Sarah Wells has made a career out of empowering working moms. The small business she started in her Virginia garage in 2013 is now a multimillion-dollar international brand that’s given the mother of two a direct line to thousands of women as they return to work after welcoming a baby. In her new book, Wells offers strategies to help employers support and retain working moms, arguing that investing in them gives business a competitive advantage.
Q. Why are working mothers an asset to employers?
A. As moms, we’re often told, “I don’t know how you do it all.” I think that’s grounded in the fact that our executive functioning skills grow after we become moms. We do a lot more with a lot less sleep and a lot less time.
Moms are good listeners. We can negotiate situations that require diplomacy, and we can have difficult conversations. Many of us have a sense of altruism and empathy that we bring to our work. We’re driven by concerns about what the next generation will inherit because we think, “Oh, that’s going to be my kid.” Moms want to do good and move missions forward, and we care about things like safety, culture, and people’s emotions—and we’re great in a crisis.
Moms often feel pressure to be the same person we were before we had children, but that’s simply unrealistic. One of the things I talk about in the book is that it’s OK to be different than you were before—and with that comes all these amazing, new skills that you’ll bring to your work.
Q. How did the pandemic change things for working moms?
A. During the pandemic, there was no other option but to make it work—and we did. When we came back [to the office], we were empowered. Our expectations of work had changed; we had changed.
Moms want flexibility. We want to have a career, but we also want to be able to volunteer at our kid’s school. We want the option to work remotely and live in a lower-cost area. A few of the women I interviewed in the book left their organizations and moved around a bit during the pandemic. They told me they weren’t going to accept anything less than a job that works for them and their families.
But we also need to remember that there’s a huge cadre of moms in this country who don’t have those same choices because they’re a single parent or they work a [lower-wage] job. So, it’s on moms in professional roles to take more risk and challenge the status quo on behalf of all working mothers. It’s a privilege to choose employers who meet our expectations; that creates competition, which trickles down to the moms who can’t afford to take the same risks.
Q. How should managers initiate a conversation with new moms about their needs?
A. When someone on your team shares that they’re pregnant or adopting a baby or starting IVF—that’s when you want to start the conversation. It can be as simple as, “How are you doing?” or, “How can we support you?” And from there, you can start to ask more pointed questions about their specific needs. Some managers might be uncomfortable asking a woman if she’s going to breastfeed, for example. Instead, they might say, “We’re very supportive of working parents here, and my door’s always open if there’s something I can help with.”
I focus in the book on new moms, but this conversation should be happening on a continuum—that’s how you build a culture that’s supportive of working moms. And remember, there are likely women in your office who aren’t yet ready to start a family, but they’re watching and sizing up whether this a place where they can do that—or if they’re going to have to leave after they have a baby.
Q. Do you think working moms can “have it all?”
A. I think working moms can have most things we want, but we can’t do everything at 100 percent all the time. I feel very good about being a person who works and being a parent—but I’m not always giving 100 percent to both. Everybody has a different capacity and at some point maxes out. At some point, there needs to be sleep and self-care. That doesn’t make us weak; that makes us human.