Exploring Equity With Working Parents

0:05 welcome everybody we're going to give it just a couple minutes to let people come in the room hey Meredith it's good to
0:12 see you Katie i see Katie's coming correct with with
0:17 that baby energy here i am here for it
0:25 all right well welcome everybody you are at building forward and we have two very
0:32 special co-stars with us so we have Llewellyn Somers who is our operations manager at Visionality and Susy Lopez
0:39 Garcia who is the executive director of Community Action Ventura County. I'm
0:45 Emily Barany, i'm the founder and CEO of Visionality and this is Building Forward where we talk where we tackle a big
0:52 topic in 25 minutes or less. So we're all going to start our timers for 25 minutes
0:57 ... we're gonna have a just sort of very casual back and forth and then we really want to hear from you guys ... so please
1:05 participate put your lived experience in the chat put your questions in the chat ... after our 25 minutes we're gonna just
1:11 open it up to have conversations or questions or or sharing successes or challenges so we're just really glad
1:18 that you all are here we might hear some babies crying you know
1:24 and welcome to being an inclusive workplace where sometimes babies cry and
1:29 it's not the end of the world so if your baby cries don't worry if Llewellyn's kid interrupts and needs a snack re-up
1:36 don't worry it's not a big deal so with that ladies
1:42 talk to me about being working parents you want to take advice Susy
1:48 sure so good morning everyone as mentioned my name's Susy i am executive director
1:54 i've actually ... been executive director since january 2020
1:59 ... i had my little one in june of 2020 so there was a lot of ... change happening
2:05 that year for me ... i don't think i thought those two things were going to be happening at the same
2:12 time so that was my first sort of you know ... not obstacle but in my head
2:19 my own obstacle ... that i had to kind of get over that that oh hey i'm pregnant i'm gonna be the next executive director
2:26 i i've been working here for eight years so i was already here ... so that was definitely a plus
2:31 but as i took the new position ... i um
2:37 was elected as a new 80 and then within two weeks after that i found out i was pregnant so it was a lot to process and
2:44 a lot of like how am i gonna do this and how am i gonna let people know there was no uh
2:51 indication that there was gonna be any pushback or anything but i think again i built it up in my own head that ... how
2:57 do i tell people i'm pregnant and that i'm gonna be able to do this job somehow
3:03 but even before then i think, I... I shared with lolan and Emily that my husband and i had been wanting kids
3:09 and ... when this opportunity opened up for my job
3:14 i really had to reflect in in you know was trying to choose ... do i
3:21 apply for the position and kind of stop trying to have kids ... do i want to have
3:27 kids not a play i thought it had to be one or the other for some reason and eventually i said i really want to be a
3:33 mom i really want a little one and i don't want to have regrets later on if i decide to put that on pause
3:40 and i really want this position so we're just going to leave it up to see what happens ... it was still a surprise two
3:46 weeks later that they happened at the same time ... but again ... also i didn't you know
3:53 nobody anticipated covid so that hit in march and i remember going to see ... you
3:59 know my my checkups was the week that the stay-at-home order happened so i got to see the doctor for one last time in
4:05 march and then it wasn't until closer to june i actually went back in person so there was also that
4:12 ... worry of is everything okay you're you're talking to me virtually you're talking over the phone you're not
4:17 actually seeing me do you need to see me do you need to see my belly you know ... all those things but um
4:25 as ... you know i got closer to my due dates ... we were also dealing with having staff furloughed here so we're a
4:32 non-profit ... we have a food pantry that continued on through covid we furloughed other
4:38 staff we brought back staff quickly in june ... so literally we brought back stuff
4:43 the first week of june and my baby was born june 8th so as we brought back staff i kind of did a little welcome had
4:50 them come back in and then i went on maternity leave the week before baby was due ... and i took the, I... I kept telling
4:58 people well just give me the first week just give me one week don't bother me after that if you need me
5:04 i quickly realized that was just not gonna work and i was like i'm so sleep deprived ... i don't know what i'm doing ... so
5:12 i did take six weeks completely off and then ... the reason i did come back at
5:18 six weeks was because i was able to do remote work i was able to do the board meetings from
5:24 home ... so i could quickly jump on and jump off i could check in and then i slowly
5:30 made my way into the office you know short hours of the day
5:35 where it's still allowed to be coming back and forth and then um
5:40 what really has made this easier has been ... having grandparents at home first grandchild on
5:47 both sides and so the grandparents alternate for child care ... so that has been
5:55 amazing otherwise i would also be dealing with okay what does child care look like how much does it cost because
6:01 i have looked into you know eventually or if i had to look do it at some point
6:06 ... so there's there's just a lot going on ... as far as child care and i'm just thankful that's one piece i don't have
6:12 to deal with ... and then the other piece was my husband lost his job at the end of 2020 because
6:18 the coveted so he was home for a full year and so when the baby was about six months he
6:23 started staying home ... and that worked for us that year ... and it was amazing he would have dinner
6:30 and i was all questioning i don't cook so i would come home his first like month and he was like baby's good
6:37 dinner's ready and i'm like i couldn't do that like how do you do that
6:42 so ... but that's what worked for us so a lot of people said you know that's that's you and your husband and that's what
6:48 works for you too ... you know and i'm so grateful for that too so that all those transitions
6:55 made things a lot easier ... to kind of be here but, I... I often think
7:01 if i want a second one ... thankful no more covet hopefully ... but then what
7:06 would that look like having two at home versus just one ... and with everything changing so
7:13 that's my my little back story i heard so many parallels to to your
7:19 story and some really big differences so so give us your working mother origin story what was
7:26 that journey like for you ... go ahead go ahead
7:34 you want to jump in yeah so i was working ... at a non-profit on the
7:42 programmatic side of things when i had my first baby and he is now 9
7:48 29 years old this month and then, I... I also have ... my
7:55 daughter who is seven and my youngest who is four
8:02 and so i actually met Emily working at ... that non-profit women's economic
8:08 ventures and then when Emily was looking to hire her first official employee she
8:14 sent this job notice around and said you know spread the word and i was
8:20 like oh i want that position because what she was offering was even more flexible than what i had at the time
8:28 ... and so i took her, I... I swooped in and i took
8:34 up that opportunity ... and that was eight years ago that we started working
8:39 together so at that time my son was about one and
8:44 i was soon to be having my daughter and i was just looking for my
8:50 massive grand strategy was keep your foot in the door just keep your foot in the door
8:55 ... because i didn't know i don't know, I... I just was like lost in
9:02 both sides of my life i was lost in my professional life where i was like well
9:07 you know, I... I don't want to put my kids into full child care i had the benefit
9:14 of growing up with my mom as a stay-at-home mom and she wasn't just a stay-at-home mom
9:20 she was like a fiercely big advocate of stay-at-home moms and the benefits of
9:26 what that gave to us and i ..., I... I just was always really proud of
9:31 her doing that and and knew that i benefited from it so much so it wasn't just that i thought that being
9:38 a stay-at-home mom was a good thing it was that i was, I... I have come to realize that i was kind
9:46 of ... like trained to think that sending your kid to child care was a bad thing
9:53 because it was the opposite and i so i just launched into this different path of like i'm gonna leave
9:59 this other role behind but unlike my mom like i am well invested into my career when
10:06 these babies came along and so i want to keep my foot in the door and i'll just figure it out
10:11 ... and that has been this interesting process of like trying to find
10:16 fulfillment in both spheres and lots of times coming up feeling really empty in
10:22 both spheres because i ... didn't have
10:27 very many models of like young babies in my life before my own babies came along and so i was
10:34 struggling as a parent ... my mom had already passed away she
10:39 wasn't available for childcare my ... husband's parents are on the other side
10:45 of the country and so we were really like we did have some support but it's like
10:51 the amount of support that is necessary is huge our friend kathy ortheim says you
10:57 need a list of seven people on speed dial and i have never been able to have more than maybe four or five and they
11:04 fluctuated right and so i ... i felt kind of lost as trying to
11:11 figure out how to be a parent and then also ... it was very interesting because once
11:17 i took on this part-time role at Visionality the tones of conversations that people
11:23 in my life would have to with me about my work really changed it stopped being
11:30 how's work what you know what's the next step for you
11:35 what what is like what challenges are you like anything that was like a real
11:40 investment in a conversation with me and instead the conversations became are you still working
11:46 are you still working are you how many hours are you doing oh you're doing 12 are you still doing 12
11:54 and that and then i would say yeah i'm still doing 12 and then that would be it like that that was just the extent of
12:01 of like the interest in what i was doing because the deep assumption is like you're working part time and you've
12:08 compromised your your you compromise your career by reducing your hours so
12:13 you couldn't possibly be doing anything that is interesting or challenging or contributing to the world and i was like
12:20 well actually let me tell you about what is happening at Visionality
12:26 and about this like really uniquely insanely lucky thing that i have fallen
12:32 into with with my boss Emily who herself doesn't have children but who is advocating for me when i don't even have
12:38 a voice to advocate for myself ... so yeah and and so now here we are
12:46 it's ... eight years of being at Visionality and in the fall of this year my youngest
12:52 will go to kindergarten and to me i'm kind of at this interesting point of looking back over the past like decade
12:57 or so of like getting through the young years right like Susy you're in the thick of the young years i feel like i'm
13:04 like closing the chapter on those young years and not keeping my foot in the door phase of my
13:11 career and i have a lot of like perspectives and things to say about it
13:17 because i don't want other people to feel like the choices that they made came with so much guilt or compromise or
13:26 lack of credibility well and it's so funny Llewellyn from my
13:31 perspective right because you created the foundations of our inclusive workplace and our you know ethics first
13:40 people first workplace ... by being vulnerable with me and
13:45 honest about what you needed and now we're in a position to lead webinars like this
13:52 all because oh cute little Llewellyn she's only working 12 hours a week oh it
13:58 can't possibly be meaningful because it's only part time for this baby tiny startup company
14:03 ... so i just want to to encourage parents
14:09 to be an advocate sometimes it can be hard to be an advocate for yourself but if you're brave enough to be an
14:16 advocate for yourself and your family you're actually building space for other parents
14:21 so it's time to start using our voices and making parental accommodations non-negotiable
14:28 it needs to be part of the position Susy i remember in our prep we had
14:35 talked about this theory that that because you had your maternity leave and your return to
14:42 work during the pandemic how that actually made your transition back in
14:47 easier because those are our pandemic accommodations were actually
14:53 mirroring the accommodations that a lot of parents need so can you talk to me a little bit about that
14:59 sure ... so because we were alternating shifts not having everybody in the office like
15:06 100 staffing here we would alternate schedules ... i didn't have that feeling ... my mom
15:14 watched my little one the first day i actually did come into the office and you know i had heard like how difficult
15:19 that first day is you're away from baby you know you've been with baby 24 7. so
15:26 that guilt that Llewellyn talks about ... definitely kind of came in because it
15:32 was almost like a little bit of a relief to be in the office and not have a baby attached to me no times
15:39 so ... there was that piece there was also the piece like oh is baby okay is my mom okay like you know does she need
15:46 anything so thankfully she's a mom she's my mom ... i didn't ask her i didn't you
15:51 know say anything i just said if you need something call me ... i don't live far from here i'm like
15:56 two miles away from the office so again another convenience but ... she sent me a picture she's like hey
16:02 look baby you know and i was like thank you you know i just needed to see that and um
16:09 i'd be here in short spurts and take care of things that needed to be taken care of while i was in here
16:14 ... but again that really helped that i wasn't away eight full hours every day
16:20 as soon as that first day kicked in so i had that flexibility ... i was still um
16:26 pumping i had you know i had always pumped from the beginning because i had issues breastfeeding so i was pumping so
16:31 i was trying to do my schedule because even though i had the space to do it in it felt uncomfortable i wasn't home i
16:37 was like you know in an office so ... i would try to schedule things around that like okay i'm gonna run home and
16:42 pump or i'm gonna pump right before coming in and you know trying to sort all those things out um
16:48 and just that schedule was was huge and then we saw it with staff because
16:54 they ... had kids in school there were you know starting school virtual learning
17:00 and as we were doing the shifts ... some people said hey i need 30
17:05 minutes more or i can't come in at this time ... i need to come in is it okay because i
17:11 need to get my little one settled and then the person that's gonna kind of take over from me comes in at this time and so we made those accommodations um
17:18 because we could also see people were starting to stress over that ... i think a big example we had was our i.t
17:25 person requested the day off who said hey i have three kids in school-age kids they're all going to start i need to be
17:32 home and make sure that they can log in and do all this and i'm thinking he's rit guy he helps us
17:38 take care of these things he needs to go home and do it for his kids ... and you know he's like as soon as
17:43 we're done i'll come in and he calls me he's like the password's not working i'm calling the school nobody's picking up
17:49 and he's frustrated and he's like i'm not going to be when i'm like that's fine you know that's fine you got to take care of your kids so there was a
17:55 lot of changing and thought around that too because again it wasn't just because of
18:01 the pandemic it's really thinking that their kid kids needs aren't just during
18:06 pandemic there's things going on like hey i have to go get you know a physical because they're going to start sports or
18:11 i have to schedule this and they have a doctor's appointment and whatever it was ... we've been looking at that but yeah
18:18 definitely made it easier coming back as difficult as being having a baby during code was
18:24 because of not having family and other support systems around coming back it made it easier
18:33 well and i think it's just sort of a general perspective within an organization
18:38 that you put people first so if someone needs to come in 30 minutes late like is
18:44 this really catastrophic maybe it is you know if you're you know the person responsible for opening the office and
18:50 it needs to be at eight o'clock on the dot maybe it is catastrophic if someone comes in 30 minutes late but these are
18:56 all adjustments we can make or accommodations so if i need to be 30 minutes late not negotiable to keep my
19:02 work-life balance and to make my kids a priority then let's find someone else who can be
19:08 there at eight right so it's really just saying what each of us
19:15 need to build the life that we want and then problem solving and i think also readjusting the
19:22 definition of what would be a catastrophic change like i have had to really coach myself on
19:29 this where when we went to virtual learning with the kids and we all of our team meetings
19:35 we had previously had a team meeting structure where it was once a month we would go into the very small office that
19:41 we rented right and as a virtual team that was like our one time a month in person time
19:47 but then with the pandemic when we let the office go we became 100 virtual and
19:53 showing up to that team meeting i could never find a time where the kids weren't
19:58 like logged on between the two of them where someone wasn't logged into a class and
20:04 that meant that someone was going to not be able to find their worksheet and someone's like wasn't going to be able
20:10 to connect to the audio and whatever and i personally i'm not like if i don't have
20:16 to multitask then i don't want to multitask it drains me right and so to
20:21 split my brain between the being trying to be present at a team
20:27 meeting online and trying to like dash away to do the whatever maintenance needs to be done
20:33 with the kids like yeah i could do it for a one and a half hour meeting
20:38 and then i would be exhausted by that right and that was because when i showed
20:43 up i wanted to make sure that i was like 1 000 there
20:49 and and that is what how i was defining like what participation looked like
20:55 and Emily had to have like a real heart to heart with me and be like i know you
21:01 don't want to show up and have the distractions like it was like my person my professional image like i didn't want
21:08 the team to see me in a way that they hadn't seen me before and as a result of that i was like
21:14 sabotaging myself because being at those teens was really important and so she was like just show
21:21 up and we'll give it a try and we did and i was like wow i'm actually not interrupted as much as i
21:27 thought i was going to be the interruptions are actually like kind of welcome the team likes to see the kids
21:32 once in a while they don't want to see the kids all the time i don't want to be interrupted all the time but like being
21:38 there for whatever i can do is better than doing nothing and it was really surprising to me just
21:46 how much i was able to be there when i thought it was going to be very different
21:52 yeah and i Susy we had talked a little bit ... too about like just being real about when it
21:59 is and isn't appropriate to be interrupted with your kids right like if
22:04 Llewellyn is in a client meeting or you had mentioned if if you or some of your staff is doing
22:11 in a client intake meeting it's not appropriate to have your kid there that would be
22:16 catastrophic it's not appropriate but there are so many spaces in our work day
22:21 where it's not catastrophic and again Llewellyn said do we want her kids
22:27 in every single team meeting for the whole hour and a half no no we don't we sure don't um
22:34 but it truly when when one of them pops in for a snack or
22:39 to like restart the movie like all the animals come onto the screen we talk about what
22:45 they're learning this time yeah and and it really like that has been
22:50 some cool things that have come out of this like Llewellyn allowing herself
22:56 to show up in that way to show up period
23:04 yeah and i see some ... conversations on the chat ... definitely i think before we
23:11 work work work was eight to five you know for some of us or monday through friday eight to five and
23:18 now that i have a little one too, I... I try to be mindful like okay finish everything by five and sometimes i drive myself a little crazy but i wanna have
23:24 that balance that when i go home at five like i'm gonna put my phone down and i'm gonna try not to check emails unless you
23:31 know i know something i'm waiting for something but it's balancing that um
23:36 you know or or something's going on during the day like i also see things you know being here in the office now um
23:43 i went to the library on the weekend and they're like hey do you know we have toddler ... reading times on wednesdays
23:48 at 11 and i'm like well i'm usually in the office so let me figure that out you know and so all the
23:54 fun things like sometimes i'll find them like oh it's tuesday at 10 a.m ... so i think as things also get a
24:01 little better and i had to get comfortable you know at work but again that was my own thing
24:07 i was making that time then like hey on wednesdays let me rearrange and maybe once a month twice a month i can take
24:13 those wednesdays for two hours take them their reading you know pick them up and spend that time with them ... and balance
24:19 out and for me sometimes 6 37 in the morning now works for me to check emails because everything's quiet
24:25 in the house and i can just catch up on emails and i'm ready you know then i run around because he wakes up at seven i'm
24:31 trying to address them chase them around get him out the door and i don't walk in until maybe 8 15 or 8 30 at the actual office ... so it's
24:39 really kind of balancing ... what's going on and really looking like you mentioned
24:44 ... you know, I... I said we're a non-profit we we do provide ... services showers
24:50 laundry for our house populations so obviously we wouldn't have kids running
24:55 around here ... you know we do do intakes with clients so that's again ... but
25:01 there's downtime or not downtime there's time where there's data entry that staff does you know so that's the time we
25:07 would also kind of balance out ... if they were working from home okay take care of all the face-to-face things you
25:13 have to do and then the other days you can work from home and take care of something so it's just balancing out
25:19 workload too what can be done ... remotely or with kids around versus what
25:26 needs to be taken care of without kids yeah and i think that that's where it's like ever like what
25:33 what you need Susy is different from what i need what i need this year is different from what i'm going to need
25:39 next year like and that's where we get into the equity versus equality conversation because
25:45 it is i think especially and like we're part of smaller organizations right and
25:51 but if everyone's taking cues from the bigger organizations on how to do this
25:56 then they're really at a disadvantage because they want to have how could we be up on time
26:04 they want to have a big blanket policy that provides equal to everyone but
26:10 everybody needs something different and it's about breaking that really devastating idea that that it won't be
26:17 fair if we don't give the same thing to everybody and everybody needs something different on this
26:27 i wanna open it up i wanna hear some some other experiences we've had some conversation
26:34 in the chat i wanna hear what your organizations are
26:40 doing to increase parental equity or what do you wish they would do what's what's the one
26:46 thing that your organization could do differently that would allow you to show up more as your full
26:52 integrated self either at home or at work or both
27:08 no one's volunteering this can be said this is such a like
27:15 so deeply vulnerable and and i'm not a parent and i see the parents
27:22 around me do you know every parent that i know uses the word
27:28 lazy to describe themselves and it makes me so angry because lazy
27:35 doesn't exist you are choosing to allocate your resources and energy in
27:40 different ways but it's just so fascinating to me that it's it's the parents in my life especially
27:46 the working mothers especially the working single mothers who choose to use that word and it just
27:53 makes makes me mad that's the guilt right it's the guilt you're you're if you're
28:00 if you work full-time then you're being a bad mom if you're a full-time mom then you're being a bad professional if you
28:06 do 50 50 you're bad at both it just seems like we've created this absolutely impossible
28:13 standard that more than 50 of our workplace is experiencing
28:19 but it still feels uncomfortable to talk about it even though it is like truly a very shared experience
28:26 for people who are parents and people who are professionals yeah i could i can speak to that in an
28:34 effort to see if that will encourage anyone to to jump in but i'll just admit that i do not feel comfortable talking
28:41 about this i hope with time it becomes more comfortable and it has taken 10 years for me to agree to do something
28:48 like this Emily has wanted something like this to be public for Visionality for a long time i'm like why
28:54 i'm just one person my story's so different and also a lot of my why is like
29:01 well i'm only working part-time so it's not valid like what an incredible
29:07 privilege for me to be able to have the resources in my family to work part-time
29:13 so i shouldn't speak up on this topic but what i'm starting to like turn on in
29:20 my mind more lately is like that's one of so many examples of how we
29:26 parents like build walls between each other like i'm part-time here full-time
29:31 i put my kids in child care and and you didn't i breastfed my kid past one year old and
29:39 you didn't i have grandparents at home taking care of my kids and i don't like all of these
29:45 different ways that we like fall into these categories and then we build the walls and i'm like why or why do we do
29:52 that and i i'm coming to this conclusion that it feels like it's just easier to
29:58 build a wall between me and that other person because i feel uncomfortable right so i gotta do something about this
30:04 discomfort so i'm just gonna build this wall between me and this other person was way easier instead of us like
30:11 standing together and looking at this huge wall in front of both of us that is
30:17 the barrier to us like feeling successful and sane and having enough
30:22 sleep and these things that feel like we we shouldn't
30:28 ask for them because we decide to have kids anyways this is what we signed up for
30:38 has raised their hand do we have someone ready to be a little scary and vulnerable
30:45 yes so ... i was gonna speak earlier but i'm sorry if there's a lot of background based i'm actually outside and there was
30:51 a helicopter flying over me so i waited for it to go by ... so
30:56 i think i want to say thank you first for this conversation because it's something i've really wrestled with
31:02 professionally since pretty much all of 2021 and where we are
31:07 now and i think the points that were just made are really important ones i actually i started my career fairly
31:14 young at 20 and i've always felt like i had something to prove and um
31:20 so that kind of instilled my work ethic and my work habits which
31:26 were probably fairly beneficial to my employers
31:31 as time went on and gave me a really great reputation in the field and very happy to have that but now here i am
31:39 ... 20 years later almost and still going that way it's like well who do i have to impress anymore what do i
31:45 have to prove now putting my work ahead of my family or family time
31:51 and i always want to do a really good job no matter what it is i'm doing no matter what level of work i always want
31:57 to be high quality and that's just something i instilled in myself but as i mentioned in the chat the
32:02 pandemic really forced me to look at that and say well
32:08 i'm making my organization look really good but at what cost to myself and at what cost to
32:13 my time with my family and my young kids and so that was a very real conversation
32:20 i avoided having with myself for so long and was as a silver lining was now forced to do so and i really appreciate
32:26 ... saying that you know the the word lazy is one that probably should be
32:32 reframed because ... for me it was always i would guess i
32:37 wouldn't say it was lazy but it was always like well i need to do this so it gets done and i know that it was done right and
32:44 we're doing a really good job and it's not like i didn't have faith in my colleagues it's just i knew if i did it that i was doing my part and my role
32:52 to add to the team and make sure we're doing good work but now i realize
32:58 no like that stuff will happen regardless i don't have to be there every single day i don't have to
33:03 work through like back pain or i don't have to make arrangements so that my kids get figured out like i can do those
33:09 things and people like the world will go on the work will go on without me so um
33:16 yeah that's kind of where i've been with that let alone the fact that having kids in general absent the
33:22 pandemic there were all these other things that i realized we had to get figured out and the pandemic just
33:27 magnified that and had me realize well this should be a priority and if any employers ever think otherwise
33:34 well that's a conversation that we need to have and see if our value was aligned on
33:39 what's important to me and what's important to my organization so anyways thanks again for the conversation and letting me speak on that thanks for
33:45 being here yeah i think it's far past time to normalize that
33:51 being a parent looks really different to a lot of different people but also being an employee could look really different
33:57 to a lot of different people so as as the employer um
34:02 so many other employers would ask me well like what can Llewellyn even get done in 12 hours like how how is a 12
34:10 hour a week shoot sometimes it was five hours a week you know like how how was that
34:16 how is that even worth it and and interestingly i think that having
34:22 Llewellyn as a working parent is part of why my business is so strong
34:29 ... we have this saying that i learned it at weave women's economic ventures that you need to
34:35 work in your business right so that's the work that your business does but you also need to work on your business and
34:41 because Llewellyn's schedule was always changing you know even if she had solid child
34:47 care you know all day wednesday maybe her babysitter got sick like maybe
34:53 it even has nothing to do with her or her family it's so far out of her control so
34:59 we we truly put up boundaries where she could not work on client-facing work because her schedule
35:06 was so up and down and that was critical to her being able to stay in this job so
35:12 i had a dedicated person to work on my business
35:18 from year two and that nobody does that nobody nobody nobody does that and
35:25 what's extra cool is it was at a rate that i could afford when i was a
35:32 teeny tiny baby startup where it was literally me and Llewellyn doing five to 12 hours and
35:38 so there's this other like real benefit to companies to open up that door for
35:45 part-time parents because you can like get really cool things done with that
35:51 time that's segregated ... it doesn't get sucked away but also it's a really interesting way
35:57 to scale your company at like very tiny baby step ways so it really serves both
36:03 parties in a really cool in a really cool way yeah and i want to clarify like when you
36:09 say at a rate you're referring to the amount of hours that i wanted to work but
36:14 part of i think what has been successful to our relationship is that you have always valued
36:19 me and looked at any raises that went to the team went to me as well even though i was in that
36:26 part-time role and that's like parent i feel like it's like when you drive a car off the law it depreciates
36:33 when you have an employee and they have a baby they depreciate and value like that is ridiculous
36:39 because of my children i have way better time management skills i
36:44 understand people better i understand the world better i have like better communication skills like that is a myth
36:52 that needs to stop and i think we hold it all pretty like in subtle ways we believe
36:58 that yeah that's a good point yes so you know as your title has
37:03 changed and evolved and you've become you know joined leadership in our your rate
37:10 has increased as it would if you were a full-time employee
37:15 and like real talk it's hard when your schedule changes it's hard when something big comes up
37:22 like a pandemic and you need to take a step back but it's hard because you are so incredibly valuable to this
37:30 organization so of course it makes business sense for me to accommodate
37:36 because replacing you seems impossible and so it's so interesting to from the
37:42 employer perspective to hear how many people are like well there's no way you know
37:48 such a very part-time employee could add value there's no way how do you know that she's working you know how do you
37:54 know if she's not in your office how do you she must be so distracted i'm like
38:00 who isn't distracted by the way who isn't distracted right
38:05 and and truly having having you as a human but you also as a parent
38:13 in this organization makes us stronger okay before you go i want to say
38:19 something in case you're still there yeah i see you Gabe i thank you for what you said i
38:24 really appreciate it and i so appreciate have a da... having a dad on this call because this is a parent issue this is
38:30 not a mother issue and i want to say that what you said i think it's about
38:36 boundaries right but i think it's also about like how we define ourselves and
38:41 you were defining yourselves yourself through work like as we all do so much and as a person who puts in
38:48 endless hours like that the reliance on your work for who you are is only even stronger
38:54 and why why do we do that i think partly it's because at work it
39:00 is easier to navigate that
39:05 home with the kids is messy home with the kids and like feeling validation and and having your boss who
39:14 is kind of your lunatic child like telling you that you're doing a good job is really unsettling so it is easier for
39:22 us to define ourselves by by our work because we
39:29 yeah, I... I feel so strongly about this [Laughter]
39:36 so thank you Gabe you said something really great Llewellyn and i can't remember if it
39:43 was the article that you wrote in preparation for this but you said that we're not gonna have equity for parents
39:48 in the workplace until we have equity for parents in the home and like and that that is why we
39:54 specifically yes we're doing this in may and it is mother's day in may and we
40:00 specifically talked about working parents not working mothers yes this is
40:05 a predominantly mother's issue and we don't have time for me to get on my
40:11 soapbox about about that but like truly this is a parent's issue and we need to recognize
40:17 that it's a parent's issue
40:22 i also just want to add ... i think it's been you know we focus on the parent and only
40:29 the parent understands what we're going through and yes definitely but um
40:34 like you Emily you know other people that aren't parents but are really thinking to support parents ... i have my
40:41 assistant here Catalina ... and so the other day you know i had to work so people got sick my my parents
40:48 got sick so i had to work from home and i was trying to balance and eventually i just said i need to take the day off like i've been trying and i can't right
40:54 like i'm gonna go crazy but then i had to come into the office to pick up something and i had my little one with me and i was like hey heads up a little
41:01 one's coming ... but she might have commented me and i was like oh she's like well maybe we should get a little quarter ready for
41:07 him when you do have to come in so he's entertained because obviously it's all set up for adults um
41:14 so that idea just her bringing that up like hey we should look at adding something in here ... so that he sits for
41:21 like a second or is distracted but he's probably not gonna sit but at least we'll see something for a second uh
41:26 while i'm in here and so i think all those together is really important um
41:31 when i was you know thinking of do i have a baby do i apply for the job i talked to an old boss and
41:38 he just was very you know straightforward and was like Susy if you become the executive director
41:44 you can make those changes you will be able to make those changes for parents and i'm sure you're not the only one
41:50 dealing with that and you can put things into policy when kids could come into the office or
41:56 how to deal with having kids and so that was also the other thing i was like oh wow you're right you know i'm i'm scared
42:03 of it but i would be in a position to do something about it ... so that's that's the other
42:09 thing but i was just you know in general just having support ... on all ends ... was definitely
42:16 important for people who might not be parents but are seeing and want to be supportive
42:21 to each other so yeah i want to chime in on that because you know it kind of reminds me of
42:27 you know people that are smokers and people that are not smokers
42:34 and boys are a great divide right people are so mad because they have to cover for the person that's smoking and you
42:41 know you know so it's kind of like that same kind of thinking i'm wondering if it's like the childless versus the
42:48 persons with children you know it's like they're we're pitted against each other almost and maybe what part of the
42:55 conversation has to be is because we're like these people that like me that want to support
43:00 that don't have any clue because i've never had any kids and to to get the shift the paradigm
43:08 because it's like okay maybe we'll give you some flex time to
43:13 do something even though you don't have a kid you know so that everybody thinks oh
43:19 maybe because everybody wants to it we're like little kids when we're little kids what do we say the first thing we
43:25 say it's not fair right
43:30 we still do that that's what we're doing right now we're still doing that that's why you got guilt because you know and
43:36 we pit ourselves against each other like you said you took your kids to child care oh well i didn't you know i'm so
43:43 much better bold you know that is such horse pucky so we have to get that into the the
43:52 into the conversation it's not just just the moms it's not like you know Gabe you know brought the the you know
43:58 hey there's dads too you know they're single dads oh my god you know so
44:03 somehow make it to where it's more fair you know i don't know
44:10 we we each show up in life and in work
44:15 with different needs and so i think it's just normalizing that every single one of us
44:20 need different accommodations and that's fine so yeah
44:26 that's fine it's true for every single one of us and for some of us that is because you are a working parent for
44:33 some of us it's maybe because we have a disability you know
44:38 like there are so many such a range of accommodations that
44:43 every single employee shows up to work with and so again if you take up a people first
44:50 approach to employment then it's just making space for your employees to be
44:55 vulnerable with you and say this is the accommodation that i need to show up as my best self which then by the way they
45:01 do better work and they're happier and they stay around longer which is better for your p l yeah and then ... the word
45:08 loyalty [Music] right eight years did i think i was going to
45:14 work for Emily for eight years when i started that first conversation with her
45:20 absolutely not i've never worked for anybody for eight years it blows me away
45:26 all the time and it's like how do we shift it like
45:31 from so equity is not about like there's this pot and it's only got this much in it
45:36 and we're gonna have to give a big old chunk of this pot to this one person and that's only gonna leave a little bit for
45:42 everybody else how do we just how do we shift it from saying like no this
45:49 i know at the end of the day there's a finite amount of money and whatever but it it also feels like a mental block of
45:55 like just aren't there enough ways for us to think creatively
46:01 about this and at the end of the day like if if my co-worker takes three cigarette
46:08 breaks and i go to fill snacks and whatever if we all just get our work done at the end of that day that's what
46:14 matters that's right because like my bumper sticker then i still have to do
46:19 shift happens yeah
46:25 i love it anyone else want to
46:31 share your experience or your successes or your challenges or ask a question
46:38 well i have to hop off soon so i'll just like say my quick little piece and then i'll go but
46:43, I... I think that i unfortunately work harder
46:49 because i am balancing working at home with a one-year-old
46:54 and that means i'm up until like 1am actually getting work done
46:59 which is great for my employer terrible for me and um
47:05 you know like when i take a sick day i'm not the one who's sick right it's my
47:10 kids that are sick i have a nine-year-old i have a one-year-old chances are it's them that's sick and
47:15 that i can't function if they're sick so then i work when i'm actually sick so
47:23 it's like this terrible trajectory of me working harder
47:29 and doing things that i probably shouldn't because i have to accommodate the kids
47:35 so yeah it's definitely a very fine line mentally as well that we all
47:42 have to walk as parents take care of ourselves yeah
47:48 yeah thanks for sharing yeah definitely it definitely is hard you know i think one of the staff people that had asked
47:54 for those 30 minutes i at some point i asked which is it easier if you just work from home instead of the 30 minutes
48:00 so you're not stressed and she's like no i need to come into the office and i was like oh okay sorry she's like please and
48:07 i said okay so yeah it's definitely different being home
48:12 yes yeah and i think it's just like so the change can happen from the top
48:19 down right like Susy you're in that position where you can like make some decisions for your organization but then
48:26 from the bottom up like what does it look like and i think the best thing that we can do is to just
48:32 ask just just ask like maybe it's going to be a no
48:38 but sometimes i just think we don't ask because we don't want to make waves we don't feel like we have
48:46 enough in common with the person who we're asking like all these different barriers and and if we
48:52 ask you never know maybe it'll it'll create a little change here and a little change there
49:02 edith i see your hand up hi Susy hi Emily hi Llewellyn ... good
49:08 morning everybody ... so i trimmed a little bit late i had a 10 o'clock but i just really want to share
49:14 a little bit about me so i work for Ventura County Credit Inion i have for the last ... 13 years i have five children
49:22 in two pods so i have a 17 15 and 14 year old i stopped having
49:28 children for seven years and then i have two little ones a seven-year-old and a three-year-old
49:35 so there's a lot of truth to everything that you're you all are saying and obviously
49:41 we are our biggest critics we put the pressure on ourselves nobody else
49:48 cares sometimes right like there's times that you know it's us it's us having to
49:53 stay up at one o'clock because we want to get the work done we need to learn
49:58 to leverage the people that want to help us and that's like one of the biggest
50:03 advice that i'll give to everybody everybody calls me superwoman i can't believe you're you know you you've done
50:09 so much so i put myself through college i have two degrees from Ventura college i have a bachelor's from California
50:14 State University, Channel Islands i'm trying to get my master's degree i notice right from the get-go like i
50:21 need to get a higher education to you know obviously get a good job right because it's that balance that mothers
50:26 have do i go and work on a career or do i stay home and take care of my kids but again who does that matter to to
50:33 yourself it's you you're putting the pressure on yourself nobody else is gonna care so then i made that decision
50:39 i want to do both and thank god i've had the flexibility i think to touch on ... i
50:44 think it was Meredith's point about the hourly it was a lot harder when i was an hourly employee right but i had an
50:51 employer that was working with me that was leveraging my hours to get my work done in order to watch me succeed
50:58 because they knew the asset that i was to their organization and that's what has made me successful now that i am a
51:05 salary employee life is so much easier being able to raise all five of these children and more so because i've had um
51:14 the liberty to work from home from because of covet for the past two years so i've actually raised my little ones
51:19 right i was ... gone with with a part of my my first pot and raising them
51:25 ... but just really quick and i thought you know when i did go back to school i said you know they're little they're two
51:30 they're three they're four they take naps they probably won't remember and that's when i took advantage to do the
51:35 education and to go back to college and get all the stuff done and you know here we are now so
51:41 ... you know keep going you are your biggest critics really analyze what's important to you take full force of what
51:48 is really important to you and and take that road because believe me ladies you guys can do it i i'm a firm believer i
51:55 can share my stories i'll go to coffee and we can talk more about it but you guys can truly do it
52:04 i don't understand how either has so much energy every time i see her she's like hey and i'm like oh my god i'm
52:10 dying i need you and this is me all the time not on coffee
52:15 so you know maybe that helps me out a little bit [Laughter] thank you Edith i really appreciate it i
52:23 it's like we all have our story and we all i think we have this like need to have our story get heard and
52:29 like validated by this community of parents that then validated like beyond
52:35 that and and it's like no story is the same no strategies that work for one word for
52:42 the other which is where we get back to like what needs to be done for one employee is gonna be different for somebody else
52:59 well keep it up moms so what are we gonna do next i mean this
53:06 seems like such a powerful ... ... first steps ... you guys got plans to
53:13 take this on the road or what's what's going on here you know me i'm all about distribution
53:20 yeah so this went i'm gonna toot your horn right now Emily so we wrote a blog post
53:26 in conjunction with this Emily and i sat down to write it and we said one page blog post and then we ended up with nine
53:33 pages so we did the the first edition of it was my story
53:39 and that's available but the second edition of it is Emily's perspective as an employer and she broke it down into
53:46 nine tips of the adjustments that can be made by employers using like our story as a
53:53 background for it so we want it to be something that we can like take into action
53:58 but if others want to keep the conversation going in another format we are so open to that idea for sure
54:05 well i have a feeling this is going somewhere ... not just here you know what i mean so yeah ... uh
54:14 like maybe you guys can do presentations for employers that are on the brink you
54:19 know that they're thinking about this you know right now is it it's well it's the iron is still hot you know because
54:26 you know that they're going to forget you know once the pandemic is is just going to be in the rear view mirror but right now it seems like it's
54:34 timely so i don't know well and and i do think it has to be a two-pronged approach
54:41 where there needs to be this solidarity between working parents to
54:47 to share your stories and to say it's okay to ask for accommodations and the accommodations you're requesting are
54:54 valid and reasonable but then also this conversation with employers that makes the business
55:00 case because like if i can't afford to do it i can't do it it may it has
55:06 nothing to do with whether i want to do something or not if we physically can't afford it then that's
55:11 that's the end of it and making reasonable accommodations for all
55:16 types of things including working parents is better for my bottom line
55:22 because turnover is a hidden expense it doesn't show up on your p l
55:29 it just is money that disappears and so truly
55:34 every dollar that you spend investing in your employees and accommodating so that they can do their job and show up for
55:41 your you year after year as their life changes is actually
55:46 you're saving yourself so much money because turnover is your biggest expense
55:51 and and it's so hidden there is not a line item for terms for
55:57 turnout there may be a line item for recruitment but lost productivity decrease trust in your team decrease
56:04 trust with your clients that doesn't show up anywhere yeah
56:09 that's that's what i used to do for my my business is go in there and tell them you are losing money because
56:16 you're not you're not being letting them be productive you're in and you can literally show
56:22 them on a spreadsheet that this kind of money is like you said this hidden money you could literally show
56:28 them that amount you know if you you figured it out you know and how much it would be for this
56:34 kind of job you know this line item use it as an example go out there and and start talking to
56:40 employers you know that's the way yeah yeah well and because real talk like it
56:46 it has to make business sense like that is a reality that's all it is about it's all about money yeah yeah
56:52 for them you know for for ones that are stuck okay we're gonna unstick yeah okay if it
57:00 happens clothing closing closing thoughts my
57:06 friend anyone else want to share stories i see our colleague Brittany was
57:12 in the chat ... we had a meeting with Brittany and she
57:17 her kiddo was running around in the background and that's
57:22 life and my goodness i was so glad that she chose to show up with her kiddo running in the
57:29 background instead of cancelling a meeting because it was not catastrophic right
57:35 no so i feel like ... yeah i agree i can't remember who said
57:40 it earlier but the pandemic really helped i feel like normalize a lot of that of course in like the right
57:46 situations i was like okay i feel like Emily and Llewellyn are a very safe space to have this child ... running manically
57:53 around ... but ... yeah we were we're trying to create um
57:59 actually really define like how we're supporting ... you know parents and everybody in the workplace so that
58:05 they're their best selves whether that's their best you know they're the best version of their parenting self
58:12 their individual self them as a partner to someone ... because i think it all translates
58:17 obviously to productivity so this has been really helpful just to hear different everyone's different takes and
58:23 and what you all are doing and ... you know what you've learned from from maybe past situations that haven't been as
58:29 supportive and i certainly before the organization that i'm at now i had a very um
58:36 unsupportive organization and so ... you know trying to pump in a closet
58:42 and ... you know being chastised for going to pick up my kid and leaving 30
58:48 minutes early to do so and and all of that so ... i feel like i'm on the other end of the spectrum where i have a very
58:54 supportive organization and we're very open to like what can we do to make this the best workplace for
59:00 parents ... and anyone ... so and now i'm just trying to soak in
59:05 all of the experiences to see how we do that so thank you guys for all sharing yeah thanks for being here yeah thanks
59:12 for being here Brittany and Amanda i see you too
59:17 all yeah well i believe we've done it ladies [Laughter]
59:24 happy mother's day happy mother's day everyone yes and ... keep showing up it's worth it
59:34 All right have a good one, thank you Susy so much for joining me i appreciate it
59:40 All right, bye everyone! Bye!