Work Like a Mother

Amanda Goetz built her own personal toolkit to develop the skills that she needs personally and professionally to be successful. Amanda just raised 2M in a round of funding to launch her startup, House of Wise. Yet she wasn’t willing to back down from pillars of the business that felt important to her as a working mom. The company has a 4 day work week, work hours are flexible and are driven by outputs and outcomes rather than hours. Amanda leads by example, juggling being a single parent to 3 kids and getting the CBD startup off the ground. 

Blessing grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. She was determined to dream big and be successful in spite of the societal expectations that boys went to school and pursued careers and women prepared to stay at home. Blessing came to the USA for college and pursued chemical engineering. Once she entered the male dominated profession, she learned to stand up and advocate for herself and other working moms. Blessing continues that work through Mother Honestly- a community that brings together women and empowers them to stop comparing themselves to others and start defining their own success. 

When Lindsey first had the idea to create a clip to keep her daughter’s pacifiers away from their family dog, she had no idea how successful the company would become 8 years later. Yet the part of the business that she is most proud of is the amazing community of moms that Ryan and Rose has brought together. The community of moms embraces differences and supports one another through their motherhood journeys. 

Sandy became CEO of MAM during the pandemic and is leading the company towards being a family first company. She models this by setting a culture that allows her colleagues to be flexible and respond to priorities whether they are at home or at work. Sandy and MAM also launched a path to parenthood campaign to embrace the many diverse ways that individuals become parents. 

Early in Stephanie’s career as a working mom, she thought she had to do it all. She wanted to cook her children a nutritious breakfast each morning, have a smooth morning routine, pack bags with everything the children needed for school, get everyone to childcare on time, get to work on time, work efficiently throughout the day and have an equally smooth evening routine. 

She quickly realized it’s impossible to do it all perfectly and it adds unnecessary stress and pressure to even try. Stephanie’s strategy? Decide on what you want to prioritize doing really well, and then be okay getting a C on everything else. Give yourself a break and accept that no one expects for everything to be perfect.

As an economist and professor, Emily Oster is accustomed to using data to inform the decisions that she made in her own life. When Emily got pregnant with her daughter, Penelope, she was shocked by the lack of data provided by doctors to back up the common rules of pregnancy. Emily started to analyze the data behind many common pregnancy rules, and wrote a book, Expecting Better to improve decision-making for pregnant women. As her kids have grown up, her research has continued through 2 subsequent books, Crib Sheet, focusing on birth to preschool and Family Firm, which comes out today, focusing on the early school years. 

A male colleague once asked Leslie, why are moms always so stressed? Leslie grabbed a sheet of paper and scribbled down her first draft of her Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs. Leslie responded- moms are stressed because they prioritize everyone else’s needs before themselves. Self care happens only once everyone else’s needs are met. Leslie quit her job to focus full time on helping moms prioritize their own self care. Leslie has talked to countless moms through her research and study and has transformed Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs into a new business helping employers retain working parents and create inclusive workplaces where caregivers can thrive.

Karri carved out a niche using her expertise as an educator and a parent to customize playroom designs to meet families’ needs. She put an ad in a local paper and started receiving phone calls from parents desperate to get their kids off technology and engaged in other forms of entertainment. Smart Playrooms aims to design playrooms that will engage children in open-ended creative thinking to promote independence, creativity, problem-solving and cooperation.

Quiana believes that all mothers are inherently activists and advocates. We are raising the next generation of changemakers and we shouldn’t take this role lightly. Some moms advocate in the books that we read to our children and the lessons we teach in hopes to raise our children to spread kindness, acceptance and love. Quiana inspires, encourages and challenges the system. She connects with an amazing community through her Harlem Lovebirds blog and social media presence. She also is a very active member of Moms Demand Action, an organization advocating for anti-gun violence and pro-gun safety. She juggles this role as an advocate, in addition to running a marketing, PR and graphic design firm and being a mother to her 2 children. 

Though Nadia’s passion has always been art and film, she took a 15 year hiatus from creating to pursue a career in law. However, when Nadia’s daughter Aria was born, she was reinspired to pick back up and make art her career as a powerful way to raise awareness and spark change. Nadia creates vivid powerful art that centers people of color and messages of social justice, resistance and hope.