SURVIVING WORKING AND PARENTING

SURVIVING WORKING AND PARENTING

I never considered what would happen with my career once I had children. Many young professionals don’t consider the road beyond graduating from high school and forging the pathway to that sought after career. When life happened and I got married, within a year we had our first baby while both he and I were working and attending college. I was working in my chosen career and my husband was starting college. We’d never considered the cost of childcare and the rest is a speed trip we took into reality of raising kids.

As a mom who’d worked full time as an engineer through the birth of four kids and finding a way to pump milk to nurse each of them for an entire year after their birth while working, I can tell you, having a great partner who helps makes all the difference.

MINDSET CHECK

Family comes first, then career, and then anything else. As a working mom who is pursuing a career it takes more of a balancing game to be able to decide what is important to you at each phase of your career, marriage and parenting. Raising kids should always be number one since they are with you for life. Most careers have some leeway and give that if you have to take a job that you are able to get home early, have flexibility but the pay is low, doing so for the sake of the family is always best. For example, my mother in law was a social worker, but she and my father in law had six kids and she decided not to be a social worker, but to be a foster parent where she mentored other foster parents. When she was done raising kids, she went back to school for her Masters and within five years became a principle.

Parenting and working requires the tenacity to consider how a goal may not just affect your end game, but your family. Keep your mindset on a positive bent by feeding it with the care and feeding it needs. Finding other working moms, being there for each other, giving a positive word helps all of us succeed in the journey.

THE POWER OF SAYING NO

Saying ‘no’ isn’t easy for many ambitious working parents. You are so used to accommodating everyone’s needs. That needs to change. If you can’t do extra work after you get off the job, say so, and allow yourself to seek another job if the employer doesn’t have realistic expectations of the job.

PLANNING MAKES PERFECT

In order to survive managing a home, a marriage and your job, plan your day, your week, and your month. If you start to see unnecessary events that suck the time out of your schedule for rest, spending time with your kids, remove them. If you need to get stuff done around the house, delegate it. Everyone in the house should pitch in and if they have, but there is still much to do, hire it out or forget about it.

ANCHORING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH KIDS AND SPOUSE

With all the juggling of a career, raising a family, and maintaining a relationship, we sometimes forget to feed the relationships that count. Don’t push time aside from spending it with your kids and your spouse. Play with each other, cook together, shop together, watch movies as a family, make those relationships the priority over all else. When you anchor your relationships you have a continuous cheering section every time you get home from work.

By LM Preston

New Book Homeschooling And Working While Raising Amazing Learners: Amazon www.EmpoweredSteps.com 

Defying Social Expectations

Defying Social Expectations

By LM Preston

I was always a tomboy when I was younger. I loved being around boys because they were less emotional. Growing up with a ton of cousins that were rough and tumble taught me to speak up for myself.

Being a woman in a man’s world isn’t easy. It’s not for the faint at heart. Many girls walk into careers in science, military, manual labor only to run the heck out of there since it seems like it’s a losing battle.

We need to follow through in order to make headway, to get used to one another. To build a better product, environment, and innovations.

COMBAT FEELING AWKWARD

Diverse opinions and viewpoints build a better product that serves everyone. Having a workplace or business that is not diverse hurts innovation. Men and woman definitely have different points of view and it helps combat problems from many perspectives.

The main issue we women have working in male dominated environments is not fitting in with the masses. In these environments, you have to be comfortable in your differences and fight for your place by using your voice.

MEN CAN BE GREAT ALLYs WHEN YOU PROVE YOURSELF

Being consistent and standing out gains respect. Not only that, it makes speaking up and demanding your place in your working environment easier. Practice makes perfect.

THE GENTLE TOUCH

It’s a tricky place to be as a woman. You want to roar and say, “I am here.” Don’t do that. Be watchful of your environment. Assess the players. Then observe how others fit into the equation. After you have the lay of the land, get involved. Start speaking up during meetings. Everything you say, back it up with facts.

PUT YOUR EMOTIONS IN CHECK

One of the best part of being a woman is our ability to sense and sympathize. In a male dominated workplace, you can’t be to sensitive. You have to speak up for yourself and set boundaries. Also, you have to realize that men communicate in a more aggressive manner. However, they don’t usually hold grudges. Once they get it off their chest, they move on.

SET BOUNDARIES

Setting boundaries is the best way to handle confrontational males in the workplace. If you don’t tell a person they are doing something you don’t like, they won’t know. Don’t be to nurturing at work. Be careful of falling into a typical role as a woman. Being the coffee girl or the note-taking person can your ability to be on a level playing field challenging.

READ BODY LANGUAGE

Taking the time to understand and read body language can give you insight into your peers. It also allows you to position yourself, your body in a way that says, take me seriously and listen to me.

DON’T GIVE UP – GET BETTER

The more we women keep the road steady to progress upward into positions of influence, our male peers will get used to sharing the space. Taking the time to point out the benefits of a diverse workplace each step along the way. We can start to see and gain sponsors that understand the challenges of being a woman in a man’s world.

As a female engineer, I’ve seen a lot of progress over the years. It’s why I stay, it’s why I want to mentor other woman who desire a career in the science and tech industry. It’s why my daughters now work in a much more fulfilling and equalized environment than I did. We each represent one step closer to defying the odds.