Rewriting the Myth of the Working Supermom

My personal pandemic parenting low point came when my toddler ate a fistful of deconstructed granite from our work-in-progress patio. We were a mere two months into the pandemic, in that awful in-between period when we naively thought, “This can’t go on for much longer.” My husband and I both had been working full time in highly demanding jobs with our daughter at home. And I was largely pregnant with our second child, due in a matter of weeks. Yet despite the fact that this was a universal experience in the corporate world, it felt particularly challenging in the world of advertising, an industry notorious for not accommodating—and even occasionally punishing—working mothers. I felt the need to be the overly competent worker bee putting together compelling creative briefs while also being the patient mother making sensory exploration boxes for my kid and rounding out the day with a nutritious dinner for my family. So when my daughter was busy chomping away on gravel, the thought struck me: Why am I doing this to myself? The answer is because of the modern working supermom myth. 100 Women in Marketing Share Their Greatest Challenges From a Year of Isolation An inexistent balancing act Being a full-time working mom is still a relatively recent concept. The number of mothers in the workforce only significantly started to increase in the 1970s, yet the recent benchmarks to which many working mothers hold themselves accountable feel practically etched in stone. Working motherhood is already defined by the balancing act it takes to achieve it, made even more unstable in the wake of the pandemic. Yet in spite of this, the standards we hold ourselves to continue to pile up. Most—if not all—contradict one another, particularly in the advertising industry. We’ve been told to: “Lean in” while also being encouraged to push for our own healthy boundaries.Embrace “radical candor” while also bringing forward a deeply empathetic sense of vulnerability.Not bring any of our personal life into the workplace while also embodying authenticity.Put our work first but also put our families first. When the accolades most consistently given in this industry are for things like “always puts in the extra hours,” “gives 200%,” “never asks for help,” “is always up for the challenge” and (worst of all) “never says no,” it’s no wonder we keep frantically juggling. As exhausted as we are, particularly after 18 months in a pandemic, we go on and continue fanning the flames of this myth. The ideal we are working toward simply isn’t real. Rewriting the (false) narrative So, how do we begin to rewrite this myth and create a new reality for working moms in the agency world? By taking a look at ourselves and the ingrained habits, decisions and pathways we’ve chosen to take (whether consciously or not), and by learning from one another to forge a different way forward. When I realized that becoming a mother had changed my whole world but that my work wasn’t going to acknowledge this seismic shift unless I led my own personal charge, I decided to take some small yet steady steps in my own working and parenting life. I put out-of-office blocks on my calendar for kid-focused parts of the day, like preschool drop-off, dinner prep time and kid duty, and I’m dogmatic about shutting down for the day earlier than most, given we eat dinner at 6 p.m. and food doesn’t make itself. I turned off both Slack and email notifications on my phone. I started to—god forbid—say no to extra work, to new business pitches I didn’t actually have time for and to always filling my plate. But I don’t see all my fellow parents doing these things, and I’m trying to figure out why. Is it because they share some of the concerns I have felt (and still sometimes feel) that we’ll be marginalized for our seeming lack of commitment? Is it because our clients’ demands will always come first? Or is it because of a past experience with a particularly trying manager? Asking these questions is the first step in helping more people start to make the small shifts that ultimately will add up to the big ones. Keep shining a light on the toxicity of the working supermom myth, and start rewriting the narrative we’ve embraced to create a working environment in which people are celebrated for mitigating chaos rather than thriving on it. This Memorable Pregnancy Ad Ended Up Winning Gold at Cannes Lions

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How Reworking My Schedule Is Helping Me Rewrite the Working Supermom Myth

The ideal we are working toward in the ad industry simply isn't real

Alexandra Brown

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Alexandra Brown