Neha (00:00):

When you’ve opened up this space in your life in some way, not that you’re rolling in time suddenly, but if you can commit to 10 minutes a day or an hour a week, we see in the research, nine out of 10 women will say, having outside hobbies improves their mood at home, right? So we know that to be true. And not only is it great for your mental health, but strategically it lets you use this time to really intentionally feel like you’re shaping what comes next in a big way.

Dr. Sarah (00:36):

When we become parents, we have to redefine a lot of things. But what if redefining success really also meant embracing flexibility and allowing your career to grow and shift alongside your family? I am so excited to be welcoming Neha Ruch back onto the Securely Attached podcast. Neha is a good friend of mine. She’s the founder of Mother Untitled and she’s the author of the new book, The Power Pause: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids and Come Back Stronger Than Ever, which is coming out next Tuesday the 14th. So in our conversation today, Neha shares her own story of how she stepped away from a successful career in brand marketing and strategy when she became a mother, and how that choice transformed her perspective on success, identity, and the role of motherhood in her life. We’re going to explore the nuances of making these decisions, challenging the all or nothing mentality and learning to see a pause as a powerful move, not a step back. We also share some guidance on navigating this transition with intention and also some ways for keeping your spark of creativity alive as you might be rethinking your careers. So whether you’re considering a big change, just looking to dial things down a notch, or you just want to feel validated in whatever choice you’re making, this episode is packed with insights to help you make the most of this season in your life.

(02:12):

Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist and mom of two. In this podcast, I’ve taken all of my clinical experience, current research on brain science and child psychology and the insights I’ve gained on my own parenting journey and distilled everything down into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights so you can tune out the noise and tune into your own authentic parenting voice with confidence and calm. This is Securely Attached.

(02:41):

Hello, we have Neha back on the podcast. It is so good to see you again. How are you?

Neha (02:52):

I’m great. It’s so nice to see you again. I just can’t believe how many episodes have been in between that first one to now. Congratulations.

Dr. Sarah (03:00):

Thank you. Yeah, it’s been really fun. You are like an OG guest. You were on episode 21.

Neha (03:05):

Well, if it’s some comfort to you, it didn’t feel like that when we were recording back then.

Dr. Sarah (03:11):

I know, and you guys haven’t listened to the episode we did about hitting pause in your career and redefining what it means to be a stay-at-home parent. It was so such a great episode. I definitely recommend listening to it. So much has happened since then and now you have this amazing book coming out. Can you talk a little bit about what you were really hoping to communicate to people through this book?

Neha (03:42):

Well, I think this book is not so different from all the work we’ve been doing for so long. The platform I launched back in 2017 and I was very much planting seeds for it and growing it alongside family life. So it took a long time, a lot of chronicling and interviewing real moms in this stage of life. But the goal back then was in a sea of traditional working parent content, it was the height of the girl boss era, height of the lean in era. I wanted a dignified space on the internet that reshaped the narrative for ambitious women who were choosing to pause or shift for family life because oftentimes, and I felt this myself, we felt left out of the other conversations even though we still resonated with ambition and we were sort of left with this old trope around what the stay at home parent looked like back from the 1970s.

(04:38):

So I wanted a space that not only elevated and supported women in the stage, but also reflected a new much more empowering narrative. And with the book, I think similarly in a sea of titles that were really geared towards excelling in your career or climbing the ladder or letting go of other things so that you could climb the ladder. I wanted something that spoke to women and validated the choice to pause or downshift their career and gave a strategic roadmap to doing that while still growing alongside their family and really unlocking the possibility in it. So I hope it’s just the extension of this work in another vehicle to bring this movement out into the world in a big way.

Dr. Sarah (05:20):

Yeah, I mean I think what you do, and I’ve always resonated with your work, and interestingly as a mom who works as a mom who is not a stay at home mom who took a pause, but it looked very different. It was a moment where I paused after having kids to pivot and just reorganize. But I think I resonate with the work that you have always been doing and all of the things you so eloquently talk about in that it’s about having choice and feeling like you are empowered not only to make choices that work for you and your, but that you have community in doing it, that you don’t feel alone. Because the reality is yes, our paths come in infinite shapes and sizes, but there are a lot of us and there’s a lot of people who do the same things, but we feel alone. And when you could bring people together and say like, Hey, I want to redefine what it means for me to be a stay-at-home mom and find hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of other women who are like, oh, I’m on that path too. Thank you for saying that. This is a thing.

Neha (06:29):

And I would say that your experience mirrors so many women in our community, which is that some are taking more extended pauses and fully posing and growing alongside their kids in all the ways a parenthood is the leadership training ground that it is. And others, many are taking time to re-examine what career means to them and finding new ways to make room for their creative or professional pursuits. And I think that part of that sort of dynamic ever evolving nature of the pause is why we so badly need a new narrative because I think we had this very shut in forever and finite box that we put the choice to pause your career in. But a career pause is not a life pause, it’s not a career end. And that’s what we really want to communicate that oftentimes whether it’s three months or six months or six years or 16 years, it often leads to a reshaping, a perspective, a reorganization of priorities and interests and skills and really leads to the next phase of people’s growth.

Dr. Sarah (07:45):

Yeah. Do you want to share it all about your journey with the pause because you paused powerfully?

Neha (07:58):

I did. I did. Which is interesting because obviously I was able to grow it into this movement, but it was not overnight. And I think it’s so important to call that out because I’d spent about a decade in brand marketing and strategy. I’d had a really successful career in the early S around social media. I think I got lucky. I just started my career in that and it was very specifically digital media and women, and that was always an interest for mine. I sort of got tired of the agency life, so I went to business school at Stanford and I landed what I thought was my dream job running brand at a company called Zola, which was in a wedding space. And I knew something wasn’t completely feeling aligned anymore, and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. But I think we’re looking back, I think that the sort of politics of the work, corporate work environment, I hadn’t looked up from it for a long time until I had my child.

(08:55):

And suddenly I just had no space for that anymore. And I really wanted more of the piece that I was finding in the day-to-day with him. And I initially downshifted my career. So I had my first child in 2016 and I downshift to two days a week of part-time work. And I think that that was really helpful and helpful to many women in our community too because it was a nice test of finances, of routines and rhythms of my relationship and our marriage dynamics. And I needed that time with sort of in between to figure out what I wanted next. And what ended up happening was even in the downshift, I heard so many people question that choice. I heard people ask, what are you going to do all day? Are you giving up? And it all started to suggest and point me to this old tired narrative about women choosing to pause or shift their careers, the stay at home mother.

(09:59):

And they had this very June cleaver ass model that felt very almost anti-feminist and disempowered. And meanwhile, I was meeting so many incredible women on the playgrounds and in baby groups who were sort of making their own wide gray area choices to pause or shift. There was the freelancer who had sort of changed their career to be able to be at home for part of the day. There was someone who fully paused and was sort of trusting she could go back in a couple years, all of the women had accrued education and experience before having children. So the average age of mothers today in America is 29, almost 30. So you’ve already established a foundation of education and work experience before entering parenthood. All of them had equitable relationships with their partners, meaning we know in the data that dads are spending three times the amount of time with their kids than any generation prior. So this wasn’t like the women ending the day bringing their husband a cocktail.

(11:04):

They had access like I did to Instagram and other digital tools and technologies. So someone was taking an online certification class, someone was volunteering for a nonprofit. I was planting seeds for this work. And so all of it started to spark this idea that I wanted a space to congregate all these women and these new stories and this new collective dynamic image of the woman making room. So I fully paused and then I started tinkering with this during naps and nighttimes and it worked for a long time until I had my second kid. And then I felt like I was pitting pause within a pause again. And I called that out because I think so often you start this project, you’re so excited about it, it’s sort of working because you have a kid sleeping a lot, your husband’s waking up with them, you figured out so you have an extra hour and a half. It all worked until it didn’t, right?

Dr. Sarah (12:00):

It’s like as the nap schedule dwindles, so does the autonomy.

Neha (12:04):

Totally. And then you throw another one in. And I remember thinking, what am I going to do with this? Because I really believe this is big. And I remember it feeling so frustrating because I was looking around and there were all these other communities or brands or influencers who are growing in my cohort and I couldn’t at the time, and I remember just committing to doing a little bit each week just to keep it going. And so I would write three posts Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I just did a little bit. And then I remember 2020 being like, this is going to be my year. But what ended up happening was 2020, we were so in it, but the world woke up to the value of caregiving or at least the sheer work and load of caregiving. And we saw the great resignation, which I like to think of as the great reexamination.

(12:53):

Everyone was challenged to figure out, well, this isn’t working work and family and what’s going to happen next. And in 20 21, 20 22, my kids aged into school full time. And so it was almost like timing is everything I suddenly felt ready both to dial up the movement in the way it always wanted and step into it. And at the capacity of resource I’d always wanted to provide and put together the book proposal. But it was because culture was ready and I was ready personally. But by the time this book comes out next week, it will have been nine years, eight years from the day I first started it.

Dr. Sarah (13:35):

That is, that’s so helpful to pull back the veil on that reality in that timeline because one, it’s real. Things take time to incubate and then as any mother knows, but also I think a lot of women are like, it’s kind of all or nothing. It’s like, I can’t leave my job because I want, I’d have to build this immediately. And I wonder if you could talk about, you’ve been speaking to so many people who’ve gone through this. What are the fears that a lot of people have about leaving something stable that’s not in alignment with maybe where they are in the season of their life? How do people figure that piece out?

Neha (14:32):

So the first section on the book is really centered on those stories and questions. It’s all about preparing because I do think we can step into chapters and transitions with more confidence and ease if we’re sort of putting together the plan and having the conversations ahead of time or just being prepared for what you’re going to feel. I think one of the big things that comes up constantly is am I giving up? Am I losing my place in the industry? And I think that is a truly valid concern in a world that you Harold’s sort of linear careers and commitment to the workforce. And I think we’ve seen such a softening wherein we’re seeing 70% of millennials take career breaks now. And so we’ve seen just year over year, especially since 2020 and accelerating every year since, just so much more comfort from hiring managers in seeing a break on a resume.

(15:33):

I think the other piece there is that there is a path to be strategic in how you can stay connected, which obviously I chart that out in the book, but there are meaningful ways you can stay connected to your network, stay connected to online skill development, ongoing creation and skill development, whether it’s in nontraditional environments like advising a friend or in the PTA that builds your story so that you’re able to transition back with more ease. I think the biggest one after that is finances. We try to tackle that one in chapter two with really specific scripts and tools to have that dialogue first with your partner in the case of a two parent household because the primary fear is that you’re going to be a financial dependent and that can feel really vulnerable. And so the biggest, without getting into the granular details of how you can tackle that from anything, from having deliberate conversations to writing a postnup, I think the premise is making sure that you and your partner are really aligned ahead of time that your joint family organization, meaning that if your partner is working out of the home for pay and bringing in the salary, you are doing all of the unpaid family administration that keeps the home functioning so they can single task outside of the home.

(17:01):

And so establishing that sense of value ahead of time, whether you’re looking at research, whether you’re literally spelling out all of the tasks you’re going to be responsible for going into this arrangement, I think approaching it as an organization and then also knowing that the household income then is shared is really important, meaning that you have equal access to that income, you’re able to invest in your own health and wholeness just like they are. So there’s a lot of implications in approaching that financial piece. Our general advice is also setting yourself up ahead of time, so you’re saving at least six months or so you’ve sort of had a trial period where maybe even we saw one woman take her salary and put it into savings for six months so they could almost see what it would feel like to be living off of one income, right? There are different ways in which to sort of practice and develop those budgeting and lifestyle adjustments ahead of time.

(18:04):

And then the last piece, which we’ve sort of touched on is this sort of underlying feeling that they’ve identified with ambition and being this successful career person for so long. And we live in a country that puts so much stock and worth into what we do for pay that that’s so hard to disentangle. And I think we’re seeing a moment where we’re all reexamining ambition or reexamining success. And what we offer in the first chapter is a lot of history of where did we come up with these tropes around career breaks and specifically at-Home Parenthood and why is it not relevant to anymore for all the reasons we’ve already talked about. This is a generation that just has a much more fluid relationship with work and family, and we hope to be able to continue that in a significant way.

Dr. Sarah (18:54):

Yeah, I mean I think that’s really important. Understanding why we tell ourselves the stories we tell ourselves, we might not even notice we’re telling ourselves a story is I think one of the first steps to looking at it and saying, oh wait, does this have to be the story? Why do I feel shame around X? Or why do I feel fear around Y? And I just think that that’s a healthy strategy in life whenever we’re noticing that, but especially if it’s stopping us from, I don’t know, following something that’s calling us, whether it’s just my children are calling me and I want to be with them and that’s calling me, or my ambition is calling me, but I want it to be something that is different from what it looks like in a corporate position where I have less autonomy and I don’t have the same kind of balance as I might want. I don’t know. I think there’s plenty of people for whom staying in that world is important to them and that’s good. And we’ve done podcast episodes on how do you advocate for your needs as a parent while staying in that world, because that’s important too. And the beautiful thing about where we are in this world as women and mothers and parents of all kinds is we are trying to increase choice.

Neha (20:21):

Yes.

Dr. Sarah (20:23):

Let’s make it a buffet. Let’s have access to all the options so we can pick what works for us versus saying like, something’s calling me, but I’m not allowed to be called by that or I don’t have. And I like that you give people kind of a pathway should you choose, but you feel as though you can’t walk it. I’ll guide you.

Neha (20:49):

Yeah. And I would add not only are we giving the point is exactly what you just described, which is validating more choices for women so that they’re respected in whatever choice they make and supported in whatever choice they make, but also that they can shift between those choices. So we are validating choices for right now. You might be called to something right now, I’m reflecting back on these past eight or nine years. It’s shifted. I’m in a very different modality right now in work and family equation, and I fully intend to be shifting back toward a slower season in work eventually. And I think this ability to be able to dial up and dial down and feel supported and respected in any choice is exactly the goal.

Dr. Sarah (21:39):

Yeah. I also think there’s something, and I’m curious your thoughts on the creativity piece. I will tell you, so my sister, she’s like my best friend. She kind of downshifted when she had kids. She has two boys, she downshift when she had kids, she had a furniture company that she kind of licensed so that she could be at home with her kids instead of running it. And as she was with her kids, I mean we talk, I like, no, she fielded all kinds of the awkward conversations where they’re like, well, what do you do? And then I’m home with my kids, I don’t know how to answer that or I say it and then people give me a weird oh end of conversation that piece. And then she in the space, my sister’s so creative and so talented and in the space of being with her kids and shutting out that noise, she continued to be creative and play with design stuff because really talented interior designer and just now when her youngest is four, and I feel like there’s a moment where your youngest hits a certain age and your head kind of pops up above the fray a little bit.

(22:56):

You get your head above water a little bit and all of a sudden there’s these lanes in which you have the freedom to move again. And she’s been just building out this design platform on and doing much more projects and it’s been so cool to watch, but it’s all because the creativity never stopped. It’s not like she stopped doing what she did, she just stopped formally doing it for pay and then continued to be herself and stay in her creativity the whole time. She was mothering prime, full-time momming, but as soon as she got some space again because where her kids were developmentally, all of this stuff just kind of bloomed and it’s been really cool to see. So shameless plug, go follow her, my chic nest. But that’s I think a really, I’m sure you’ve heard hundreds of stories like this where it’s like we contract and we expand based on where we are in our life, whether it’s with our kids, when we hibernate, we go inward, our kids get a little older that we come out in adolescents, we’re going to have to go back inward again because they’re going to need us more.

(24:10):

All that stuff moves. We’re fluid. But the openness to that creativity and being connected to that I feel like is so we don’t want to lose that.

Neha (24:22):

Well and don’t think, I would argue that women don’t in this stage of life, it actually, it can expand in so many different directions. What we see in the last section of the book, if the first section is preparing the last is really about unlocking that possibility. And it actually starts with a chapter on exploring. And your sister already had a passion that she was able to find new formats to explore. I can guarantee Instagram is one that we talk about all the time that while it’s often everyone has a lot to say about Instagram right now, but it has been an incredible outlet for women and being able to identify new hobbies and interests. We often say for women who don’t have sort of a clear hobby, scroll your feed, it will tell you, look at the content that you gravitate to. It leaves clues for what your interests and hobbies might be if you’re following a lot of family policy or you’re filing into interior design accounts.

(25:19):

And then there’s a lot of exploration we see within the environments that are organically presented to us. So we’ve seen women who’ve tested as they’ve sort of come out of the thick of things but are sort of waiting and feel the nudge to explore but don’t really know where to start. We’ve seen women try their hand at different volunteering positions, whether it’s at a local nonprofit or it’s at their school. That’s often the one we hear. And over the course of three years, say a woman, I am thinking of this woman in Palo Alto, she looked back and she’d realized that she had loved planning event planning and she ended up getting an internship and then ultimately working her way into an event marketing role when her kids were about 10. We’ve seen someone who was in government policy actually realized how much they loved playing with your kids, truly just play and how the kids’ minds worked and went back as an assistant teacher in the preschool and then eventually found their way back in that way.

(26:24):

And what I think is so amazing about this stage of life is you do have this chance you’ve already set aside your ego in having to face that first section in having to move through that identity, move through those questions, what do you do? Which by the way, we have a script for, but I think when you’ve sort of already set that aside and you’ve opened up this space in your life in some way, not that you’re rolling in time suddenly, but if you can commit to 10 minutes a day or an hour a week, whatever is available to you, we see in the research, nine out of 10 women will say hobbies, having outside hobbies improves their mood at home. So we know that to be true. And not only is it great for your mental health, but strategically it lets you use this time to really intentionally feel like you’re shaping what comes next in a big way.

(27:23):

And we do see, I mean what’s been so interesting is while there are women who naturally go back to what they did previously, we see a lot a boom of women owned small business. I think that’s one part because when you’re returning, you value flexibility more than anything. And so there’s a lot of autonomy that comes with that. But it’s a really, really interesting time. It’s obviously one of the sub points of why is this generation of women on career breaks different? It’s because we have access to all these environments to home skills and interests in a whole new way. But it starts with giving yourself permission to invest in that at whatever pace you can. And I think going back to our conversation about how Mother Untitled started for me, I’d always wanted to be a writer. I loved words and I knew I could give this experience words, but I’d never sort of been able to have a blog while I was working full time.

(28:21):

And so a big part of this stage of life is allowing yourself that permission to do that again. And the middle section of the book is really about allowing yourself to find some more ease in space. Because I think too often, and I’m sure you have thoughts on this too often women feel like, okay, if I’m now going to be at home, then I guess my chief success metric is my kid’s behavior and if they’re healthy and how they eat when really a, that’s totally, I mean that’s very little in your control and a better, more, you deserve your own success metrics of what your own forward movement looks like. And so that’s a really interesting, it sort of teases up the creativity is deciding ahead of time that you deserve to also be growing.

Dr. Sarah (29:14):

Yes. I mean I think, God, I talk about this so much because, and not regardless of whether a parent is stay at home or full-time working or is somewhere in between from a mental health standpoint, when I’m speaking to parents, and I’ve said this before in the podcast, but one of the first things I will ask a parent, whether I’m seeing their kid and they’re coming to me because distressed in the parenting or I’m just seeing them for parental mental health issues or burnout or depression or anxiety or any of the things, one of the first things I’ll ask a parent is what do you do for play? And invariably they either look at me like I speaking a different language or they tell me how they play with their kids. And I’m like, no, not how do you play with your kids, but what do you do for play?

(30:08):

And yes, I recognize I’m saying that in a bit of a tricky way. We as grownups don’t think about our play as play. We usually call it something else, but there is a creative and constructive element to play that we should be continuing on as adults. And if don’t that atrophies, if we are not generating some type of creative output, and I don’t mean that we have to be baking beautiful, elaborate things every day or painting landscapes, but it could simply be like my play is coming up with a, I like to organize things in a particular way or I like to make a little vignette in the bookcase, like selfies, whatever. It doesn’t matter what it is. I don’t like that my sister, she does myself selfies. But what is play for you and how can you give yourself permission to create space for that separate from your children? Because when we don’t have that in our lives, we tend to, it does impact our identity, our mood, our amount of space we have for ourselves. It’s not very healthy. It’s usually one of the first things I will try to course correct if I’m working with a burnt out parent.

(31:32):

And so from a mental health perspective, I think it’s very important that there is creativity and space for that to be separate, have an identity that is separate from everything else. Our role as a parent, our role as a partner, our role as an employee or a self-employed person or a stay at home parent. But all of that, there needs to be space that’s just like, I’m Sarah and what do I like to do when I’m feeling creative or when I’m feeling like I just need some space for me, I not mom, not Dr. Bren, just Sarah and my relationship with myself. And I think, I don’t know, we’re not very good as a society of valuing that, modeling how to create space for that, protecting that it’s not talked about as much or it’s talked about with a bit of dismissiveness. I’m curious, what are some of the ways that you encourage people to lean into this play? What are some of the things that you’ve found as far as help from a logistical standpoint? How do you recommend parents who need to, this is atrophied a bit and they need to kind of lean in. How do they create space? How do they start getting back into that creative flow?

Neha (32:59):

So I mean, like I said, before you even get to the idea of exploring and investing in your community, I think the first parts are really committing to knowing that your identity has and will expand in this stage of life. But it depends on setting unique goals. So chapter four is about deciding ahead of time what those goals are. And the reason I call that out is because under my personal goals, I like to bucket them and I share this in the book, there’s a million ways and approaches to goal setting. You could redesigning your life or you could adopt the smart goals. I bucket them into personal goals, career goals and family goals. And career goals is actually, creativity was my other phrase for it. So under personal goals for me, I think parenthood gives you immense motivation to become your strongest self. But in the absence of having to say, I need to write 17 memos by every month to get my next pay raise, this is the one time that auditing yourself and motivating yourself to set meet your own goals will be a really authentic experience.

(34:16):

So I encourage people to do that first and I take you through that in the book is how do you find those? And there’s some incredible examples that women have provided. In my personal case, I used, I wanted to work on reactivity. And so for me that was a big piece of my self-work during my career break. And in some ways it was just, and I would set sort of a measure against it. It was listen to one podcast a week and then eventually as my kids got a little older, it was read one book a month and then eventually when I had a little bit more time, it became work with a therapist or a coach. So you can assign yourself not only that really meaningful goal, but also metrics that are truly valid and can make you feel like you’re forward. Moving to your point about feeling stuck, one of the best anecdotes research will show is that idea that you’re moving towards something for yourself on a professional or creative sense.

(35:17):

I mean for me it was I wanted to explore writing and I wanted, and for a while we talked about it was writing three short 250 word posts a week, and it was really measurable. Obviously that has expanded in this stage of life. But the point was to feel like I was holding myself accountable to something that I wanted to grow and explore. And for someone who doesn’t know that it’s writing, it might be meet one person of interest, set up a coffee with one person of interest each month, someone you meet on the playground or someone you admire, or it might be read one blog post about this industry or topic that I’m curious about. So you’re basically saying, I’m going to use this time intentionally to deepen myself, but you’re really getting meaningful and reflective about how you’re going to use that time.

(36:17):

And then the last one is, last bucket around family is interesting. I think it allows you not to professionalize parenting, but to feel like you’re creating that, going back to that organization mindset that you and your partner or whoever your village is coming together around one thing, we want a sense of culinary adventure. We’re going to try one new food group. God bless. I was not that family from that personal experience. Ours was, we wanted to be silly and we wanted more silliness in our life. I love that. Have a dance party every morning that was ours. Food felt much more attainable than taking them to different cuisines around.

Dr. Sarah (36:59):

I love that idea of, because I mean I am sure you can relate, parenthood is, it’s chaotic, it’s unpredictable, it’s very loud, it’s very messy. You’re constantly having to pivot and put out fires and clean up messes and all the things and literally and figuratively. But it could be really easy, especially in the early stages of you have babies. I remember I would go through a whole day and be like, I started 15 household tasks and finished zero of them, and I don’t even remember where I put my coffee. I had two sips and I set it down and I’m in a different, I just this sort of sense of disorganization and chaos that’s endemic to early parenthood. And so it can feel really overwhelming to be like while I’m in this stage of parenthood, I also want to work on being more creative end of sentence.

(38:03):

What does that in? You’ll quickly put that aside. Every single time there is a spill to clean or a toy tower that falls down or a kid to soothe. But if you say, I want to make sure that I’m reading one blog post a month or I’m writing three pages a month or whatever, having a thing that you can kind of hold, it’s just so much more anchoring. It’s like, oh, here’s a moment to breathe and here is a thing I can do because it’s right here waiting for me because I’ve already done the cognitive legwork ahead of time. If I am in the chaos and I have a moment to breathe, I’m not going to then be like, what can I do right now to further my personal career and family goals? But if I already have a little post-it note on my laptop or on my refrigerator or on my bathroom mirror that says do these three things this month, then when I have a moment to breathe, I might look forward to getting a chance to cross one of those off. It’s motivating and it’s anchoring.

Neha (39:15):

And I would add that I think, and there’s a reason in the book I follow the arc of after the goal setting, you’re also using that as your filter for decision making of what’s important and what’s not. Because you and I have talked about this, but especially with stay at home parents, and by the way, I don’t like that phrase. It just happens to be the one that is most commonly used. But when you’re in a chapter of at home parenthood or in a downshifted career and you’re just more at home or flexible.

(39:45):

It can be very easy to think that you now have to sort do everything and prove all your worth in by checking the boxes on baking the goods and volunteering in the PTA and suddenly. But it’s not like you have suddenly more hours in the day than you did previously and you’re still allowed to prioritize. And I think this super mom myth is I love social media. I think it has a lot of gifts. One of the challenges is that it’s created another damaging portrait of what the ideal is because we scroll our feeds and we take the person who does crafts and the person who cooks and the person who has the really nice shelves and you put them all together and you’re like, oh, that’s the composite of the perfect parent. But you don’t realize they’re all letting go of something else in the background.

(40:30):

And so our goal would be, and in chapter five it’s about, okay, let’s design routines in your day. Look, we talked to a number of time management experts to basically write out your week. And in that week there’s sort of core buckets because you want to feel like you’re flowing through your day and it’s not like it’s going to be exactly the same every day, but what are those rhythms season over season that can also support what you need and deemphasize what might not be for right now? Right. I’ll give you the example of I really loved crafting with my kids. I really did. I love art. I like being messy. I just walked into my office with glitter on my face this morning and I have older kids, but I did not feel like I could still cook perfectly curated meals.

(41:21):

If I was going to be doing that. So I let that go for that period of time and I let go of the clean house and I just said to my husband, you and I are going to clean at the end of the day together. I’ll do one sweep at noon during nap time, and then I’m going to use the rest of the time to write those three blog posts and then you and I are going to clean at the end of the day. So you’re coming up with rhythms that sort of flow you through the day and you’re also including yourself. And then I think depending on what your goals are as a family, you’ve also had enough conversations about what kind of support do we need as a family to achieve those goals? And I think one of the big myths is that when people downshift their pay, it’s that they deserve less help or no help at all.

(42:04):

And what we know is that sadly, one in three at home, parents have never had any help including family assistance. So they’re working 24/7 and those parents are, it’s very hard to tell them You should play. You shouldn’t make room for, unless you’re having really specific dialogues with your partner and saying, how can we block and tackle so you can wake up if paid help is out of reach for you? Can your partner wake up every morning so that you can have that hour and a half to exercise? Do something for yourself, whatever it is that you need at that time to feel recharged. And so when we talk a little bit, and we’ll get back to this idea of exploring and growing our community, those pieces are so important. But I say all this because I think making it a priority and committing to it in a measurable way, designing rhythms that support you and let go of the things that aren’t important for this chapter, whether that’s cooking or whether that’s cleaning or whether that’s volunteering, whatever it is you’re letting go of, that also takes intention because I think when you own that choice and say that’s just not for right now, it gives you a little bit more ease and predictability.

(43:14):

And then that last piece around help whatever you have available to you, the reality is just no one should work 24 7. And the work of parenting is more immense and intense than ever before. And the household, going back to that household organization benefits from supportive leaders. And I think as women in these shifts and in this gray area, we need sort of that construct before we can then say, okay, now I’m ready. What is going to be that creative exploration or articulation for this season, chapter or year?

Dr. Sarah (43:51):

Yeah, I think that is beyond important to name. If you are feeling as though your labor as a parent is taken sort of for granted is expected without any sort of examination of how much is happening and who’s owning what. And this is true for, I mean obviously this is exceptionally challenging if you are a single parent household because we’re talking about a whole nother level of task distribution, but especially for two parent households or for households where there’s extended village supporting a parent or a grandparent or something. But I think mean, let’s name it, this comes up for the most part in heterosexual male female dyads, where there are still these just unexamined expectations, this invisible load that the mother is going to take. And I say this not to disparage the fathers in that diad because they don’t actually, you don’t know what you don’t know if you don’t know to think about the fact that every time there’s a birthday party, it’s requiring you to think in advance about who’s going to be invited and how will all those families feel, and is it a cohort that can get along and is there going to be someone who’s going to feel left out and is the venue conducive to the types of kids that are coming?

(45:26):

And how do we get, I mean, I could literally just plan a birthday party take, I mean…

Neha (45:31):

And you just skim the surface.

Dr. Sarah (45:33):

Oh my God, that’s just for the pre-work. And then there’s the parity favors and the everything and the thank you notes. There’s a lot. And it’s just sort of, and I say this, I want to be really clear, my husband does so much.

Neha (45:47):

Same.

Dr. Sarah (45:47):

He takes on probably more than half of the parenting load because that’s the way we’ve moved through this, how I could take the pause that I needed so that I could build what I do now. And I recognize that’s not for everyone’s experience, but I also don’t want to throw my husband under the bus when I’m saying the birthday planning almost killed me. And it did because there’s a lot of executive functioning tasks that are required, and it’s just one tiny little moment that happens once a year. Think about the day to day. There’s so much that goes into the mental load of parenthood, and there probably does need to be whether you’re taking a pause or not, this is a huge piece. And if you do take a pause, I’m sure it becomes even more necessary to talk about it explicitly and say, how do we look at everything that has to happen for this family and our children to thrive, and how do we make sure that it feels like it doesn’t have to be 50 50, it just needs to feel like balanced in a way that works for our family’s capacities, who can own what, but it’s got to be known that it’s happening. You got to sit down and have a family management meeting regularly.

Neha (47:09):

Well, and we recommended in the book this idea not only of money meetings pretty regularly so that you’re budgeting, but I think this idea of family administration meetings, I think being able to review what’s working and what’s not, what are we willing to let go of? So in our case, we let go of birthday parties, right? Because that just wasn’t something that was going to work and it wasn’t meaningful enough to our kids. And so I think the point being, there’s a buffet of a lot of expectations that you have to decide as a family, which ones are important to you, what are your expectations of your family and your household, and where can you simplify? Where can you delegate? Where can you assign each other? But I think the goal is just going back to this idea that you are in a two-parent household.

(48:03):

You are both on board with the idea that you both deserve to be healthy and supported, and then that household income is shared, so you’re allocating it to whatever is needed or whatever could in seasons be allocated towards supporting you. So whether that’s outsourcing meals, whether that’s outsourcing laundry, and if outsourcing isn’t impossible, it’s splitting up or letting go. And sadly, I think that there’s the behind the scenes caregiving, the staying up in the middle of the night and Googling, what are those weird bumps and what ointment do I need to get on Amazon? And now how am I going to tell my child about that and how am I going to wrangle him? There’s all of that that is not easy to do or to really explain why it’s so important. But if we can get closer, we adopt a mindset that allows us to be able to walk through the stage feelings more supportive. And I think help is such an interesting thing in this culture because it feels like so many things, sadly black and white, full-time nanny or full-time daycare or nothing at all. And what we know now is there is a myriad of other options. We have a whole list in the book in chapter seven around creative childcare ideas that came out of our community. But I think that it still goes back to that first step of deciding that your family and you deserve that.

Dr. Sarah (49:37):

Yeah. Oh my God, this is going to be such an important book. I’m so glad you wrote this and it’s coming out literally next Tuesday, so congratulations.

Neha (49:47):

Thank you. Thank you. It does feel like we pushed off the launch because of the election. It was supposed to be a fall book, it ran back to school. But I’m actually so glad it’s coming out now because you come out from the fall and you come into this year, and I think it’s a really, we personally, my husband and I have our money meetings at the beginning of the year, and I’ve talked about a few times. I think that having some of those big conversations, those seemingly tricky conversations is so important. It sets the tone for the year and deciding what’s important and what you can let go of and what you can focus on and how you can navigate this year with a little bit more ease and a little bit more possibility.

Dr. Sarah (50:31):

Yeah, no, I think that’s great. And even just the ability, like art parallels life, I feel like the pausing and getting the timing and being able to pivot and being able to be like, oh, new information coming in. Let me just, that is how it works.

Neha (50:51):

Very much so.

Dr. Sarah (50:52):

Yeah. I mean, you’re in pre-orders right now, and so I don’t know if people totally, if you’re not in the book world, might not totally get that. The pre-order stage is probably the best way someone can support your world. That is how you set this book up and all of this amazing work you’re doing up for the most success. So if you are listening right now, go wherever you pre-order. Probably Amazon’s the best place to pre-order bump the book, right?

Neha (51:18):

Either if you go, if Amazon’s easiest, Barnes and Noble is great. If you go to mother on title.com/the power pause, you can see all the retailers listed there and go to the one that is easiest and most exciting for you. But you’re right, I think you for saying that, I didn’t not fully understand, but pre-orders basically signal to booksellers, they signal to media, and inherently they signal to culture that this conversation is important. And I think especially in the world of stay-at-home motherhood or career pauses and family life, soon as those words come up, it can so easily be dismissed as not that thing, that little nation, what we know is it’s not a niche anymore, right? No. We know that this is a growing population in America of American women that are reexamining work and family. And we want culture to wake up to the fact that it is important to rewrite narratives and to allow women more options with respect and with support. So by pre-ordering, you help tell the world that this is an important conversation. So thank you so, so much.

Dr. Sarah (52:31):

Yeah, thank you. I’m excited. I can’t wait to put my pre-order in and Oh, congratulations. This is such an important book.

Neha (52:39):

I appreciate it, Sarah. And you’ve seen it from the beginning, so thank you.

Dr. Sarah (52:43):

It’s been very cool to watch. Very cool. We will talk soon. I’m so excited.

Neha (52:48):

Likewise. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Sarah (52:55):

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