No Spreadsheet Can Cover This
by Daisy Dowling, Series Editor
By nature, I’m a planner and—I’ll admit—a bit of a spreadsheet nerd. So nine years ago, when I found out that I was expecting our first child, I opened up a fresh Excel sheet and got to work. Everything, and I mean everything, I thought I needed to do or think through before the baby’s arrival made it onto my list—which of course was sortable by date, category, and stakeholder. With so much changing and so much unknown, it gave me a wonderful, reassuring feeling to know that I had ordered the “right” baby bathtub, and that the insurance forms I needed to fill out before leave were already complete, signed, and ready to hand over to HR. A car seat, educational toys, the list of folks my husband should call from the hospital to let them know of our child’s arrival? Check, check, and check. And of course I took workplace matters very carefully into account. I already had the corporate backup-care number programmed into my phone, and my parental leave transition plan was one of the longest and most agonizingly detailed PowerPoints I’ve ever produced.
Was I over engineering things? Absolutely. But I was determined, and doing my best—just as you’re determined, and doing your best—to step into parenthood on my front foot, and to do right by my career and family.
Of course, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And as I quickly realized, so much of working parenthood will never fit in a spreadsheet or be reducible to any Power-Point slide. Two months after my daughter’s birth, I got a dream-job offer that left me scrambling to reconcile my career ambitions and my feelings about being the kind of loving, present parent I wanted to be. Back at work, I knew I would have a new daily schedule and additional logistics to adapt to, but I hadn’t realized that I would also have to adapt to a new identity. If I was leaving work at 5:30 p.m. each day to get home to the baby, I worried: Was I still the hard worker I had always been and still wanted to be? Communicating wasn’t easy: Every time I needed to mention my parenting obligations at the office—like when I had to duck out for a few hours to take my daughter to the pediatrician—I felt like an actor who had forgotten my lines. At home, of course, there were the tense negotiations with my husband, also a first-time working parent, on how to divide up our responsibilities. On top of it all, I needed to figure out how, between the emails and feedings, I could get a good night’s sleep.
Here’s the kicker: I’m an executive coach. It’s my full-time job to help other people push past challenges and obstacles and succeed. But as a rookie working parent, I didn’t know where to even start with the challenge of combining career and kids. It was time to admit that my old approaches and tools might not work for me anymore. I needed to think beyond my lists and project plans, and to learn to play a whole new game.
Chances are that your life, career, and ambitions as a working parent look very different from mine. You may be a dad, a single parent by choice, or perhaps you just welcomed twins or a child with complex needs. You may work in a very different field, and you’re almost certainly much less Excel-obsessed than I am. But whatever our differences, I’ll make a gentle guess that—just like me and every one of the hundreds of working parents I’ve advised—this first-time working parent thing has thrown you for a bit of a loop, that old tools and approaches may feel limited now, and that you’re sailing into uncharted seas. As you do, you’ll likely find yourself hovering around a few core questions: How can I succeed on the job, become the mom or dad I want to be, and remain myself all at the same time? How do I start moving in the right direction? And, How can I feel good about how I’m doing along the way?
This book will help you to tackle those questions, to move toward your own unique, authentic answers—and to feel more confident as you do. The expert voices collected in Succeeding as a First-Time Parent offer both perspective and how-to on the big-ticket matters that make the transition to working parenthood so daunting: things like how to find the right childcare, or establish your working parent professional brand, or ramp up your career (if you choose to) post-leave and how to self-coach effectively when you hit dilemmas and setbacks. There’s no spreadsheet thinking here: None of these essays will cover which baby bathtub is the right one or how to fill out that benefits form. What this book does focus on is you, and helping you navigate into these new waters of career-plus-caregiving safely and with confidence.
My advice on how to use this book: Just read through the table of contents and let it sink in. You’ll see that the ideas and advice within are encouraging and no-nonsense. Take a deep breath and begin with a few articles that speak best to your biggest current concerns. Maybe your eye will be immediately drawn to Rebecca Knight’s chapter on the return from parental leave. Maybe Marika Lindholm’s section on single parenting will be just the kind of advice you’ve been looking for. Turn to those pages for the real-time support you need. Then, over the weeks to come, repeat.
As you use this book, whether you’re waiting for the baby’s arrival, planning or returning from leave, or approaching your one-year anniversary of being a working mom or dad, remember: There’s no single or Excel-ready model for working parenthood. What worked for your own parents, or your sister, or your friends and colleagues may not work for you. Your own old approaches and tools for getting things done and feeling like a high performer at work may not feel as effective now—and that’s OK. Follow your instinct and do what feels right for you, today. Remember, there’s no Supreme All-Knowing Working Parent Evaluation Committee passing judgment on your choices or writing up a report card. As long as you’re transitioning into working parenthood thoughtfully and intentionally—which is what this book will help you do—then you’re doing right by yourself, your career, and your family, all at the same time.