Speaker 1: Hey bessies, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright Side, we're changing the way we
Speaker 2: talk about being a stay at home mom. Founder and
Speaker 2: CEO of Mother Untitled, Neha Rouche is back on the
Speaker 2: bright side and her new book, The Power Pause is
Speaker 2: out now. She's flipping the script on parenthood and pausing
Speaker 2: your career. She's here to give us fresh tools, empowering language,
Speaker 2: and a whole new way to think about this transformative
Speaker 2: phase of life. It's Tuesday, January twenty eighth. I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3: And I'm Simone Boyce, and this is the bright Side
Speaker 3: from Hello Sunshine, Simone.
Speaker 2: I am truly grateful to be in conversation with Neha
Speaker 2: Rush again. She was your friend that you brought on
Speaker 2: the show, and I just fell in love with her
Speaker 2: when she joined us last time. I felt like we
Speaker 2: just scratched the surface about how challenging it can be
Speaker 2: for moms to determine whether or not to stay at
Speaker 2: home to raise their children or invest in childcare. I mean,
Speaker 2: we talked about how some women fear that starting a
Speaker 2: family could be a career ender even and she really
Speaker 2: shed light on some of the false beliefs of stay
Speaker 2: at home parenthood.
Speaker 1: It was such an enlightening conversation.
Speaker 3: It always is an enlightening conversation when Neha Rush is involved,
Speaker 3: and I feel like Danielle, we have to kind of
Speaker 3: start by giving some context as to why you're not
Speaker 3: going to hear my voice in this interview. This is
Speaker 3: an interview I've been looking forward to for forever, because,
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, she's a friend of mine and I
Speaker 3: have been cheering her on behind the scenes as she's
Speaker 3: been working on this book. I know that she has
Speaker 3: poured her heart and soul into The Power Pause, and
Speaker 3: I know that she really believes that can help an
Speaker 3: entire generation of women break through from some of these
Speaker 3: false beliefs that I think we've inherited from our own mothers. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: there was a fire near my house. I'm sure you
Speaker 3: guys are aware of bright Side besties of what's been
Speaker 3: going on in LA with all these fires, and just
Speaker 3: had to make the decision to keep my family safe
Speaker 3: and get everybody out of the house. So unfortunately I
Speaker 3: missed this interview, but I had spent so much time
Speaker 3: highlighting her book, and there's so many things I want
Speaker 3: to talk about and ask about. But I know that
Speaker 3: I know that you guys had an electrifying conversation Danielle,
Speaker 3: and I cannot wait to hear it.
Speaker 2: We also got to ask some of your questions, so
Speaker 2: I don't want you to be you do, said yeah,
Speaker 2: and we credited you would they everyone will know that
Speaker 2: they're yours.
Speaker 1: I don't care about that.
Speaker 3: I just the reason why I did that is because
Speaker 3: this book is so interactive and it truly is comprehensive.
Speaker 3: Like she's got exercises in there to help you, you know,
Speaker 3: disentangle your identity from your work. She's got sample schedules
Speaker 3: from mothers who are navigating some similar challenges that you
Speaker 3: might be walking through. So yeah, I just want to
Speaker 3: honor how incredibly thorough this this book is, and to
Speaker 3: be honest, Danielle, like, this is the kind of book
Speaker 3: that I wish was available not just when I decided
Speaker 3: to pause my own.
Speaker 1: Career, but I wish it was available.
Speaker 3: As I was thinking about building a family, because I
Speaker 3: get so many young women reaching out to me asking
Speaker 3: me about how to navigate, you know, breaks in your career,
Speaker 3: especially like in broadcast journalism. And now not only can
Speaker 3: I point to my experience and say, hey, look what's possible,
Speaker 3: look how robust your career can be on the other
Speaker 3: side of motherhood. But also I have this incredible guide
Speaker 3: Naha's book to point them to.
Speaker 1: Now it's interesting you say that.
Speaker 2: As I was talking to her, I was thinking, I'm
Speaker 2: so glad that I'm learning about this before parenthood. I
Speaker 2: really think that this is a book that applies to
Speaker 2: almost any phase of life that you're in. If you're
Speaker 2: thinking about becoming a mom, it's interesting. If you are
Speaker 2: a mom, it's fascinating, And if you're not wanting to
Speaker 2: be a mom, it's also interesting to learn about the
Speaker 2: language that we're using as a culture around stay at
Speaker 2: home parenthood.
Speaker 3: Another thing that really stood out to me in Naha's book.
Speaker 3: She talks about the transition itself, like what it's like
Speaker 3: to put your career on pause and what it's like
Speaker 3: to navigate the financial aspect of that. But she also
Speaker 3: talks about the return, and she's encouraging parents to really
Speaker 3: prepare yourselves for what it's like when you do return
Speaker 3: to work. So that's a fresh perspective that I feel
Speaker 3: like is not talked about enough in this conversation.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we touch on that and so much more.
Speaker 2: Here's our conversation with neh Uche.
Speaker 1: Okay, nay, how welcome back to the bright side.
Speaker 2: Thank you, it's so nice to see your face. I'm
Speaker 2: so happy to see you. Congratulations on Power Pause. This
Speaker 2: is not just a beautiful cover, but truly a beautiful book.
Speaker 2: So this book is already resonating with parents around the
Speaker 2: country very deeply. I want to start with the language.
Speaker 2: What is a power pause? The power pause is the
Speaker 2: antidote to this idea that if you part with your
Speaker 2: career for a chapter, that you're somehow a shut in
Speaker 2: trope that has long since been associated with a stay
Speaker 2: at home mother. And instead it's this reclaiming of language
Speaker 2: that speaks to shifting priorities away from our paid work
Speaker 2: for a chapter for family life, for mental health, for
Speaker 2: elder care, for a variety of different priorities, and in
Speaker 2: making room for that, allowing ourselves to discover new interests,
Speaker 2: new skills, and ultimately be able to add that all
Speaker 2: back to such a robust career portfolio. One thing I've
Speaker 2: heard you say a lot about is that motherhood gets
Speaker 2: bad pr Why is it important to you to provide
Speaker 2: a different and possibly even more accurate view we've.
Speaker 4: Done such incredible work, only in the recent years of
Speaker 4: finally starting to think about, well, is there value to
Speaker 4: unpaid labor, dignifying that work, and really starting to elevate
Speaker 4: it from the mems of divers and laundry, and really
Speaker 4: think about the onspiring work that happens behind the scenes,
Speaker 4: right you know, the women advocating for their child's care
Speaker 4: to insurance companies, or navigating really complicated education systems to
Speaker 4: get their kids the best possible structures and systems to
Speaker 4: help them grow and learn. That's the work behind the scenes.
Speaker 4: And when we shine a light on that, then we
Speaker 4: do two things. We better understand why people might want
Speaker 4: more room and time with their kids or for their kids,
Speaker 4: and we also start to understand that, you know, women's
Speaker 4: brains don't go and die if they take a break
Speaker 4: from the paid workforce. Actually, it can expand in all
Speaker 4: sorts of new directions. You're taking this on in a
Speaker 4: very granular sense. In each chapter you outline a false
Speaker 4: belief and then a new narrative to correct it. What
Speaker 4: is the first false belief that you had to unlearn
Speaker 4: in your own power?
Speaker 1: Pause?
Speaker 4: When I had my first child and I decided I
Speaker 4: wanted to downshift my career. I switched to part time
Speaker 4: so that I could be two days at the workplace
Speaker 4: and then the rest of the week at home. In
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen, it was the height of the leaning era,
Speaker 4: the height of the girl boss era, and you know,
Speaker 4: in some ways we had reached the pinnacle of that
Speaker 4: second wave of feminism. In what we had to do
Speaker 4: was rethink, well, if I have clocked in a decade
Speaker 4: plus in my career and I don't serve my husband
Speaker 4: cocktails at the end of the day, right, these are
Speaker 4: dads who are three times as involved with their kids
Speaker 4: versus any generation prior. And I have all this access
Speaker 4: to tools and technology, so I know I'm going to
Speaker 4: continue to grow. Then how can I re architect my
Speaker 4: sense of playing the long game. I'm actually pausing, and
Speaker 4: this isn't a career ender, and actually this is going
Speaker 4: to be one stage in my life. The idea of ambition,
Speaker 4: specifically is the determination to do things with care, and
Speaker 4: the reality is we're going to care about a lot
Speaker 4: of things over the long game life.
Speaker 2: I have a good friend who just had a baby,
Speaker 2: and pre baby was very career focused. Post baby, she's
Speaker 2: really considering a career pause. Now, for someone like her,
Speaker 2: what's the first place to start? What questions should she
Speaker 2: be asking herself or asking her partner? Well, I think
Speaker 2: the first place is, you know, have I explored all
Speaker 2: the options to make room for family? Because there are
Speaker 2: more than the black and white idea of pausing or
Speaker 2: staying full time right, there's such a vast in between
Speaker 2: of stay at women working. The second question is do
Speaker 2: I need to stay connected to this particular role to
Speaker 2: preserve my options? And if the answer still feels like yes,
Speaker 2: then you know, is there a part time or flexible
Speaker 2: arrangement that feels available to me? And if the answer
Speaker 2: is no, then you might say, okay, Well, if I pause,
Speaker 2: what are ways in which I can think about strategically
Speaker 2: navigating my exit so that I'm going to feel empowered,
Speaker 2: so that I can know that I have a study
Speaker 2: on ramp if I want to come back.
Speaker 1: To that particular work.
Speaker 4: But I think the other piece is if I am
Speaker 4: pausing or me and my partner aligned on this being
Speaker 4: a joint household decision. If you are wanting to shift,
Speaker 4: that decision needs to be made together with the foundational
Speaker 4: understanding that even if you pause, your paid work, you
Speaker 4: are still contributing, So the partner working out of the
Speaker 4: home is equally dependent on the work you're doing in
Speaker 4: the home and the intellectual and emotional labor you're going
Speaker 4: to be contributing, so they can single task. And deciding
Speaker 4: that budgeting for that allows you the ability to then
Speaker 4: walk through this stage of life knowing you both deserve
Speaker 4: to be whole and healthy and that you feel respected
Speaker 4: as you navigate the next chapter.
Speaker 2: That part feels so important because you could make a
Speaker 2: decision and your partner, it says they're on the same page,
Speaker 2: they're not.
Speaker 1: That's that, I think is what scares.
Speaker 4: A lot of women one hundred percent because even if
Speaker 4: this is a financial no brainer, this idea of parting
Speaker 4: with our financial independence, this idea of dependent has just
Speaker 4: felt so scary for so long, and so being able
Speaker 4: to challenge that and think of yourselves as a business
Speaker 4: organization like depersonalize it for a little bit. In say,
Speaker 4: household income in, household income out, we're making an adjustment
Speaker 4: together to the household's income. Right. I've heard of couples
Speaker 4: making big, bold moves from San Francisco to Virginia for
Speaker 4: lower cost of living I've seen other couples say, you
Speaker 4: know what, We're going to turn down travel opportunities for
Speaker 4: this year because that's the sort of wig overom we
Speaker 4: need to part with income. If you start to feel that,
Speaker 4: wait a second, I don't feel like I'm going to
Speaker 4: have equal access to this household income or the mindset
Speaker 4: of both being interdependent on one another is getting harder
Speaker 4: to come by in this conversation. Bring in a mayoral
Speaker 4: counselor bring in a fair play facility tator, bring in
Speaker 4: a financial planner, because the reality is if you don't
Speaker 4: feel secure in that, then stepping into this is a risk.
Speaker 4: If you are in a rocky marriage, this is not
Speaker 4: the time to be parting with your income. If you
Speaker 4: need to pause or make more room, consider ways in
Speaker 4: which you can stay connected to income. Right.
Speaker 2: Is there anything specifically that you did with your husband
Speaker 2: that you think helped make your pause successful.
Speaker 4: We did bouts, a couple's therapy. I think we did
Speaker 4: one thing really well, which is we had started looking
Speaker 4: at our budget in our forecast well before we had children,
Speaker 4: so we had an established cadence of meeting every January
Speaker 4: and having a financial planning session for the year. Assigning
Speaker 4: ourselves budgets, so it didn't feel prescriptive. Then when we
Speaker 4: were doing it with kids, that was an exercise we'd
Speaker 4: been doing year over year. You know, that was already
Speaker 4: built into our vernacular. But we kept it up. And
Speaker 4: I think this idea of a team of mentality serves
Speaker 4: you later on because if you foundationally believe that you
Speaker 4: both are contributing, you both are doing work of value,
Speaker 4: you both deserve to be healthy and whole. Then on
Speaker 4: the weekends when you have downtime, it's not you know,
Speaker 4: the person working out of the home who needs a break.
Speaker 4: You both need breaks. And then you're both figuring out
Speaker 4: ways in which you can give yourselves that, whether that's
Speaker 4: outsourcing you know, to a date night babysitter, or you're
Speaker 4: trading off hours on the weekend. I would say we
Speaker 4: really succeeded in seeing it as a partnership, and when
Speaker 4: we hit troubles along the way. I remember the first
Speaker 4: time he called it a luxury to stay home, and
Speaker 4: he was like, well, it's a luxury, and I was said, what, listen,
Speaker 4: have you ever been at home with two children? There's
Speaker 4: nothing luxurious about those. We went to therapyge and just
Speaker 4: you know, and so much of that was working through
Speaker 4: the language, and we really had, you know, our values
Speaker 4: were aligned, but we did have to sort of shift
Speaker 4: our mindsets around value. Were you I rate when he
Speaker 4: said that I rate bananas? I remember when he said that.
Speaker 4: I couldn't quite get my head around why it was
Speaker 4: so bothersome. And then I did the digging and I realized,
Speaker 4: wait a second. We have associated stay at home motherhood
Speaker 4: with luxury for so long in this country, and the
Speaker 4: problem with that is as soon as you associate one
Speaker 4: side with luxury, you decide it's not work of value,
Speaker 4: and or you deem it not worthy of support. One
Speaker 4: in three women feel forced to make this choice because
Speaker 4: of the cost of childcare. The privilege I have is
Speaker 4: to get to choose, and the privilege my husband and
Speaker 4: I had was to.
Speaker 1: Get to choose.
Speaker 4: But that was a privilege that we both shared. So
Speaker 4: there was a nice lot talking too, But luckily it
Speaker 4: helped fill up an entire chapter of the book.
Speaker 2: Speaking of the book, before it even begins, you have
Speaker 2: a page that says how to use this book, which
Speaker 2: I love. You write that this book is for women
Speaker 2: who have the privilege to pause their careers. According to
Speaker 2: your American Mothers on Pause survey, over forty percent of
Speaker 2: women say they worry about money after stepping back from work,
Speaker 2: even though they also say it was totally worth it.
Speaker 2: Is there anything specific, aside from aligning on budgets with
Speaker 2: your spouse that you think can set you up for
Speaker 2: financial success in the transition.
Speaker 4: There's some tactical pieces like planning six months ahead ideally
Speaker 4: and having at least three months of reserves in the bank.
Speaker 4: And most people don't know, but you can be getting
Speaker 4: a spousal IRA, so your spouse can be contributing to
Speaker 4: your IRA even when you're not.
Speaker 1: Working for pay.
Speaker 4: There are some of those technical pieces that just take planning,
Speaker 4: and I think that's the foundational piece, is planning and
Speaker 4: making sure we don't like trip and fall into this
Speaker 4: decision and then realize you don't have a plan. I
Speaker 4: think the other piece that was interesting was some of
Speaker 4: the creative ways people practiced and budgeting. Some said like, Okay,
Speaker 4: we're going to go through six months having cut the
Speaker 4: costs that were predicting cutting, and we're going to see
Speaker 4: how that feels before we come in to it. I
Speaker 4: heard of someone else trialing living on one income. So
Speaker 4: they contributed all of.
Speaker 2: Her Oh that's interesting her salary into her four to
Speaker 2: one k, so that she a had that later on,
Speaker 2: but b that they were able to practice living on
Speaker 2: one income. And so there are some really creative and
Speaker 2: interesting ways to do that. And again, I think it
Speaker 2: just takes that forward thought and the joint team thinking
Speaker 2: around money. Simon was sharing in preparation for this that
Speaker 2: she felt there was also a little bit of a
Speaker 2: mental battle here too, because a lot of women feel
Speaker 2: pride around being independent, funding their own lives without having
Speaker 2: to rely on a partner. Do you think there's ways
Speaker 2: that we can reframe and feel empowered by the decision.
Speaker 4: If an at home parent was compensated, it would be
Speaker 4: one hundred and eighty four thousand dollars a yere, no
Speaker 4: one is paying you that. However, I do think having
Speaker 4: some of that backpocket data is helpful in reframing that
Speaker 4: this is not work anyone would do without help. If
Speaker 4: your friend was getting paid, that they would be considered
Speaker 4: having a big job. All of that data doesn't even
Speaker 4: include the emotional and intellectual labor that we keep talking about.
Speaker 4: It talks about stuffurring, it talks about cooking and talks
Speaker 4: about nutrition, but it doesn't really speak to the stuff
Speaker 4: you can't outsource.
Speaker 2: We have to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back with Neha Rush And we're back with Neha Roush.
Speaker 2: I've tried to figure out a way to reframe the
Speaker 2: question what you do, because I've noticed I'll ask people
Speaker 2: and sometimes stay at home mothers, I can feel they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I just I must stay at home mom, or they
Speaker 2: qualify I'm just to stay at home mom, And in
Speaker 2: my mind, I'm like, it's not just.
Speaker 1: But there's no great way to ask that question.
Speaker 2: And I think that in reading your book, one of
Speaker 2: the things that I was really learning is this struggle
Speaker 2: with identity.
Speaker 1: In the moment of career pause.
Speaker 4: First of all, what do you do? It is such
Speaker 4: a universal stumbling block. The phrase has just come to
Speaker 4: stand in for who are you? And when you rely
Speaker 4: on your professional title to sum up the things you
Speaker 4: care about. There was a woman I interviewed.
Speaker 1: And she.
Speaker 4: Was a teacher, and she got great prating from saying
Speaker 4: she was a teacher, because it immediately communicated that she
Speaker 4: was empathetic, that she might have been calm, that she
Speaker 4: was a communicator that she was intellectually curious, and it
Speaker 4: communicated so much about her without that many words, And
Speaker 4: when you part with that, you don't have that language
Speaker 4: as easily available to you. So you have to figure out, well,
Speaker 4: what belongs to me without that. If you are a teacher,
Speaker 4: or if you're a brand marketer, or if you were
Speaker 4: in the media, or if you were a lawyer, that
Speaker 4: skill and experience doesn't evautrate just because you're not practicing right,
Speaker 4: So if you want to identify with that, still go
Speaker 4: right ahead. There's something interesting about the opportunity of reflecting on, well,
Speaker 4: what parts of that identity go with me? What do
Speaker 4: I get to take from In my example, from that
Speaker 4: decade in brand marketing, I'm creative. I'm so curious about
Speaker 4: how women work and stories and all of that gets
Speaker 4: to go with me, And I wonder what else I
Speaker 4: can now explore in this stage of life. I've heard
Speaker 4: this anecdotally that women working out of the home me
Speaker 4: not want to ask a woman who they perceive as
Speaker 4: a stay at home mom. They might not want to
Speaker 4: ask them what to do because they don't want to
Speaker 4: make them uncomfortable. And I think that there is this
Speaker 4: fear of we're going to make them uncomfortable, but that's
Speaker 4: on them to work through. It's our job to include
Speaker 4: them in the conversation. And worse than being asked what
Speaker 4: you do is not being asked right because then you
Speaker 4: are automatically content out of the conversation. So another way
Speaker 4: to ask might be what are you up to for
Speaker 4: the rest of the day. It gives you a chance
Speaker 4: to talk about how you're actually spending your time. Right
Speaker 4: on the inverse, the real language that served me was
Speaker 4: right now, because it's a chapter in life. This is
Speaker 4: one part of my story. I get to be with
Speaker 4: my kids. That's what I'm actually doing with my time.
Speaker 4: We'll see what comes next.
Speaker 2: I love that so much because at the core of
Speaker 2: that question is someone just trying to understand what your
Speaker 2: interests are and how you spend your time. And so
Speaker 2: you're just reframing that.
Speaker 4: And I think there's a relief that we give ourselves
Speaker 4: that we don't have to be fixed into this decision forever.
Speaker 4: But we can own the power or the privilege to
Speaker 4: get to choose this and stand in the power of that.
Speaker 4: If you didn't choose, you can say I'm spending time
Speaker 4: with my kids right now.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of feelings I imagine that come up
Speaker 2: after deciding to take a career pause. What are some
Speaker 2: of those usual feelings. There's a real fear around becoming irrelevant.
Speaker 2: It's sort of the third myth that we try and
Speaker 2: dismantle in the book is this idea that your career
Speaker 2: pause is your career ender. For the reasons we just
Speaker 2: talked about, all of that experience goes with you, right
Speaker 2: and I wish I had done a better job of this,
Speaker 2: so I spent time with it on the book. When
Speaker 2: you're resigning, you're actually networking on your way out to
Speaker 2: essentially build the bridge back for yourself. You're taking a
Speaker 2: mentor out for coffee, or you're taking the administrative assistant
Speaker 2: who you had such a nice connection with out to
Speaker 2: a drink, because you want to be able to nurture
Speaker 2: that network that may serve you really well. And the
Speaker 2: nice thing about what the era we're living in right
Speaker 2: now is that we can stay connected. It takes thirty
Speaker 2: minutes a week maybe to scroll your LinkedIn feed and
Speaker 2: be able to engage with former employers, former colleagues, content
Speaker 2: and know that.
Speaker 1: That web still exists.
Speaker 4: The other thing I wish I'd done was take stock
Speaker 4: of my experience when I left. You know, you forget
Speaker 4: those little moments that lit you up, that those big
Speaker 4: wins that are sort of tangible and easy to communicate,
Speaker 4: and you want those intact and I think being able
Speaker 4: to sort of dignify what you did before reminds you
Speaker 4: that those skills are still there for you to draw on.
Speaker 4: The other piece is this idea of like, you can
Speaker 4: also update your LinkedIn headline to say ten your market
Speaker 4: or something interesting about you that makes you nance right,
Speaker 4: curious about women currently volunteering, were currently on sabbatical, something
Speaker 4: that just speaks to where you are without shutting yourself off.
Speaker 4: And then there's a fear of feeling stuck and not
Speaker 4: growling and not knowing what comes next. That's my favorite
Speaker 4: part to talk about because that's actually where.
Speaker 1: You can use this.
Speaker 4: Stage of life to get really intentional, and I think
Speaker 4: that's the part that's lesser talked about.
Speaker 2: My mom told me she took I think four years
Speaker 2: off when she had my brother and I we were
Speaker 2: two years apart, and she said those were some of
Speaker 2: the hardest years of her life.
Speaker 1: She really enjoyed working.
Speaker 2: And she felt that sense of stuckness for a person
Speaker 2: like that who takes a career pause and then thought,
Speaker 2: maybe this isn't for me.
Speaker 1: What does somebody do?
Speaker 4: Then you're allowed to reevaluate your decision at any time.
Speaker 4: First of all, it's normal to feel a little bit
Speaker 4: of grief as your trait and discomfort as your transition.
Speaker 4: Even if this was your choice, it's going to going
Speaker 4: to feel uncomfortable. And I think that the part around
Speaker 4: that is really starts with giving yourself permission that this
Speaker 4: stage of life you might have chosen or not chosen to,
Speaker 4: but it happened that you're making room to raise your kids,
Speaker 4: but you can actually make room to grow alongside. When
Speaker 4: we reframe that as yes, we are here in this
Speaker 4: moment in this chapter to focus on our family life
Speaker 4: and to thrive in family life, and for our family
Speaker 4: to thrive, they deserve a healthy and whole parent. What
Speaker 4: can I do now to plant seeds for my future
Speaker 4: vision state? You know, I think a lot about how
Speaker 4: when I was in the workforce, I know many women
Speaker 4: were this way. You know, you go at the end
Speaker 4: of your year end review and you kind of say
Speaker 4: the things you have to say to get a promotion
Speaker 4: or a salary bump. This is actually the only time
Speaker 4: where you're reporting only to yourself. And when you're reporting
Speaker 4: to yourself, what are those metrics? Right? And if you
Speaker 4: aren't going to get a promotion and you aren't going
Speaker 4: to get a salary, how else can you measure success?
Speaker 4: And too often we see women feel like, well, if
Speaker 4: I'm going to be taking care of my kids, my
Speaker 4: metric for success is their behavior the state of my home.
Speaker 4: But can we reframe this to think for ourselves if
Speaker 4: we want to measure our own growth, how can we
Speaker 4: start to back into what are measures of success? And
Speaker 4: I mean I talk about a number of different ways,
Speaker 4: but my favorite one is forecast your ideal day in
Speaker 4: five ten years, right, great detail where you're spending time with,
Speaker 4: what are you're spending time on, how do you feel
Speaker 4: in your body? How do you feel in your mind?
Speaker 4: Because that will reveal to you, well, what do I
Speaker 4: really care about moving myself toward? And I think in
Speaker 4: that way, we reclaim this time for ourselves and we
Speaker 4: dignify that time with goals.
Speaker 2: For another short break, but don't go anywhere. We'll be
Speaker 2: right back and we're back with njar roush Okay, going
Speaker 2: to Your American Mother's on Pause survey, the majority of
Speaker 2: stay at home moms say they find the process of
Speaker 2: applying to jobs pretty intimidating.
Speaker 1: Where do you think.
Speaker 2: The best place to look for the next big job
Speaker 2: or the next big opportunity is when.
Speaker 4: You have been on a career pause. Well, ideally you
Speaker 4: start that practice kind of right away. There's such an
Speaker 4: interesting moment of self study, this idea that once you
Speaker 4: step into a career break, no one's tracking those accomplishments,
Speaker 4: but you can. Can you write down and make a
Speaker 4: list in your phone iPhone out We're on a Google
Speaker 4: doc of what's a moment that sparked your interest, What's
Speaker 4: something that made you feel proud this week? Any and
Speaker 4: all things. And it might seem completely disparate, but when
Speaker 4: you look back, the dots will connect and they'll do
Speaker 4: two things. One and I'll use the example of this
Speaker 4: woman in North Carolina who what jumped out to her
Speaker 4: and looking back at a year of notes was that
Speaker 4: one time that she helped her local school system organize
Speaker 4: a new bus route for her area which was underserved.
Speaker 4: One it revealed to her that she's actually really interested
Speaker 4: in project management. Second thing, when she realized she wanted
Speaker 4: to go into project management, which was not necessarily like
Speaker 4: a full pivot, but it was an evolution from where
Speaker 4: she was. She started to put the bullets under her
Speaker 4: experience over these last couple of years together, and she
Speaker 4: was able to fancify that one experience to make it relevant.
Speaker 4: Game changing suddenly gave her an ability to speak with
Speaker 4: confidence to number of relevant experiences that she had during
Speaker 4: that time away. And I'm not saying brush under the
Speaker 4: rug that she paused her career to take care of
Speaker 4: family life, but she has a way in which to
Speaker 4: speak to how she expanded her skills in like really
Speaker 4: tangible practical ways.
Speaker 2: What are some pitfalls to look out for when you're
Speaker 2: planning a return to work.
Speaker 4: I ran into this and I work for myself. Whatever
Speaker 4: your shift is that you're stepping into around career and family.
Speaker 4: When you're entering in a new season, there's re examination
Speaker 4: between your partner and you, and so we go back
Speaker 4: to those meetings around how might we think about the
Speaker 4: dynamic that's shifting. In this case, it might not be
Speaker 4: a money conversation, but it might be a roles and
Speaker 4: responsibilities conversation right, And I think too often we've been
Speaker 4: so focused on the re entry and our children have
Speaker 4: grown along side and maybe their needs have changed, but
Speaker 4: we try and have similar to the money meetings are
Speaker 4: pretty consistent back to school. It is a sort of
Speaker 4: normal inflection point or revisiting period where we've re examined
Speaker 4: the routines, who's doing pickups, lay out all the cards
Speaker 4: and the fair play, and reassign them because what we
Speaker 4: don't want to see is we take on more work
Speaker 4: outside of the home and we're still holding all of
Speaker 4: the cards that we were before. For many women who
Speaker 4: have been carrying the sort of unpaid intellectual emotional labor
Speaker 4: for so long, it can very quickly continue to default
Speaker 4: that way unless you intentionally have that dialogue, and not
Speaker 4: just with your husband, with your kids too. I got
Speaker 4: some great wisdom from Tova Klein, who I interviewed for
Speaker 4: the book, and she said, it's not about working in
Speaker 4: or out of the home.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: We know that there are equally healthy outcomes for children
Speaker 4: no matter what. It's about having a present parent when
Speaker 4: you are there, So how can you redefine intently what
Speaker 4: that presence is going to look like for you? And
Speaker 4: maybe I'll give you my example. I now work until
Speaker 4: four thirty every day, and I return home and I
Speaker 4: put my phone away on the front console table and
Speaker 4: I don't pick it up again untill eight. So I
Speaker 4: know that from an hour's perspective, I'm spending far fewer hours.
Speaker 4: But that was what allows me the ability to feel
Speaker 4: really confident that they're still getting a whole and present parent.
Speaker 4: The other piece of this is our needs and wants
Speaker 4: are allowed to shift over time, just like the whole
Speaker 4: family units.
Speaker 2: Nothing makes me feel more loved and cared for than
Speaker 2: when someone puts their phone away. Oh and so I
Speaker 2: think your kids must feel that me too. Okay, this
Speaker 2: is Simone's great question and I want to share it
Speaker 2: even though she's not here. She said she wants to
Speaker 2: talk child care. This feels like the biggest barrier for
Speaker 2: her and most of the moms that she speaks to,
Speaker 2: and the biggest struggle. So during her pause, it was
Speaker 2: hard to find help and then pay for it. What
Speaker 2: are some creative ways to find help?
Speaker 4: I think the first piece was that she struggled, and
Speaker 4: if I remember correctly, with this idea that if I'm
Speaker 4: not doing paid work, I don't deserve paid help, right,
Speaker 4: and I think that that sadly, we see reflected in
Speaker 4: the research that one in three women feel that way.
Speaker 4: This work is of value, but it's also work, and
Speaker 4: no one should expect to do that twenty four to
Speaker 4: seven without breaks. With that in mind, the next question becomes, Okay,
Speaker 4: the most readily available person to give you a break
Speaker 4: is your partner in the case of a two parent household.
Speaker 4: So how might we have conversations with our partner in
Speaker 4: the case of especially if we don't have access to
Speaker 4: paid help, about how we might be able to take
Speaker 4: the mornings to ourselves, if our partner can wake up
Speaker 4: with our child, or even rotate mornings so that we
Speaker 4: can have a dependable hour every morning that we can
Speaker 4: work out. You know, we can invest in whatever lights
Speaker 4: us up and keeps us healthy.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Part two of that is how might you think about
Speaker 4: what else you can delegate? It doesn't always have to
Speaker 4: be childcare, and I have a full robust list at
Speaker 4: the end of the help chapter. Maybe for you it's
Speaker 4: not about getting help with the kids, but it is
Speaker 4: about the stuff that you do want to delegate, like laundry,
Speaker 4: gift buying, cleaning, in general meals, whatever that might be.
Speaker 4: Have that conversation with yourself and in the home about
Speaker 4: what are stuff that I can either delegate or let
Speaker 4: go of for this time or lower the bar on,
Speaker 4: Like we know that we do have to do laundry
Speaker 4: in a house, but how often do we have to
Speaker 4: do it? I heard one woman say I just bought
Speaker 4: ten under It turns out that like getting ten under
Speaker 4: pats of underwear was just cheaper.
Speaker 1: I didn't have to.
Speaker 4: Get like a cleaning lady, but I could only have
Speaker 4: to do laundry once a month, once a week and
Speaker 4: not made.
Speaker 1: Sense for us.
Speaker 4: And then the really creative ones were the ones who
Speaker 4: decided to do like a coworking swap where one takes
Speaker 4: three kids at a time and then the two others
Speaker 4: get a break for a few hours each afternoon. It's
Speaker 4: like a win win, But it does take saying you
Speaker 4: need help, putting yourself out there with friends, asking what
Speaker 4: other solutions other people are using. It can be nanny shares,
Speaker 4: it can be mothers helpers, It can be your partner
Speaker 4: or family. But everyone deserves those breaks.
Speaker 2: Nah has you're doing these community events for your book launch,
Speaker 2: do you find that women are gravitating towards a chapter
Speaker 2: or an idea.
Speaker 4: In particular, the chapter on reframing our sense of ambition
Speaker 4: that are in our sense of identity is always you know,
Speaker 4: I think it sits at the heart of this work
Speaker 4: because we have been fed this idea that our worth
Speaker 4: is so tied up to what we do for a living,
Speaker 4: and if we part with that, who are we? How
Speaker 4: do we exist? How do we stay relevant? The other
Speaker 4: piece that people are really interested in when they're in
Speaker 4: community is when they look around and they realize, wait
Speaker 4: a second, this is not the stay at home mom
Speaker 4: fore yesteryear. I think this sort of stay at home
Speaker 4: working mother divide has done us no good and we need,
Speaker 4: we need a lot more together in this for these
Speaker 4: next few years.
Speaker 2: In thinking about the stay at home mother of yesteryear,
Speaker 2: I was really interested to learn that the term stay
Speaker 2: at home mom only came into our vernacular in the
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties, and at the time it was meant to
Speaker 2: modernize the title housewife or homemaker. And so now in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, your book is out and you've put
Speaker 2: your stake in the ground, which is the word that
Speaker 2: you use last time you came on the podcast. How
Speaker 2: do you see the term and the perception of stay
Speaker 2: at home mom evolve in the future.
Speaker 4: My hope is where you can just blur the edges
Speaker 4: around it and just get rid of it entirely. I mean,
Speaker 4: no one replies I'm a working mom. Like if you
Speaker 4: ask what you do, you don't say I'm a working mom.
Speaker 4: There's no reason to say I'm a stay at home mom.
Speaker 4: Right Yeah, the ability to just say and I go
Speaker 4: back to right now, I get to be with my kids.
Speaker 1: We'll see what comes next. One part of a very
Speaker 1: ongoing story.
Speaker 2: So I'm obsessed with book dedications, and I open up
Speaker 2: your book and it has a beautiful dedication. It says
Speaker 2: for my father for always honoring my mother's impact in
Speaker 2: our home and for believing in me and this work too.
Speaker 2: Can you share more about the dedication.
Speaker 4: We immigrated here when I was three, and he always
Speaker 4: worshiped the ground my mother walked on. I knew that,
Speaker 4: but I didn't know how fully he credited her for
Speaker 4: the work that he was able to do until I
Speaker 4: got a little bit older. And he always made so
Speaker 4: clear that he was not able to do what he
Speaker 4: could do about her. He was building a company at
Speaker 4: the time where there was a lot of immigrants coming
Speaker 4: in from India, and she was the one who would
Speaker 4: settle them into the local community and help line up
Speaker 4: housing and schools, that she would house them in many
Speaker 4: cases and they would live with us. I mean, it
Speaker 4: was really she was his right, She was his head
Speaker 4: of hr and he paid her such respect that I
Speaker 4: didn't even fully understand when I took my own career
Speaker 4: pods the shaman stigma I was going to feel. My
Speaker 4: mother did ultimately return to work outside of the home,
Speaker 4: but they always seemed like such a team. And then
Speaker 4: that is and maybe is why I talk so much
Speaker 4: about that mindset going into these kinds of shifts.
Speaker 1: Did he support your career pause? Did you consult him
Speaker 1: about it before you decided?
Speaker 4: I did, and he he did. I think, you know,
Speaker 4: he also put this faith in me that I would
Speaker 4: be able.
Speaker 1: To turn it into something.
Speaker 4: I had that belief and confidence pretty early on. And
Speaker 4: we don't always get those messages when we're young, and
Speaker 4: we don't always get those messages from the people who
Speaker 4: raise us or surround us. And I do feel lucky
Speaker 4: in that way, and it is absolutely because I had
Speaker 4: him in my corner.
Speaker 1: It's so beautiful.
Speaker 2: This almost feels like it's been a lifetime of practice
Speaker 2: and of work. Who are really a culture shifter, And
Speaker 2: I'm so glad that this book exists in the world,
Speaker 2: and I'm so glad that you've been leading this charge.
Speaker 2: So thank you for sharing your time with us today.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Danielle nehal Ruche is the founder and CEO
Speaker 2: of Mother Untitled and the author of The Power Pause,
Speaker 2: which is out.
Speaker 3: Now, that's it for today's show. Tomorrow it is Wellness Wednesday, y'all,
Speaker 3: and we're talking all about financial health and how to
Speaker 3: use AI to reach our money goals. Here to walk
Speaker 3: us through it is the self proclaimed Beyonce of personal finance,
Speaker 3: Melissa Jean Baptiste. Join the conversation using hashtag the bright
Speaker 3: Side and connect with us on social media at Hello
Speaker 3: Sunshine on Instagram and at the bright Side Pod on
Speaker 3: TikTok Oh, and feel free to tag us at Simone
Speaker 3: Boyce and at Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.