job. I was so scared to be sidelined, I didn't disclose to management til nearly 6 months! but it turned out ok. I would recommend doing this at a job that is not your absolute pinnacle dream ambition role or you will be SO HARD on yourself forever that it's not worth it even if everyone else thinks you're doing fine. So it's not a bad idea to have a baby at a place where you don't also feel like your entire career's hopes&dreams are on the line.
3) I am also someone who gets a lot of validation from work. But don't underestimate the value of having a Good Enough place to hatch an egg. Your priorities / fluctuating levels of fatigue / need for flexibility in pregnancy and baby's first 6 months to year of life just may trump that need for work validation sometimes. The inputs that make you run are going to change a bit. The first day I got back from mat leave I watched everyone scurrying around doing the SO URGENT SO IMPORTANT business and instead of feeling a surge of excitement and validation, I thought - "Hrm, for this? We are running around for this?! Does anyone even KNOW what amazingness I've got at home that I left for this?!" That feeling ebbed as I got into it, but you know what, it still comes and goes, and it didn't used to.
4) Your career might take a bit of a hit, but working lives are soo long, ugh I am gonna have to work til I die; part of a year of mat leave is not going to be what derails my life. Two years after I found out I was pregnant, I was hired for a much more ambitious new job. I now am not so nervous - even pregnant again! and looking forward to ramping up the ambitions again after #2 is born. Now that I've had one baby, this time around I am much less ANXIOUS (about my career falling off a cliff, about ever being a whole person again, about any number of dire endings of my personal dreams) and more just full of DREAD (at all the work and grind it's gonna be for a long while). But work and grind I can do now that I know that falling off a cliff didn't happen before and won't happen again.
5) Come join us at the Metafilter pregnancy / parenting group on Facebook; we cheerlead each other through this kind of stuff a lot, just memail me to join.
posted by sestaaak at 8:06 AM on April 7, 2017 [3 favorites]
2) I got pregnant (unintentionally) two weeks after starting a new job. I was so scared to be sidelined, I didn't disclose to management til nearly 6 months! but it turned out ok. I would recommend doing this at a job that is not your absolute pinnacle dream ambition role or you will be SO HARD on yourself forever that it's not worth it even if everyone else thinks you're doing fine. So it's not a bad idea to have a baby at a place where you don't also feel like your entire career's hopes&dreams are on the line.
3) I am also someone who gets a lot of validation from work. But don't underestimate the value of having a Good Enough place to hatch an egg. Your priorities / fluctuating levels of fatigue / need for flexibility in pregnancy and baby's first 6 months to year of life just may trump that need for work validation sometimes. The inputs that make you run are going to change a bit. The first day I got back from mat leave I watched everyone scurrying around doing the SO URGENT SO IMPORTANT business and instead of feeling a surge of excitement and validation, I thought - "Hrm, for this? We are running around for this?! Does anyone even KNOW what amazingness I've got at home that I left for this?!" That feeling ebbed as I got into it, but you know what, it still comes and goes, and it didn't used to.
4) Your career might take a bit of a hit, but working lives are soo long, ugh I am gonna have to work til I die; part of a year of mat leave is not going to be what derails my life. Two years after I found out I was pregnant, I was hired for a much more ambitious new job. I now am not so nervous - even pregnant again! and looking forward to ramping up the ambitions again after #2 is born. Now that I've had one baby, this time around I am much less ANXIOUS (about my career falling off a cliff, about ever being a whole person again, about any number of dire endings of my personal dreams) and more just full of DREAD (at all the work and grind it's gonna be for a long while). But work and grind I can do now that I know that falling off a cliff didn't happen before and won't happen again.
5) Come join us at the Metafilter pregnancy / parenting group on Facebook; we cheerlead each other through this kind of stuff a lot, just memail me to join.
posted by sestaaak at 8:06 AM on April 7, 2017 [3 favorites]
I am a woman at a male-dominated tech startup and about a year ago we were interested in a candidate who was visibly pregnant. We changed our policies (which I'd been rallying to do anyway) and hired her and gave her our full mat leave package even though she was only 2 months in at that point. She appreciated it, deserved it, and came back and has been excellent in her position.
I say go for option #3. Get the job you want and keep trying for babies.
The rumors are out there, and they might be true at some places, BUT there is a lot of work being done to counteract those attitudes, and I think you can end up somewhere that pays attention to the great work you do and rewards you for it.
If you can find a company that has at least one woman in a leadership role, I think that would improve your chances of getting treated well there.
I agree that women do get looked over for promotions during the period that they are pregnant and on mat leave, and I have seen it happen and experienced a little bit of it myself. When I was back at work though, and for my friends, once you are re-integrated and doing your job again, things pick up where they left off. There is a short amount of time where you re-prove yourself which sucks, but then it's as if everyone remembers that you are awesome and gives you big projects again and appreciates you.
For my company there was just a lot of ignorance and fear like "oh she's a mom now, so she might not come back" or "she's leaving soon so let's not start her on a 6 month thing she can't finish," then "she came back but she might be distracted and not able to work as hard," and then finally they were like "uhh actually she is the same hard worker and knows a lot and is sticking around so let's involve her more." I think it's pretty typical for people who haven't had a lot of experience with mat leave to be not great about it, and I wish that wasn't the case, but if they are good coworkers and people, they will come around like mine did.
posted by rmless at 8:14 AM on April 7, 2017 [3 favorites]
I say go for option #3. Get the job you want and keep trying for babies.
The rumors are out there, and they might be true at some places, BUT there is a lot of work being done to counteract those attitudes, and I think you can end up somewhere that pays attention to the great work you do and rewards you for it.
If you can find a company that has at least one woman in a leadership role, I think that would improve your chances of getting treated well there.
I agree that women do get looked over for promotions during the period that they are pregnant and on mat leave, and I have seen it happen and experienced a little bit of it myself. When I was back at work though, and for my friends, once you are re-integrated and doing your job again, things pick up where they left off. There is a short amount of time where you re-prove yourself which sucks, but then it's as if everyone remembers that you are awesome and gives you big projects again and appreciates you.
For my company there was just a lot of ignorance and fear like "oh she's a mom now, so she might not come back" or "she's leaving soon so let's not start her on a 6 month thing she can't finish," then "she came back but she might be distracted and not able to work as hard," and then finally they were like "uhh actually she is the same hard worker and knows a lot and is sticking around so let's involve her more." I think it's pretty typical for people who haven't had a lot of experience with mat leave to be not great about it, and I wish that wasn't the case, but if they are good coworkers and people, they will come around like mine did.
posted by rmless at 8:14 AM on April 7, 2017 [3 favorites]
I think you should do #3. Even if you got passed over for a big promotion, you'll still be at an ambitious career-position, which is still better than #2. Doing #2 would be like pre-emptively demoting yourself ("I'm worried I'll get passed over for a promotion, so instead I'll demote myself into a boring dead-end job!")
If you're worried that going on maternity leave is going to permanently screw up your chances with #3, I don't think that will happen. People are smart, and can tell the difference between "hardworking capable person who needs to take care of personal life" vs "capable person who has terrible work ethic" vs "incompetent person". The second and third cases are where reputations are burned. In the first situation, people either think well of you or at most adopt a "wait and see" approach to see what happens when your personal life is less intrusive to work.
Think about how you evaluate other people's work. Are you black and white, like "Shelly is good" vs "Joe is bad"? No, you have lots of nuance. "Shelly is great at detail-oriented projects, but she doesn't speak up in groups, and she won't travel to see clients." Others will have nuance when they evaluate you too.
Finally, if reputation matters so much in your field, it seems like doing #2 is going to damage your reputation a lot more than doing #3 but not being promoted. If you do #2, people will think of you as "the person at that dead-end company for years". They won't know it was because you wanted to have kids, worried about being passed over for promotion, blah blah.
#1 seems potentially risky if you really think the company is going to fold. If you don't believe in the company, go for #3. If you still believe in your startup, maybe #1.
posted by cheesecake at 8:20 AM on April 7, 2017 [4 favorites]
If you're worried that going on maternity leave is going to permanently screw up your chances with #3, I don't think that will happen. People are smart, and can tell the difference between "hardworking capable person who needs to take care of personal life" vs "capable person who has terrible work ethic" vs "incompetent person". The second and third cases are where reputations are burned. In the first situation, people either think well of you or at most adopt a "wait and see" approach to see what happens when your personal life is less intrusive to work.
Think about how you evaluate other people's work. Are you black and white, like "Shelly is good" vs "Joe is bad"? No, you have lots of nuance. "Shelly is great at detail-oriented projects, but she doesn't speak up in groups, and she won't travel to see clients." Others will have nuance when they evaluate you too.
Finally, if reputation matters so much in your field, it seems like doing #2 is going to damage your reputation a lot more than doing #3 but not being promoted. If you do #2, people will think of you as "the person at that dead-end company for years". They won't know it was because you wanted to have kids, worried about being passed over for promotion, blah blah.
#1 seems potentially risky if you really think the company is going to fold. If you don't believe in the company, go for #3. If you still believe in your startup, maybe #1.
posted by cheesecake at 8:20 AM on April 7, 2017 [4 favorites]
#3.
I recommend checking out the book "Lean In". It covers this issue.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 8:35 AM on April 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
I recommend checking out the book "Lean In". It covers this issue.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 8:35 AM on April 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
#3. If I had put my career on hold for babies (as I did a little bit but not too much) that would have been about 8 miscarriages/6 years' worth of on hold. You can work the rest out as you go and it's easier to dial back than ramp up after kids.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:26 PM on April 7, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 1:26 PM on April 7, 2017 [2 favorites]
Apologies, I totally missed the part where you mentioned thinking that the "lean in" mentality is a ruse. I am a woman in tech too. I know it's not always easy but we're not going to see changes unless we push back against the current way that things are.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 2:47 PM on April 7, 2017
posted by kinddieserzeit at 2:47 PM on April 7, 2017
Everyone is different but I went with #2 and would advise against it. I took a step down after trying to have babies for a year and having docs suggest my stress levels were not conducive.
I feel lucky in that I quite enjoy my work now, and the locale we moved to in order to afford it. However, my greatest stressor these days (2 years later, still no bebe) is that I was foolish enough to believe one could plan a career (or anything really) around having a baby.
"Well if we conceive in October, he'll be born in July, so I would be back in the office come next October, just in time for Xconference..." It can just be so much more complicated than that. Don't make such a huge decision based on a best case scenario outcome of a separate goal.
posted by le_salvo at 7:44 PM on April 7, 2017
I feel lucky in that I quite enjoy my work now, and the locale we moved to in order to afford it. However, my greatest stressor these days (2 years later, still no bebe) is that I was foolish enough to believe one could plan a career (or anything really) around having a baby.
"Well if we conceive in October, he'll be born in July, so I would be back in the office come next October, just in time for Xconference..." It can just be so much more complicated than that. Don't make such a huge decision based on a best case scenario outcome of a separate goal.
posted by le_salvo at 7:44 PM on April 7, 2017
#3. And if baby comes at a time that is not convenient for your career, figure out how you and your partner can split up the inconvenience so that the entire weight of it doesn't fall on you. Parental leave (paid or unpaid) is available to fathers too under FMLA, so if you want or need to go back to work in order to maintain your career, he can take time off too.
posted by decathecting at 4:47 PM on April 8, 2017
posted by decathecting at 4:47 PM on April 8, 2017
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posted by pecanpies at 7:39 AM on April 7, 2017