The Mom Factor: Why Those Stretch Marks Might Actually Give You An Edge
In the interest of coming up with a catchy title, I may have misled you just a hair. I can’t actually think of any workplace situation where your stretchmarks will conceivably give you an edge. However, I’m making the leap that if you have stretchmarks, you probably have kids.
We talk a lot about how challenging it is to be a working mother — the conflict between work attendance and persistent ear infections, the exhaustion, the worries. But today, let’s talk about how having kids actually helps you.
They call them Soft Skills. These are qualities like professionalism, communication, deferred gratification, attitude, social skills and problem solving.
Sorry to point out the obvious but:
Professionalism. Sure, you spend an certain amount of time in mom jeans and an oversized t-shirt with aged spit up on one shoulder. But, my friend, you are a manager. You rely on routines, organization, calendars and those precious connections with others facing the same challenges. All it takes is one $25 fee for a missed dental appointment or a $17.25 library charge for a destroyed picture book for you to start putting systems and controls in place.
Communication. The key to communication is, of course, to not only speak, but to ensure that your message has been received, and to be receptive of incoming messages. In other words, no matter how many times you explain to the two year old that your cell phone doesn’t belong in the fish tank, you’re wasting your time unless she can get what you’re saying. Bonus points if you finally realize that she watched Finding Nemo and was moved enough to try to allow her fish to call his daddy. The most inexplicable person you work with will not be as difficult to understand as your two year old. You’ve got this.
Deferred Gratification. Success in business depends on your ability to work consistently toward long term goals and patiently wait for the ultimate rewards. Does parenting involved any kind of deferred gratification? Let me think . . . I started wanting to take an uninterrupted bath when my eldest child was born. She’s almost nineteen now. So, I’ll let you know.
Attitude. You and Toddler are at the park. It’s 92 degrees outside, and Yoddler is approximately fifteen minutes past desperately needing a nap. The goal is to get to the car, and, eventually, home, where Toddler can attach to his recharging station (blanket and stuffed dog missing one ear) and you can attach to yours (the single remaining cookie hidden in the junk drawer and tivo’d episode of Gray’s Anatomy. The obstacle: Your hands are full of Baby, so you cannot carry Toddler. You can either argue or reason with Toddler (laughably useless), or you can adopt a bright, Romper Room voice, cry out, “Ready, Set . . . Go!” and pretend to race Toddler to the car. Take these skills into the workplace, Grasshopper.
Social Skills. There’s nothing like coaching a three year old through attending another child’s birthday party to hone your awareness of social interactions. As a mom, you become very aware of nuance and social cues that benefit you when dealing with unspoken tensions in the workplace.
Problem Solving. At home, it’s all you do. Resolve conflicting activity schedules, arguments over toys, biased teachers and inventively mischievous kids. At work . . . it’s all you’ll do.
Human Resources student Rhonda Cornett Hill says, “Mom skills translate to the workplace. Being able to mediate yourself first, then the conflict, translates well in the workplace. Think of all the sleepless nights when the baby is sick and you lose an extraordinary amount of sleep. This skill translates in such a way that you will keep going until you have nothing left you can do. . .controlling the conflict within yourself when chaos ensues.”
Mental health specialist Elisabeth Fincher agrees: “We teach little people how to play well in the sandbox. When we take our own skills to work, as the workplace is a big sandbox (social environment) we act as leaders.”
