Women, Family, Personal Brand – Is it possible to have it all?
The more I look at Facebook recently, the more I see baby pictures. And when I say baby pictures, I mean newborn sons and daughters of friends who are newly parents. I browse these pictures with great interest and can see myself as a doting aunt, showering presents, organic cotton blankets, BPA free sippy cups, baby carriers or other baby things that are en vogue.
Even so, to see myself as parent is an anxious vision, a possible threat to my career and personal growth. Am I alone in this worry, I wondered. Right now, simply balancing work, writing, friends, family is difficult, more seems impossible.
I wanted to find out how others have approached work life balance with children so I took this scenario to a jury of skilled careerists: What would negatively impact your personal brand, if anything, should you choose to have children?
There was a gentle scolding for thinking about prioritizing career over children, and was reminded that children can be negatively branded too if exposed to workaholic parents: “Worrying about your personal brand while raising children causes me to question your sense of priorities.” Miri, a mother of two boys, said that it doesn’t negatively impact career, but it does change things a whole lot, “depending on the decisions you make.”
I also liked this idea from Ashley Feader, who says, “Your personal brand should reflect your values and your life as a whole – not just work.” I agree with this wholeheartedly because it is important that perception from others does not dictate how a person lives his/her life.
Even so, Raquel Elle Bell, CEO of 23 Degrees Branding, reflected my fears the best: “If I walk into a board room pregnant with a bunch of executives, usually all men, will they take me seriously?…I also wonder if people will take me seriously in being driven in my business if my focus is not 100% on building my company.”
Even now in 2011, there is a looming worry about males in the office, while politically speaking, they’d have to be understanding, you just can’t know how it impacts you in terms of missed opportunities or their perceptions. Because work and home life are still somewhat considered separate, talks at the watercooler are mostly about work or the weather, a pregnant woman in the office can do the unthinkable just by standing there, remind others that there exists a gray line between work in the office and caring for family at home.
Clearly Raquel and I, we’re not alone in this fear, according to a blog post in the Wall Street Journal. A study by McKinsey & Co. says women are less likely to believe they have opportunity to advance the more children that they have.
Disclaimer: this chart was an attempt to give you a visual, but without knowing the details of the McKinsey study, we don’t want to jump to too many conclusions
One of the reasons women could feel this way is somewhat tied to the gender gap in salary pay, because employers are more likely to perceive women as holding two shifts (work and children) and thus deserve less pay. At the same time, there were past trends during the recession indicating that there were more stay at home dads, because women could be paid slightly less than their male counterparts, and save companies money. Certainly there must be other factors at play? Would you agree/disagree that the study holds any weight at all?
As always, if you have an opinion on this topic, feel free to comment about the subject, better visuals, or more. If you have children, how has your career been impacted? And if you don’t have children, what are your hopes or fears about that coveted work-life balance?
