The trick to supporting other women (and other starting PreK musings)

As part of my focus on creating an awesome environment for the women on my team, I host a monthly call featuring awesome female executives (both IBM and client) talking about their career path and talking about specific topics / issues. We recently had Katrina Alcorn, who is the new General Manager of IBM Design. I could wax poetic about the call -- as well as how awesome it is to have a woman leading IBM Design - but I will focus on one thing she said at the end of the call. 

As context, Katrina wrote a book about burning out as a working Mom (Maxed Out - American Moms on the Brink) and at the end, she highlighted 10 things to do right now to support yourself (and support women at work). Of the 10, three especially jumped out to me. 1) Practice Saying No, 2) Tell your partner what you need (and for me this was tell EVERYONE what you need - saying out loud what I need is something I personally struggle with), and 3) Be an ally to other women.

I asked Katrina about this on the call and her perspective really stuck with me. She said:

"To think about being an ally to other women, first start with what makes us NOT be allies; and that is doubting that we are doing it right. Too often, when we are not confident in the decisions we are making, we turn that lack of confidence on other people saying THEY aren't doing it right. So first start with focusing on building confidence in yourself - and then also give others grace. At the end of the day, most of us love our kids, love our parents, and are trying to do a good job at work. If we start with that assumption, it makes it a lot easier to support others."

{Starting a tangent that will eventually come back to this advice, I promise} 

I've actually been thinking a lot about this recently Charlie started PreK in September and it has brought a world of new changes. Uniforms, earlier start times, practice in writing, new friends - and then navigating new things, like drop off, play dates, birthday parties, etc. Not that we didn't have these before but much different in a different scale. There are lots of new families who my kids will be with from K-8 and beyond - so an interesting dynamic in building new relationships that I know will stick with us a long time.

Just like Charlie, it feels a bit like I'm the "new kid" at the parent events, working on building new relationships and new friendships. And with that, has come some questions around am I doing enough? am I attending enough stuff at the school? how do I make time to volunteer? how do I balance that with things like being able to pick my kids up from school occasionally (I can probably do one or the other but not both... and honestly, I'd probably RATHER pick my kids up than volunteer - is that bad?)? does the school (who has been saying they don't have enough parent volunteers) / other parents / and MOST IMPORTANTLY Charlie think I'm doing enough?

With that, I've been reflecting a lot on my own parenting and who I want to be and how I want to show up as a mom. And, if I'm being honest, having some insecurities as I watch other moms who are able to show up in a different way than me. In particular, something new for me is that there is more of a range of working moms, part time moms, and stay at home moms - all of whom have different abilities and time commitments. But, with that comes navigating after school playground, play dates, etc. and thinking about how I show up.  Interestingly, of course, this is an issue that is generally exclusive to moms - because Dad's don't really participate in the play date scheduling / birthday party game. It's not that Johnny WOULDN'T do it - but I think there is a general dynamic where it's much more comfortable to do this with other moms. 

So, I've been worrying a bit about how to juggle my schedule with things my daughter wants to do re: playdates / pick ups / etc. I worry about how this will affect my daughter (WILL SHE HAVE NO FRIENDS?!?)? And selfishly about how this will affect me (WILL I HAVE NO FRIENDS?!?!). Of course this probably touches on some of my own childhood insecurities of challenging friendships in elementary school that were difficult for me and wanting to create an environment for my daughter that is different. 

So, my meeting with Katrina happened at the same time that I was wrestling with some of these thoughts and worries. In parallel with this, I had a 24 hour trip from DC to San Diego for the SAP for Utilities conference that was anything but lovely - 12 hours of flights in the middle seat next to oversize passengers working on an urgent work deadline. When I got home, I went straight to a PTA meeting where one of the moms said something about my work being glamorous -- and that's where Katrina's advice hit me.

In all of my worry about how I was showing up, other moms are feeling the same way. 

I feel very confident in myself at work and so don't spend a lot of time second guessing myself in the workplace; but clearly this has bled into my personal life of wondering if I'm navigating my job as mom correctly. So instead of second guessing myself and wondering if I'm doing enough, I've been focusing on leaning into the notion that I'm good at my job at IBM, bring value to my clients and my team at IBM, and I'm amazing at my job as mom, and that other moms (though we all tackle the work / life bear differently) are amazing too.

And so the trick to supporting other women is focusing on building confidence in our own path. But, I would add - also helping each woman navigate the path that is unique to them, recognizing there is no one size fits all approach.

One final thought - as with many of my more personal blogs, I debated about whether I should write this one. It honestly feels like the topic is a bit superficial. Me worrying about building friendships / navigating volunteering at my child's school feels like a very high level problem. I have great friends - why do I need this? But, the net for me is that I started this blog to write about challenges with being a working mom, and this one has been constantly on my mind the past 2 months. So, I figured if it is something that is bothering me so much, it's probably something that weighs on the minds of others - and so I hope that me putting this out there helps others tackling this challenge! And, beyond that, part of my goal in writing this blog is showing others that there are challenges with being a working mom, and talking about how I'm navigating them, in the hopes that this will help others feel like they can tackle their own individual challenges too.