#5SmartReads - July 19, 2022

Jessica Wilen is passionate about helping working parents thrive. She specializes in executive coaching for high-achieving working parents and consults with companies and universities to make them more family-friendly. She's also an assistant professor and administrator at Yale School of Medicine and--most importantly--the mom to two great kiddos.

This May Be The Way To Cancel The Motherhood Penalty And Develop Leaders (Fast Company)

I've been saying this for years--the transition to parenthood is an underutilized leadership development opportunity. Working parenthood is often framed as a distraction in the workplace, but it has the potential to be our biggest career asset. New research is proving the benefit of leadership coaching for new moms.

It's a huge identity shift to transition from "worker" to "working mom", and coaching can help new parents clarify their values, establish boundaries, and cultivate the transferrable skills important in both domains. Plus, coaches can work with managers to ensure they are properly supporting their new parent employees. If you or your company are interested in parental leave coaching, please reach out!

When Moms Out-Earn Their Husbands, They Gain More Housework (Washington Post)

According to a new study of over 6,000 heterosexual, dual-income couples: “Women with children reduced housework from 18 to 14 hours a week as they went from earning zero to half of the household income. But after passing her husband’s salary, a woman’s home tasks increased to nearly 16 hours a week, the analysis found.

In contrast, a man’s housework ranged from six to eight hours a week when he was the primary breadwinner but then declined as his wife out-earned him.” The lead researcher of the study attributes this to inequity to women overcompensating for bucking traditional gender stereotypes.

Mastering The Art Of Influence (A Cup of Ambition)

It was a joy to interview Yale School of Management professor Zoe Chance for my weekly newsletter on working motherhood (please consider subscribing, if you haven't already!) Her book Influence is Your Superpower has been one of my favorite reads this year. We talked about the murky issue of professional women and "likability", using privilege for good, how to negotiate, and empowering kids to embrace their power.

Text Your Friends. It Matters More Than You Think (The New York Times)

In case you needed an excuse to reach out to a long-distance friend or former co-worker: here it is. New research has confirmed how important simple, brief check-ins are. It doesn't matter if you feel awkward or wish you had reached out last month--there's no better time than now to send that quick "thinking of you" text.

Talking About Death With Small Children (ParentData)

This is a very informative and beautifully-written article by Miranda Featherstone, a clinical social worker, about talking to children about death and other losses. Though I hope none of you are in need of this article right now, I would encourage you to read it regardless and perhaps bookmark it for later.

“We are inclined, sometimes wrongly, to fix things for our children: emailing teachers or coaches about spelling words that could be harder, friends who could be kinder. We offer suggestions and solutions, or let them know that the problem isn’t really a problem at all! It’s an opportunity! And here’s the silver lining! Heaven is so fabulous!! Maybe it is, I don’t know. But children do not need us to coat death in a slick candy shell. They need us to name it, invite it in, and admit — even if it makes us cry to do so — that it is an immutable part of living.”