Working moms: You can do it all!

We Are Doing It
Today, as CEO of Working Mother magazine, I'm often asked how in the world we working mothers manage to juggle motherhood and career, life and work, self and job. And I always think of Dr. Wan. Because sometimes being a working mother feels overwhelming, and some days we're convinced we just can't do it. We want to yell at someone, "I can't do it!! I want to go home!"

And then I see Dr. Wan's smiling face in front of me saying, "But you are doing it!" And I realize that we are. Twenty-six million mothers — more than 72 percent of all moms in the United States today — work full- or part-time. We raise strong and happy kids. We fuel the economy. We earn money that keeps our families safe and secure. And we get a ton accomplished in a day at work.

Still, most of us draw a blank when friends and family ask us, "How do you do it?" Nine times out of ten we laugh (or cry) and say, "I don't know. I just do." But in our hearts, we know that response doesn't do justice to the real answer. How do we do it? We do it with old-fashioned elbow grease, with humor, with sleepless nights. We do it with the help of family and friends who pitch in, with great babysitters and caregivers, with husbands who learn how to support us (or not!). We do it by cramming more into a weekday and into a weekend than should be humanly possible. We do it by finding confidence in our own choices. And increasingly, we do it with the support of our workplaces.

As I write this, working mothers are about to face a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the way companies work. Employers may not want us to know it ... but companies are going to face a massive shortage of employees that will last for decades as huge numbers of baby boomers begin to retire. In the next decade, companies will become more and more desperate to find and keep great employees at all levels, so it's a perfect time to tell them exactly what we need. It's time for working moms to step back, take a breath, and ask ourselves, What works for us? What can be done personally and professionally to make our lives easier, our work more productive, and our families happier? What are the most effective ways for our companies and communities to support us?

For more than twenty-five years, I've been passionately engaged with these questions, ever since I helped launch a visionary new magazine, Working Mother, which recognized very early on that the model of the American family was changing and changing fast. In 1979, a small but passionate band of editors started telling the stories of the 16 million moms who were then holding down jobs and starting careers at the same time that they were having their babies and raising their kids. From our earliest issues, we explored how working moms pull it off. We published their stories and we championed their lifestyle. And we heard about their needs.

In those first years, we got letter after letter from readers bemoaning companies that offered no maternity leave, bosses who would not give an ounce of flexibility, and communities without quality child-care centers. Moms were desperate for support and Working Mother was desperate to speed the rate at which companies were changing their practices and policies. Vivian Cadden, our founding editor, devised a plan to help companies understand what moms need — and to reward companies willing to lead the charge. Using a carrot, rather than a stick, Vivian planned to give an award to those companies that were making their workplaces family-friendly, gaining the attention of the corner office along the way.

"CEOs understand competition," she told me. "Let's ask CEO Jim to compete against CEO Joe to see how well their companies support working mothers."

Thus the first Working Mother Best Companies list was launched, twenty years ago. That first year only thirty companies qualified for the award — but the list soon grew to forty, fifty, seventy-five, and then to the Working Mother 100 Best Companies. We've been measuring companies, holding them accountable, asking them to improve, and giving them guidance on what moms want every year since.

In 2005, on the occasion of the platinum anniversary of the list, Ted Childs, IBM's chief diversity officer and the architect of the world's most progressive family-friendly policies, called the Working Mother 100 Best Companies an "American icon," and said, "Our country cannot prosper without women in the workforce, and our society cannot go forward unless women have children."

His words reminded us of the ultimate reason it is so critical that we get the support we need.

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