How Do Children (Really) Impact Your Career?

I’ll share 5 things you can do NOW to help out your future self (even if parenthood is many years away).

A little over 2 months ago I became a mom. I now know there’s a lot I didn’t know before becoming a parent—but there are also a bunch of decisions (big and small) I made over the course of my life that very intentionally prepared me for parenthood. 

Contrary to what I thought throughout my childhood, healthy marriages and families don’t just happen to you.

If you’re just kicking off your career and thinking “okay lady I’ve got PLENTY of time to figure that stuff out” you’re absolutely right—but just like starting a 401k or putting on sunscreen to prevent wrinkles in your 30s, future you will be really happy if you actually use that time to consider the outcome you want and takes steps to make it happen.

When I first came to Washington, D.C. I only knew ONE woman who was working and having children. Apart from touristy areas, this city seemed like the sad land from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang—hardly any children in sight or even talked about, ever, let alone in the workplace. All of my colleagues were young and single like me and even our more senior level colleagues  were child-free. 

Nobody talked about the struggles of finding affordable childcare, how to plan maternity leave, or what to expect on returning to the workforce (or deciding you DON’T want to return to the workforce in the same way).

It wasn’t until I started babysitting (stay tuned for tip #3) that I found out there ARE a lot of parents living and working in DC. And now, in the decade since coming here, nearly all my friends are married with children—and almost all of them have found unique solutions to best fit their family’s needs.  Here are 5 tips to help you if this is the future you want too..

NOTE: Don’t tap away if you’re a dude and think this doesn’t apply to you—while there are definitely some pieces of advice below that only apply to women, men also benefit from planning ahead.

1. Pick a career conducive to the work/life balance you want.

Are you a man hoping to provide for a future family so that your wife can stay home with children? You’ll probably want to pick a career with high earning potential. Are you a woman who wants to stay home with your kids part-time and head back to the office full time once they’re in school? You’ll also want to pick a career field that will allow for that. Thanks to the pandemic this is actually easier than ever. Even before COVID lockdowns showed us that yes, a lot of jobs can be done from home, women were negotiating… but not just for higher pay (turns out you just have to ask). Rachel Greszler, a research fellow in Economics, Budget and Entitlements for The Heritage Foundation recently explained how “a silver lining of the devastating virus might be a leap forward in flexible jobs and family-friendly workplaces that women have been working decades to achieve.” 

Personally, I knew I would want at least some flexibility to be able to work from home at least part-time once I had children—which is one of many things that attracted me to digital communications. My work can be done from any place with a strong wifi connection with just a few pieces of tech equipment. But even without the guarantee that I’d be able to work from home one day, I knew I only wanted to work for organizations and employers who were willing to be accommodating to parents and truly supportive of families. I made a point to ask about it in interviews and even asked employees with children if they felt supported as parents before I ever accepted a position. 

BONUS tip: I also kept my finances under control and picked up contract work on the side throughout my career. I worked (maybe a little too hard) to pay off my student loans quickly, tried to live beneath my means (which means not saying yes to EVERY brunch invitation or happy hour with friends who have seemingly unlimited income), and have always been quick to pick up an odd web design or copy editing project. Those projects haven’t just helped me financially, they’ve helped augment my career and have taught me how I can balance a workload with life (perhaps one day with a child on my hip).

2. Pick a mate who shares your goals and vision for family—and move on immediately if they don’t.

Here’s one I didn’t follow right away and now you can use it as a cautionary tale: I’ll never forget walking with a boyfriend of almost 6 months past the National Zoo as streams of children with their parents surrounded us. It finally sparked the conversation—which I thought should come naturally and casually. After a lot of discussion about how hard it would be to have kids in the city, he said he didn’t want to have children “for a long time.” Welp, I was already approaching my mid-20s at this point and knew I wanted to have lots of children so I acknowledged the obvious biological elephant in the room.But, even without that factor, it was clear he wasn’t as enthusiastic about creating a family as I was, which is okay for him, but just not what I wanted.. Thankfully we broke up, I met my now-husband, and we were much more up front about what we wanted.

Look, I KNOW how hard it is to have these conversations early in a dating relationship: If you bring it up will they think you’re desperate/pushing the issue too soon? That’s why it’s best to bring it up as a hypothetical. Obviously your date will be much more relaxed if you say “I know I want to homeschool my future children—what do you think about that?” vs. “So if we have children would you want to send them to public or private school?”

See the difference? Talk about the life you want to have one day—whether you want to be a stay at home mom for a few years or enroll them in a Montessori while you aim for the C-Suite—whatever your goal is  bring it up early. Not to mention, goals are flexible, and may change when your circumstances change.

The bottom line? People who want to get married and have children are seeking out partners who want to get married and have children. So if you bring it up and find out they want to be child-free or don’t believe in marriage (gag me)… well, you just saved each other a lot of time.

The sooner you find out you’ve both got different goals in life, the less time you’ll waste on the wrong rabbit trail—or, worse, with the wrong partner.

I know I’ve only been at this for two months but let me tell you—I COULD NOT do this without my husband. He’s endlessly patient, kind, and loving. After a few bumps in the communication road, we’ve learned to talk (often) about our childcare needs, who gets to go to the gym first (gone are the days when we both go together!), and how we’re feeling (okay, mostly I talk about my feelings). We are not perfect but when one is exhausted, the other is always there to pick up the baton and keep things going. We do have bad days—but we apologize, forgive each other, and don’t keep a score card of wrongs.

3. Get practice—and pay attention.

Apart from being a great side hustle, providing childcare (either through a service like Care.com or just by offering to help friends with their children) is a simple way to learn more about children—their stages of development, the costs of feeding and clothing them, and even how toddlers will put literally anything into their mouths… of course you don’t actually need experience with kids to become a parent, but spending time around kids and their parents can help you figure out what you actually want.

What am I talking about? As a babysitter I was able to see the parenting styles that resulted in confident, happy, thoughtful children… and conversely, the style of parenting that resulted in anxious, inconsiderate, and frankly obnoxious kids who needed to be glued to a tablet to keep from being total monsters.

Balancing a full time job with after-work care as a mother’s helper or weekend babysitting can also give you a taste of what it’s like—and teach you how to manage your time to be productive and organized (with or without children).

4. Build a strong foundation of friendships.

If you’re in DC or another city chances are you moved away from your family to live there, right? While this might make you think the only way to get support is to pay for child care every time you want a date night, you’re totally wrong. There is definitely a strong community of friends helping friends here—and since I’ve always offered to babysit or just show up to clean up a new mom’s house, that karma has paid off big time. While I know I have friends I can rely on if we need someone to actually watch our baby… that’s not the only type of support I’m talking about.

You NEED to have friends you can talk to and lean on. Even if you’re an introvert and a loner, find a community—at church, in your neighborhood, even work colleagues can become close friends over the years—and build strong relationships with other people who share your goals for children in the future. One day, 5-10 years from now, you’ll be so grateful to have a strong foundation of friends who you’ve supported through hard times just as they’ve supported you. These are the people you know you can trust to support you and comfort you when things get just too overwhelming. 

5. Be supportive of working parents—now.

As we promote a culture that is pro-family and pro-life, we need to normalize having children and supporting parents in the workplace. This means being kind and understanding when a member of your team needs to leave the office at 3 to pick up his child from school—even when that means you have to pull some extra weight getting the work done. 

I had a manager once who was always coming in late—and so the rest of the team started skating in a little later, too (with iced coffees in hand, fresh from a full night of sleep)… until we were pulled into a meeting to address our chronic tardiness and were finally told the reason he came in late was to drop off his kid at daycare up the street. One guy on the team took issue with that—and as he expressed how unfair it was, it became clear… he was technically right. Of course, it wasn’t fair – but like a good conservative I’ve always thrown up in my mouth a little when people talk about fairness. “Life’s not fair,” I said. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true. 

If we wanted to create a happy, productive workplace and support all of our team members, we had to recognize that one of us—who was just as hard working as everyone else—needed a very reasonable accommodation in order to be there for his child. He wasn’t sleeping in or grabbing coffees like we were. We had forgotten we are all people—not robots. We all have families, personal lives, and special circumstances.

What does this story time mean for you? You can begin to understand, support, and vocalize a culture that supports families and parents—in ways that won’t cost you a thing. Yes, being a parent is hard—but I’m here to tell you, you can (and totally should) do it.