Model Minority Moms

What's your strategy for managing career decisions with your spouse? Do you take turns prioritizing one person's career over the other? Do each of you have a defined role? What does money have to do with it? How do you factor in risk/passion/other contributions to the household?

In this episode, we talk about how we have managed - or not! :( - career decisions with our spouses and what we've learned so far. 

In part 2 of "What do your parents think of your career?" Susan shares her reflections on how her parents and family have shaped her career decisions. Susan says that her dad was a "tiger dad in a foreign land" - can you immediately relate? Have no clue what she's talking about? Tune in to hear how Susan has tried to keep her performative streak alive while trying to keep her parents happy.

Ah parents... Some of them have strong opinions about your career but have no clue about the actual reality you face. Some of them might have a clue but offer no support. And for some reason, they always seem to say the wrong thing about what you do. If this isn't your experience, we are happy for you. For those of us who feel a small stab to the heart whenever our parents say something about our work, this episode is for you. In this episode, Kate and Jeanette share how their parents have influenced the career choices they've made so far, as well as the good things and the struggles that have come with that experience. 

From human right NGO work in Vietnam, to starting a boutique chocolate company, to working as a consultant to the world's largest tech firms, to producing a national one-woman show about her mom, Susan's career has taken many twists and turns. Through it all, she has asked herself the questions 'Who am I and what am I supposed to be doing in this world?" In this episode, Susan shares the many hilarious and often moving stories of her career journey as only Susan can.

Forget the mid-life crisis. For many in our generation, we've been going through major career questioning since our mid-twenties. What do we want to do 'when we grow up'? What are we supposed to do with our lives? Careers take up so much mindspace and time in our lives but it can still feel like a struggle. In this first episode of a series on careers, Jeanette and Kate talk through their sometimes winding career paths, what they learned and where they are now.

So many more unmarried women in their 30s and 40s are choosing to become a mother without a partner, but it still feels taboo to discuss. You might be one of these women yourself and if not, you probably have a friend who is considering this. We are so honored to have our friend Tamar on our show this week, to walk us through her decision to become a single mom by choice with so much openness and honesty.

Mom Judgement is the cherry on top of the huge mountain of responsibilities we have to manage as parents. Why is there so much Mom Judgement in the world? From family? From friends? From society? Even other... moms?? In this episode, we discuss times when we felt Mom Judgement in our lives and try to get to the bottom of why it exists and what we can do about it.

What's your sugar, screens, salt policy for your kid? Like Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until your kid finds the snack bag or walks into a birthday party. We talk through our approaches and how they work out in real life. 

Kate, Susan and Jeanette walk down memory lane and reassess their dating histories (including that time that Susan thought she was going to marry a cult leader). Predictably, we all had really different dating experiences but we all learned some common lessons that we wished we knew when we were starting out.

How did parenthood change your perspective on your career? Did it force you to buckle down so that you could provide the kind of life you wanted for your kids? Pull back so that you could have more time and energy for them? Switch tracks so that you could work on something that inspires you and may be also your kids someday? In this episode, we talk about how becoming moms changed (or didn't change) the way we approach our work.