WEBVTT - Candid Convo: Neha Ruch: Navigating Professional and Personal Identity As a Mother 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:09.280 Welcome to She Pivots. I'm your host to Emily Tish Sussman. 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:12.440 One of my goals in starting this podcast is to 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:15.040 highlight voices and stories of women who went through something 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.000 deeply personal, only to come out of it on the 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:22.120 other side better than they could have imagined. After launching 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.840 She Pivots last year, it's clear it's not a small group. 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:28.440 This applies to most women, whether it's a big pivot 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.880 or even just a tiny pivot. What's clear is there's 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.040 still a lot of unpacking to do around pivoting. So 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.160 as we're continuing to build this platform and community through 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.840 new episodes, I wanted to also bring you more stories, 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:46.040 unfiltered and honest. So I'll be sitting down with more women, 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.120 maybe the occasional man, some of whom have mastered their 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.959 own pivot, some are just starting the pivoting journey. Are 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.400 some just have something to teach us about the deeply 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.720 personal moments of life. So stay tuned for more of 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:01.840 the candid conversation this season. 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:04.000 Let's jump right in. 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.839 This conversation today is probably one of the most substantive 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.440 that I'm going to have on this podcast about what 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:15.800 it means to pivot and what it means for your 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:17.720 identity when you're doing all of that, because this is 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.240 the expert in this field as it is evolving right now, 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:26.880 the founder and I guess principle of mother untitled Neha 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:28.120 Rush Neha. 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.399 Let me just formally welcome. 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.039 You to she Pivots. Thank you. 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:35.440 So we were just chatting a little bit about how 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:37.720 we met, and I'm going to give it to you 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:38.320 to recount. 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.880 You had just run that fabulous piece for she knows 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.240 that my kids killed my career, and not one but 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:48.320 like fifty people sent it to me, but to it 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:53.080 in particular, said like, you two must meet, and I 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:55.920 feel like we made that happen within thirty seconds. 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:57.640 Yeah, I feel like I had the flip side of it. 0:01:57.680 --> 0:01:59.480 As soon as I wrote the article, people were like, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.240 but you must have gotten this from Neha, and I 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:03.559 was like, tell me more about Neha. 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.040 I'd love to meet her. So how did you start it? 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:12.360 So when I had my first son in twenty sixteen, 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:16.880 he was born New Year's Day and it was at 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.640 the height of the Girl Boss era. Leanin had been 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.639 the rallying cry of my business school graduation and yet 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.600 when I was rocking in that chair with him, I 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.080 felt the sense of contentment and belonging that I had 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:31.600 been looking for. I'm not going to paint that with 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.320 like rose colored lenses and say like I wasn't leaking 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.720 milk and like sleep deprived. But I did find something 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:39.960 I'd been looking for and lacking in my career to 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.720 that point. And I, you know, spent a decade in advertising. 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.920 I'd just gotten my MBA. The expectations were high on 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.720 my like very linear career track. But I sat at 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.240 that point that I wanted to downshift, and I started 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.440 to come face to face with like all the societal 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.520 stigma that comes with the quote unquote stay at home mother. Right, 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.800 So I started hearing like, ugh, you took a spot 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:08.160 at Stanford, Like you took that spot just to stay 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.079 at home, and or like what are you going to 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.440 do all day? All of the perceptions that you assume 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.239 with choosing to focus your life on caregiving for a chapter. 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.600 And meanwhile, on the opposite like days when I wasn't 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.120 still consulting because I initially downshifted, I was meeting all 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:30.760 these incredible women who were the women you assume like 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:35.800 they were in New York. They'd built huge, wonderful, meaningful careers, 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:37.360 and we're saying, you know what, I want to take 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:39.400 a thoughtful pause and make room for family life for 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:42.320 a moment, or I really trust my career to date, 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:44.960 and I'm going to start to freelance or consult just 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.560 to build in some more flexibility. And none of it 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.040 matched this caricature that I was being served up of 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:51.800 the stay at home mom. And I was looking around 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:53.920 and there was a ton of traditional content around the 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.600 working monther quote unquote, but everything had abandoned the stay 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.280 at home mother in the nineteen fifties. 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:01.600 But did you did you really feel like there were 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.920 professional women even in twenty sixteen. I'm not talking like 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:07.880 fifteen years ago, but that many years ago that were 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:11.880 openly saying I'm looking to take some kind of down 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:13.760 shift for personal reasons. 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.120 Yes, because I didn't feel like I heard that. 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.840 Maybe it was because I was in Washington and in 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.679 politics and you were You didn't exist if you didn't 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.200 work in mean people that worked in different industries that 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.480 live in Washington were like, yes, I was. What did 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.080 my friend referre to himself as he said he was 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.360 like mister cellophane in Chicago like everyone just like looked 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.560 right through Hi because he wasn't important in politics. But 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:39.000 so I felt like I didn't necessarily hear people acknowledging 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:40.080 that you did hear it. 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.240 I did, but you had to stop to listen to 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.320 hear it because it was layered with a little bit 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.080 of shame yet a little bit, but it was masked, 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:50.800 I mean. And by the way, like one of my 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:55.200 favorite anecdotes is I was sitting at a dinner and 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.200 there was a woman I knew who worked two days 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.400 a week, and I worked two days a week at 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.800 that time, I identified with being on a posit or 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:03.800 a downshift, and she was like, no, I'm a full 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.440 time working mother. And it was and I was looking 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.279 at her and thinking, we work the exact same amount, 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.760 and we're at home the exact same amount. But there 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.560 was a sort of veil of and I wouldn't say 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.599 that she was intentionally masquading, which you know, her version 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.640 of balance. It was she identified and didn't she identified 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:26.359 with working out of the home, and she did not 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.640 want identify with any sense of slowing down. 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:31.880 Yeah, I hear it is that she didn't want to 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.920 lose that like the privilege of that identity, yes, of 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.200 being a working out of home person person but whether 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.479 it was mother or not mother, but like a out 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:42.359 of home working person, she didn't want to lose the 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:43.360 privilege of that identity. 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:48.159 Yes. And so the short answer is there were incredible 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.240 numbers of women who were already making room for family life. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.360 And what I will tell you also is what I 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.120 was looking at was, if you go back to twenty sixteen, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:01.000 Pew Research was already saying this generation of women identify 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.600 with motherhood more. There was a rise of flex work 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:09.040 right like the wing work WRK, the flexible work marketplace, 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:11.279 it was all on the rise. So I was looking 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:13.320 at it saying, like, you're going to see an increasing 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:17.040 population of women who have the access to be able 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.680 to create a career on their own terms, and an 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.359 increasing number of women who want to make rim for 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:27.200 other priorities for a period of time. And so you know, 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.520 I think a lot of it was the moment in 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.599 time in twenty sixteen was it was this perfect collision 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.520 of like me wanting my own space where I could 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.400 start to string together a collective of women who are 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.719 reshaping the narrative for my own sake to say, like, wait, 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.080 there's like an incredible cohort of women that I belonged to, 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.440 and also feeling like there was a dearth of any 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:53.160 representation of anything that was beyond the prototypical. 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.000 Yeah that wasn't like the black and white Yes, the 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:56.120 working not working. 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:56.479 You know. 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:58.680 It's interesting over the course of doing the interviews and 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:05.120 doing this show is that I anticipated that two points 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.360 would be common that I would hear as like the 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.320 intervening life event, like the personal thing that changed your perspective. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.680 I anticipated it being one having kids whenever you had them, 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.560 although I do I definitely don't have exclusively mothers on 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:21.200 the show, and the other being the pandemic as being 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.480 things that really reshaped people's perspective in their lives. 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:26.960 And what has surprised us as. 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.560 We go through these interviews is more likely it's actually 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.320 twenty sixteen and the election, the surprise that people felt 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.120 in the election of Donald Trump and what they thought 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:39.320 that meant for their own identities as women working out 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:43.200 of home or not, and the country's perception like what 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.680 was acceptable you happened to have had your son in 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:51.560 twenty sixteen, which I also did, Was that a factor 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:52.480 in it for you? 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.239 At all, I've just heard that from so many guests. 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.760 Do you think that, I don't know, change your perspective, 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.880 but added to the perspective that you were as you 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:01.600 were thinking about your change and identity. 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.560 That's such an interesting part of it. I think that 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.760 now you said that, and I've remembered this picture I 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.320 have of my three best friends from home. So I'm 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.160 really close to my friends from home, and they had 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.040 all come. I was the first to have a child, 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:17.320 and we have a picture of Bodie I'd brought like 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.160 American flag balloons. We thought we were electing the first female, 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:22.880 right yeah, And that was what we really believed, sitting 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.440 in life the New York City Echo Chamber, and in 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:31.520 that moment, I remember feeling the most feminist I'd ever felt. 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.679 And you know so much of Mother entitled When we 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.960 parse around where do the stigmas exist around quote unquote 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:39.960 stay at home mother, one of them is around if 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:46.160 you choose this, choose to pause, you are an anti feminist, 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.800 which is obviously like a trope that we want to upend. 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:51.959 Whereas I was feeling the most connected to women that 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.839 I'd ever felt. And I think that to your point 0:08:56.040 --> 0:09:00.160 twenty sixteen was a feeling of banning to get other, 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.960 wanting to do our part, believing so much so that 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.480 my feminism was not dictated by whether I was working 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:08.520 out of the home or in the home, but because 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:13.520 I was part of this collective, collective voice advocating for 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.560 what felt right for us and our families at the time. 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.440 And I do think that collective power in twenty sixteen 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.760 probably did help shape that that sense of wanting to 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.720 be a part of it, wanting to explore it and 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:27.840 pull the threads apart. 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.320 I mean, you make a good point about what I 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.120 considered to be feminism right now, I think as compared 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.320 to what we had been taught as kids. And I 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.040 think the way that our parents thought about feminism is 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:40.400 that I just think generationally, I just think it's the 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:41.880 way it had to happen. I don't know that it 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:43.400 could have happened another way. Maybe it could have, I 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.040 don't know. But the way that women went to work 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.800 out of home was to emulate men, and so they 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.720 couldn't show up in the workplace as anything other than 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.440 I am showing up essentially as a man in a workplace. 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.199 Yeah. Yes, And you know, if you really go back 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:05.520 to the history, because as I've been writing the book, 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.960 it's been really interesting delving into it more of the 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.880 origins of like first wave, second wave, third wave feminism. 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.880 Women went into the workforce really during the World War 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.280 to just fill the slots, and then it just exposed this, 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.599 wait a second, we want to like stay in the workforce. 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.600 Except at the same time there was this incredible push 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.360 around advertising and the advent of television. We started to 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:33.400 see these ads depicting the woman at home wearing heels, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.520 pushing a vacuum around. And what emerged was this like 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:40.400 huge chasm, this power chasm between the woman in the 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.000 workplace making money and the woman like teetering around in 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.320 heels like serving up her like cocktails at the end 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.360 of the day. And that power chasm never went away. 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:51.680 And you know, the media really invented the mommy wars, 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.400 like just because like media loves a moment where they 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.480 can like pit two sides against each other, and so 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.800 the mommy wars were like invented over the course of 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:03.880 the eighties, and we created this power chasm that really 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.920 like obviously had to close over the years because so 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.120 much changed. Women had access to digital learning, so that 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.800 they're able to like keep their hand in the game. 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.400 They were like getting married and having kids much later, 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:22.280 so their decrued education and work experience. None of the 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.679 fictions around that, like ad with the woman pushing the 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.760 vacuum in heels, actually existed, and yet we sort of 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:33.240 inherited it and brought it with us and like perpetuated 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.320 the idea of what was feminist and what was not right. 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.720 Yeah, and now I feel like my acceptance, like my 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.920 version of feminism is just to say, like, do what 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.920 makes you happy. Like, not everyone's going to have the 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.720 same model. In fact, nobody can have the same model 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.560 as anybody else. But I actually don't think that the 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:55.920 generation above us has an easy time accepting that because 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:57.520 it wasn't the way for them. 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.680 No, And I think that that version feminism had to exist, right, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.720 like second wave feminism has to exist to push women, 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:08.480 you know, into a place of being respected for their 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.160 contributions and their value in the workforce and the ability 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.000 to advocate for equal play like all of that stuff that, 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.520 by the way, is still we still need all of that. 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.760 And so I think the generation prior would say, we 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.480 aren't done. We're not done with that. Why are we 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.840 like pushing choice feminism now is it going to unwind this? 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.080 And I think what's interesting about feminism today is I 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.120 don't think it's just about yes, we want the choice 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.320 and like we should all do whatever makes us happy 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.400 and strong and all the things we're advocating for the 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.480 supports to be able to set us up for success 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:49.400 on feminine terms, right, it's recognizing that we can't like 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:54.239 we do birth children. Our bodies are actually constructed differently, 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.560 and so the workforce and or like the way in 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:03.240 which we approach work family has to align with the 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:05.200 realities of what it means to be a woman, which 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.720 means taking a closer look at what that is right. 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:09.920 And so it's interesting because some of them when I 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.800 first launched Mother Untitled, I did feel like a lot 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.400 of women perceived what I was doing as in some 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.520 ways traditionalist, when by no means, first of all, let 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.600 me just say, like, I don't actually think choosing to 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:24.400 pause or downshift your career at any point is the 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.520 right thing for children and or the right thing for families. 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:29.160 I think it was the right thing for me in 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.960 that moment, and I think many women either because they 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.720 can't offset the cost of child care and or because 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:36.480 they actually want to be at home for a period 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.079 of time, that is the right choice for them because 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:40.920 it works for their families. But it's not. You know, 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.360 there's proven successful outcomes for children and families no matter what, 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:45.840 whether you're working in the home or out of the 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.920 home or existing in between. But when I started, I 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.800 think a big thought was, well, she's encouraging women to pause, 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.520 And what I would say is no, I'm trying to 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.439 create a narrative wherein if women choose to pause or downshift, 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.640 if they they do step out of the traditional workforce 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.240 for a period of time, they're not only respected and 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:07.640 valued for the contribution in the home, but they're not 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.840 seen as their brain dying. So that when and if 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:14.640 they choose to go back, which ninety percent of women 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.360 do and aim to do, when and if they choose 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.560 to go back, they have an easier time entering because 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.520 they're not ritteno off and counted out as like shriveling 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:24.560 and like their homes. 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.840 Yeah, it's so funny you put that language saying to it, 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.000 saying that it was seen as traditionalists because even though 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.880 I was basically launching like a corollary concept. 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:35.760 I think at. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.880 First I also saw it as traditionalist, and I was like, 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.000 but wait, I want to talk about the workplace. And 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:43.960 I think it was because I had such a hard 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.960 time seeing myself. I think it's why identified with that 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:48.840 story you were saying about the woman who couldn't see 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.880 herself as not working. I couldn't see myself outside an 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.320 identity as not a working person. And it had nothing 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:56.720 to do with being a mother or not. I didn't 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.080 necessarily want to be like a working mom. 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:00.440 I just couldn't. 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:02.840 It was too hard for me to accept my identity 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.760 as anything other than a working person, and so no 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.360 matter how much I was working, it was hard for 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.320 me to give the same And I think I probably 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.680 still struggle with this, but to give the same level 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.560 of acknowledgment of like the work that goes in if 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.040 someone is not doing any work outside the home and 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:23.560 in any way like whether it's a little bit part 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:25.440 time or full time. 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:26.920 But I think I still struggle with that. 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.120 I think it's so ingrained in my identity that the 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.440 place that I find value is whether the work product 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:35.160 that I create in work outside the home is valuable. Yes, 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.760 it's so ingrained in me that it's very hard to 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.120 view myself in terms of success, like being successful in 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:41.920 any other way. 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:45.800 I think it's the single biggest stumbling block for women 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:49.920 when they choose to part with the linear career your track, 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.480 even if they're not identifying with taking a full pause 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:54.760 to be at home, like, even if they're doing anything 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.080 apart from the linear career track that they were on. 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.320 It's this idea of so much self worth is tied 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.040 to our salary and our titles. And I mean that's 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:09.320 the thesis around untitled with mother Untitled is this idea 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.560 that when you step into this untitled chapter, we part 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.720 with a lot of the ego and the identity derived 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.800 from career ascension. And what does that feel like to 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:23.720 exist in the vastness of the untitled space? Right? And 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.000 by the way, the other part of that is the 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.760 other part of untitled is the dismantling between the antiquated 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.320 titles of stay at home and working mother right, and 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.760 so stay at home you can understand why we would 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.640 champion to start to blow the edges around that because 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.480 it's so black and white, it comes with so many 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:45.280 societal trips. But working muther right when you so closely 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:47.320 ident What I'm hearing from you is you so closely 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.640 hold on to like I am a working mother, that 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:55.880 anything that is not that or that is working in 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.480 other ways, whether you're volunteering or whether you're working in 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.240 the home, feels antithetical as opposed to just part of 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.040 an expansive identity. Yeah. Right, And I think that that 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:09.639 is the really the opportunity for women right now is 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.359 to exist in the gray, is to exist in that 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:16.320 mast in between and say that way you're you're not 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:20.920 confined to worth and success in one format, and your 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.680 options are open so that you can sort of tap 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:25.399 into what you need to make room for in that 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.920 moment in time without penalty on the other side, Right, I. 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.920 Think it's so they're so complimentary, like what you're doing 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.720 and what we're doing with she Pivots, I always look 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:37.680 I respect your work so much, and I always look 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:39.840 at them as being sort of like two sides of 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.359 the same coin. Like I feel like what we're trying 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.520 to do with she Pivots is to tell the stories 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.960 about the personal events that happens to someone that changes 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.720 their perspective so that they can then find a different 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.080 thing they create, whether it's a career, whether it's a 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.400 business like whatever, maybe it's happiness in the same thing, 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.800 but changing their perspective due to personal reasons and then 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:10.040 finding something professional that comes out of it, like changing 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:11.119 that narrative around that. 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.080 And I feel like you are really sitting. 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.399 In that place, like in that moment of the change, 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.119 and specifically for mothers in the child here, and I 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:21.760 think that there's a lot of debate around like, you know, 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.680 should we have should we just talk about parenthood, should 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:27.119 you talk about motherhood? Did we just talk about women 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:28.800 in general? I get that a lot. We just did 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.560 our first heap pivots, but you know, really, oh yes, 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:33.760 it was our very first. 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:35.960 Which is a gift, by the way, for men, I 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.360 think the men need that permission. By the way, there's 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.879 a rising stat around men choosing to positive careers. But 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:47.040 I think men unfortunately are you know, feeling limited sometimes 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.959 by the expectations of what that role is supposed to 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.240 include being a male partner in a family, in a 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.000 two parent households right, And so then when men find 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.119 themselves at career junctures that we have a lot of 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:03.040 discourse around, they don't have the same resources and conversation 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:05.879 and I think that is one of the privileges of 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.000 being a woman is that we talk a lot, especially 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.040 I I mean, like we like to talk. 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:12.960 Yeah, we could do the show, maybe make it like 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.920 a twenty four hour talk, then we could go all day. 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:18.920 But I do think, like I think about for the 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.199 male at home parent right now, there are you know, 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.639 at least women who choose to pause or take a 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.600 non linear path half your podcast. They have mother untitled 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.680 that there's an absence of that. So I'm glad that 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:31.800 you're doing my heap pivots. I totally agree. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.600 I think that even what I'm seeing, I feel like 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.879 most people I know who had kids like pandemic on 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.320 like in the last three years are gay men. Is 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:46.040 most of the parents that I know, and of new 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.000 parents that I know, and of the parents that I 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:50.840 see of kids that are sort of school age when 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:52.879 parents are starting to kind of like group off and 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.800 like make plans, I find it hard for I think 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:01.320 the gay dads in particular to find their pla because 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.639 they just sort of don't naturally fall into any of 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.919 the like very hetero categories of like the way that 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:09.919 families tend to group. And so I think we do 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:11.760 need to be intentional about this, And I actually try 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:13.720 to talk about every time we have these like parenting talks, 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.399 but like think about the makeup of the parents in 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:20.280 your class, like how they naturally have these random encounters 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:22.800