If you’re concerned about the effects of maternity leave on your career, you’re not alone.
For many women, the concern extends beyond the traditional maternity leave to include the effects of years spent as a stay-at-home mom. No matter the context of asking this question, your concerns are valid. According to the Harvard Business Review, the longer new mothers are away from paid work, the less likely they are to be promoted, move into management, or receive a pay raise once their leave is over. They are also at greater risk of being fired or demoted.
The report indicated that the length of the leave can be a factor in the perceptions of co-workers as well—women who take longer leaves are often seen as less committed to their jobs than women who take much shorter leaves. This trade-off undercuts a major goal of legislating national parental leave policies: ensuring that women don’t have to choose between motherhood and career success.
While things are changing and improving each year and acrossevery industry, we know this is difficult news. But women are resilient.
No woman should ever have to make the choice between a career and a family, so we’d like to offer some proven advice on mitigating the negative effects of maternity leave. As hard as it is to have a career and a family, you can have your cake and eat it too and we want to help you find ways to make that a reality in your situation.
These strategies are not meant to make it seem like you never left or that you didn’t change while you were away. Instead, they’re meant to help you take some of the biggest stressors out of returning to work, help you bring your best self to the table, and navigate your life as a working mother with kindness, courage, and perseverance.
Remember Your Why
If you care about the effects of maternity leave on your job, it’s likely that your job is a hard-fought one. It’s likely that you’ll feel some hesitations when heading back to work—some women struggle with promotions missed while at home or with low self-esteem connected to being seen as low committal because of their time away.
But remember why you care about your career and let that be your focus and driver when you return. Maybe you absolutely love your field. Maybe you spent years in school preparing for it or you’re at a company you love. Maybe you were on the heels of a big project before heading out on maternity leave or maybe the only reason you’re returning is to pay the bills. Regardless of the situation, it’s important to reflect on the things about your work used to motivate you on a daily basis. Dwelling on what excites you about your work can help motivate you to show up for your job with boldness, confidence, and a renewed zeal to work well.
Be Gentle With Yourself
You may be an emotional wreck your first day back from maternity leave, but the reality is you may find yourself on an emotional rollercoaster for the first few weeks. The transition back to work after a baby can be an overwhelming one. Be kind to yourself. You’re likely to be frustrated, exhausted, and full of self-doubt and you might even question the decision to return to work. Be patient with those first few weeks and try journaling your feelings and experiences as they pop up. Don’t ignore your feelings, but bear in mind that this too shall pass. Maybe you feel miserable after a few months and decide to stay home or switch jobs. But, on the flip side, you just might feel a renewed sense of confidence to keep going once you’ve developed healthy rhythms and get used to life as a working parent.
Figure Out Child Care
There’s nothing harder than having to leave work at a critical moment. It could be something as simple as needing to rush home to a sick child, causing you to miss hours of work and hours of pay or rushing off can forfeit a big project you were excited about. But the reality is that childcare isn’t readily available to everyone. In fact, it’s incredibly expensive—in many cities, childcare for a single baby can rival the cost of housing for that family. So before you return to work, explore all your options. Have a primary child care plan as well as a few backups. While family is an obvious first choice, family members may not always be reliable. Consider groups at church, your neighborhood, or at work where a single stay-at-homeparent is paid a reduced fee to watch multiple children.
Some employers offer backup child care setups and trusted college students on sites like Care.com can become excellent caregivers to your little one. Regardless of what you do, compile a list with everyone’s contact information and availability so it’s easy to access, especially in cases of emergency. If a backup caregiver isn’t familiar with your child, consider making a “get-to-know-me” profile with basic details about your baby like their sleep and eating routines, likes and dislikes, and medical and allergy information.
Invest In Colleague Relationships
Whether you were home for three months with a newborn or stayed home for 3 years raising little ones, one thing is common about full-time parenthood—it’s very isolating. You may feel rusty when attempting to rekindle your work relationship after maternity leave, but we encourage you to invest in the relationships you have with your colleagues. These relationships can be great for social and mental health and make the transition back to work feel easier, and they can also help keep your career on track. Beyond healthy camaraderie, grabbing coffee or a quick walk with your coworkers can strengthen ties with people who can offer you professional support. That person you grabbed lunch with may then be the person who advocates for you to the boss, include you on projects, or cut you some slack on missed deadlines.
As you may have experienced, new motherhood can be very isolating for some. It can also drain your energy and free time, making it harder to attend your company’s social events. Perhaps now more than ever, though, it’s worth the effort to build relationships with your colleagues. Get lunch, grab a quick coffee or go for a walk. Beyond the camaraderie, these relationships can also be a source of professional support: When you’re friendly with colleagues, they’re more likely to include you on important projects that could advance your career. They’re also more likely to cut you slack if you miss a deadline. These natural outcomes of strong professional relationships can help ease your transition back to work after maternity leave.
Meet With Your Boss Before You Return
Before your first day back, set aside some time to meet with your supervisor—this can be an especially critical meeting to help with your transition and reduce the amount of unknowns you may face returning to work. During this meeting, ask your boss to update you on any changes that happened with your team or the company in your absence. Ask for their expectations of your role to clarify anything that might’ve changed and any projects you can prepare for before you return.
Let them know how excited you are to return to work and follow up that promise by finding opportunities where you can go above and beyond your supervisor’s expectations. Proving that you’re still dedicated to your work will help fight any biases and misconceptions that exist against working mothers.
On the flip side, be honest and realistic about what you can realistically accomplish in your first few weeks and months back on the job. Ask your manager what work is critical and what’s nice to have so you both understand what’s truly important and what can wait. One thing we recommend asking for is a mid week start day. This allows you to adjust back to work on a shorter week to avoid burnout and give you more time and space to work out any scheduling kinks.
Adjust Slowly By Holding A Few Practice Runs
You no longer have your schedule to figure out but your baby’s as well. If you’re a single parent this can be extra difficult since you don’t have an extra pair of hands to help out for drop off and pick up if daycare is available for you. For the parents that have help, returning to work can still be a logistical nightmare. Maybe daycare is far from home or you can’t find a path that voids traffic each day. Or maybe you don’t have access to daycare and have to drive across town to take your baby to a family member across town before work.
Don’t chance it. Get ahead of your new and potentially complicated logistics as far in advance as possible to get “a realistic preview” of what to expect. This will help reduce your stress as you transition back to work.
Do a few dry runs getting fully ready for work, then doing drop-offs or having your sitter come over before work. This will get you and your baby accustomed to the new process. If you’re nursing, try to add a pumping session or two in there as well.
Stay Connected To Your Baby
Your mind might be hyper-focused on your transition back to work but your heart is likely focused on your little one. You’ll miss them dearly, especially if you had a relatively long maternity leave so before you return to work, start thinking about deliberate ways you can spend time with your baby. Think through your schedule and when you naturally have pockets of time. Will you spend time in the morning before work? If you prefer evenings, does your work schedule and commute allow you to come home before your baby goes to bed? Can you facetime your baby and their caregiver on your lunch break or are pictures sent from your nanny throughout the day sufficient? Be intentional—you’re a parent and you love your child. Being at work doesn’t make that love go away so find ways to be close with your baby without it affecting your perception as a dedicated team player. Just seeing your baby on a facetime call over lunch can be the boost you need to keep going and get through the tougher days.
Set Clear Expectations With Your Colleagues
One of the most stressful experiences is needing to be away from work to care for your baby but feeling like you’ll be looked down on if you let your colleagues know. The reality is your life has changed and you wouldn’t exchange your baby for the best job out there so set expectations that align with that. Communication is key so be direct about how and when you will work. It’s also helpful to keep your schedule as consistent as possible. Depending on your industry, this may feel scary, but it’s harder to manage the fallout of poorly set expectations than to face them upfront.
This will take time, but if you help your coworkers learn what to expect from you and ask for the flexibility you need, they’ll adjust as needed.
You may have to work harder for a while to remind your boss and coworkers why you were an excellent fit to the team before your maternity leave. That’s okay. But we want to remind you that no job is worth losing yourself for. If your role no longer aligns with your schedule, goals, or desires as a working parent, maybe it’s time to find a new team, job, or consider returning home to care for your little one if that’s an option for you.
Some employers offer more grace and understanding to workingwomen and we believe that misconceptions about working mothers are worth dispelling. It’s admirable to show your coworkers that, while working parents may need more grace from time to time, they don’t stop offering value once they have a baby. Quite the contrary. In time, you’ll bring the resilience, kindness, strength, and leadership qualities that only a working mother can bring to the table. We hope that in no time, your new role as a parent will open up new doors for you at work and beyond.
