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0:28

You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard

0:30

Business Review. I'm Amy Gallo. And

0:32

I'm Amy Bernstein. Toward the end of 2023,

0:36

our producer Amanda saw a LinkedIn post

0:38

from one of our former guests, Marty

0:40

Bloodsoe, that made her eyes go wide.

0:43

Marty had titled the post,

0:45

A Pretty Big Year, in

0:47

all caps, and justifiably so.

0:51

In January, the older of her two

0:53

children, a freshman in high school, was

0:55

still coming through a major depressive episode.

0:59

At the time, Marty was the executive

1:01

director of the Kids Mental Health Foundation,

1:03

so she knew enough about the disorder

1:05

to quickly coordinate professional support. By

1:08

March, happily, her teenager was in a

1:10

better place mentally and emotionally. But

1:13

Marty wasn't. She had resigned

1:15

from her job because she was burnt

1:17

out, just like so many parents straining

1:19

to manage their kids' anxiety or depression

1:22

or anger while also keeping up

1:24

at work. As exhausted

1:26

as she was, she immediately started

1:28

applying to leadership roles elsewhere, hoping

1:30

that changing workplaces would reenergize her.

1:34

Between Zoom calls with people in her

1:36

network, she cried and napped. A

1:39

month into that routine, the landlord of the house

1:41

she'd been renting decided he was going to

1:43

move in, which meant that Marty and her kids

1:45

had 60 days to pack up and

1:47

leave. That's when her

1:49

plans to bounce right back into the

1:52

workforce really started to fall apart. Yeah,

1:55

I remember it as very chaotic

1:58

and out of my control. They

2:00

spent 12 weeks at her mom's house before

2:02

she found a new house within the same

2:04

school district that would fit them and

2:07

her fiancé and his daughter. The

2:09

last day of the move, her

2:11

fiancé slipped and tore his patellar

2:13

tendon. An injury that requires surgery

2:16

and a 16-week-plus recovery? Then

2:18

her mom, who lived nearby, needed

2:20

emergency cataract surgery, then retina surgery, as

2:22

well as a couple of dental

2:24

surgeries. Then one kid was

2:26

struggling to see well, another was struggling to

2:29

breathe well. Each of these

2:31

problems required multiple doctors' visits and

2:33

a considerable amount of Marty's time

2:36

and attention. The

2:38

grind left her utterly and completely

2:40

spent. Maintaining all the

2:42

standards, the orthodontist appointments, getting the

2:44

oil changed, following up on bills,

2:46

making sure the mail got forwarded,

2:48

renewing everybody's prescriptions, driving my fiancé

2:50

to physical therapy, driving my mom

2:52

to eye recheck appointments, and doing

2:55

all kid driving since those two

2:57

were my backup drivers. Juggling

2:59

summer camp for my 10-year-old, signing

3:02

up, paying for, and then attending

3:04

summer softball league for my oldest.

3:06

Coordinating at-home counseling three times a week

3:09

to continue supporting my kids' mental health.

3:12

And then planning a year-end wedding and

3:14

brunch to celebrate our newly blended family.

3:18

That sounds like a happy one, but we

3:20

actually thought we'd have to reschedule the wedding

3:22

because of the torn patella tendon and the

3:24

crutches and the knee brace, and

3:26

we would have lost a lot of money had we done that.

3:29

He ended up being okay enough to walk down

3:31

the aisle and got through their first dance. And

3:34

then it was the time of year for open enrollment,

3:37

and I was trying to Cobra Continue

3:39

one set of benefits, figure out enrollment into

3:41

another set of benefits because we had a

3:43

qualifying event, which was very exciting, but

3:46

also the paperwork

3:48

was mind-blowing. And

3:50

then there was more driving. I

3:52

kept thinking, is this really my life?

4:00

Wisconsin, says this grind, this

4:02

ever-expanding, relentless set of responsibilities,

4:04

is the norm for lots

4:06

of us in the U.S.

4:09

Once women take a step back in

4:11

the workforce, it can be very easy

4:13

to fall into that default caregiver role

4:16

and also leads to choices that then make

4:18

it easier for you to be seen as

4:20

the one who is logically most responsible for

4:22

other types of care that comes down the

4:24

line. Jessica writes about

4:27

the slippery slope in her book,

4:29

Holding It Together, How Women Became

4:31

America's Safety Net. She's

4:33

here to help Marty make sense of

4:35

that pretty big year, as Marty called

4:37

her LinkedIn post, or more like a

4:39

year plus away from paid work. They're

4:42

both here to help those of you

4:44

who've ever been consumed by caregiving understand

4:46

the forces that got you there. Here's

4:49

my conversation with them. And

4:51

I'll be back afterwards to chat with you about it.

4:57

Marty, you started looking for a new job

4:59

as soon as you resigned. How

5:01

did you set out? What did you

5:03

want to accomplish each week? And then

5:05

tell us what actually happened. I

5:08

wanted to spend an hour

5:10

or two a day on LinkedIn, you know,

5:13

looking around at folks in my

5:15

network, what they were up to, following

5:17

companies that might be in

5:19

my line of work that I wanted

5:21

to stay in and working

5:24

on all the things that it takes today

5:26

to get a job because you

5:28

need multiple versions of your resume so

5:30

they can get past AI bots

5:33

that are screening. You need your

5:35

elevator speech of what you're looking for and what

5:37

you can do. And I wanted

5:39

to be consulting. I really felt like, gosh, I

5:42

can look for a job and I can bill

5:44

out at my hourly rate and then this really

5:46

won't feel like too much of

5:48

a bump. But

5:51

your time wasn't spent just on

5:53

finding your next job, right? No,

5:56

not at all. In fact, it was amazing

5:58

how the hours. got eaten up.

6:01

I was packing

6:03

to move, moving and unpacking for quite

6:05

a bit of that time. I moved

6:07

twice in the time that I wasn't

6:10

working. Once in with my mother

6:12

and of all the

6:15

ridiculous things I spent time doing at

6:17

that point, I remember posting on Facebook

6:19

to one of my networks, hey, I

6:21

have 13 beautiful house plants that are

6:23

in great shape. I'm moving in with my

6:26

mother, she has a cat. Can anybody watch

6:28

these house plants for 10 weeks? And

6:30

of course, the woman who volunteered lived 30 minutes

6:33

away. So I literally found myself

6:36

arranging care for my house plants.

6:39

I was doing all kinds of things that

6:41

dropping off kids, picking up kids. For a

6:43

while there we were in summer vacation, which

6:45

is hell for working parents. It was a

6:48

different schedule every week. And

6:50

it just felt like every time

6:52

I would sit down, my phone

6:54

would ping or somebody would need me and the

6:56

week would be gone. Jessica,

6:59

help us understand this in the broader

7:01

context. I mean, this is not an

7:03

unfamiliar story to you. Why does this

7:06

happen to women like Marty? Yeah,

7:08

so other countries have invested in

7:10

policies that help people manage

7:13

their care needs and responsibilities. They

7:15

have policies that allow people to live with dignity, to

7:18

access economic opportunities and to contribute

7:21

equitably and sustainably to a shared

7:23

project of care. In

7:25

the US, we instead tell people that they

7:27

should be able to take care of themselves

7:29

and their families without relying on the government

7:32

or even their employers for support. But

7:34

the reality is that we

7:36

can't just DIY society. Some

7:38

people, maybe most obviously children,

7:40

but also people who are sick, people

7:43

who are elderly, can't fully take care

7:45

of themselves and some jobs don't pay

7:47

enough to allow people to take care

7:49

of themselves as well. So

7:51

acknowledging these realities would essentially destroy the

7:53

solution of a DIY society. But in

7:56

the US, we essentially managed to maintain

7:58

this illusion. by relying on women to

8:00

fill in the gaps, to be that

8:02

social safety net for our families and

8:04

for our community and even for our

8:07

economy, essentially by taking care of the

8:09

people who can't take care of themselves.

8:12

And we get women to do that

8:14

work in part by grooming them for

8:16

caregiving roles from the time they're old

8:18

enough to hold a baby doll, but

8:20

also by pushing them into caregiving roles

8:22

and then denying them any support in

8:25

meeting those roles. And like Marty talked

8:27

about, in those situations, it becomes very

8:29

easy for women to become the default

8:31

caregivers for their families. If you are

8:33

a woman in a household where

8:35

you are often because of gender pay gaps earning

8:37

less than your male partner, if

8:39

someone has to sacrifice their paid work hours, you're

8:42

probably going to do it. And

8:44

then once you step into that default caregiving

8:46

role, like Marty was saying,

8:48

the visibility of that work as

8:50

a caregiver as the default, then

8:52

that had compiled with the choices

8:54

that default caregivers have to make

8:56

to accommodate their caregiving responsibilities makes

8:58

it seem sort of logical and

9:00

natural for women who are in

9:02

that default position to take

9:04

on even more of the responsibility

9:07

for care as those care needs kind

9:09

of increase over time. So

9:11

Marty, having read the book and having heard

9:13

what Jessica just said, how does that shape

9:15

or reshape the way you think about what

9:18

happened in your own life? It

9:20

felt like it connected a lot of

9:23

disparate feelings and

9:25

concepts for me. From

9:27

an intellectual standpoint, I sort of felt a

9:29

light bulb, like it's not

9:32

just me. It's truly

9:34

the fact that the minute somebody

9:36

sees a female with

9:38

quote unquote time on her hands, watch

9:41

out. Right. How

9:43

did that mess with your

9:45

self-esteem, with your own sort of

9:48

concept of who you are, Marty?

9:51

I think it was very psychologically

9:54

destabilizing, if that's

9:57

a way to explain it. I felt gaslit.

9:59

but kind of by myself

10:02

and the people around

10:04

me. It was like, oh, you

10:07

had two or three full-time jobs. We're gonna

10:09

take one away. And then

10:11

the other two are going to fill in a lot

10:13

of that room, but don't forget, you

10:15

should be trying to replace the third full-time job

10:17

with another full-time job. And

10:20

the beginning of my

10:22

job search, I looked back through all of

10:24

my cover letters and I

10:26

was applying for executive director,

10:29

CEO, roles in

10:31

mental health organizations, in

10:33

child-focused organizations. And

10:36

then I would sort of think to myself, what

10:38

am I thinking? How in the world, if they

10:40

called me tomorrow to interview for this, how would

10:42

I even manage it? Let's

10:45

say they offered it to me. Who's gonna go pick

10:47

up the plants when it's time to move them back

10:49

to the house? I know that I can't ask anybody

10:51

else to do that. And if I did, it would

10:54

probably be another woman who would fit it into the 57,000

10:56

things she has to do. And

10:59

so I kind of started to

11:02

back off the level of

11:04

what I felt like I could look for. I

11:07

stopped going to the top

11:10

of the org chart openings and

11:13

I started looking for director, associate

11:15

director, senior

11:17

manager type titles. Now, these

11:20

are titles I haven't held in my own career in 15 years,

11:24

but I thought maybe I'm

11:26

not going to be able at this time

11:29

of my life to deliver what it takes

11:31

to be at the top of an org

11:33

chart because clearly

11:36

everybody needs me. And

11:40

even the people around me who benefited from

11:42

it, I don't think we're sitting around going,

11:44

wow, we're so lucky that you are caring

11:47

and doing all these things. And

11:49

I often think, oh my God, what if I had

11:51

been working? What if you had been working? So

11:54

play that out for us. What if you had been

11:56

working full-time? I mean, I think.

12:00

Maybe it would have had to be

12:02

either a role

12:04

where I could say, look for the next whatever,

12:07

six months I'm going to have to work part

12:09

time or I'm going to have to use some

12:12

short-term disability and some, you

12:15

know, FMLA or somehow construct

12:18

a scenario where I can give you part of

12:21

the time, hopefully still quite a bit of the

12:23

value, but I just cannot

12:25

be available the way I would normally

12:28

be or would like to be. But

12:31

I wonder sometimes, you know, certainly had I been

12:33

in a new job in that sort of time

12:35

where you're learning so fast and you're trying to

12:37

meet everybody and you're trying to prove yourself and

12:39

get settled, that would have been a total, a

12:42

total disaster. So it

12:45

would have had to be somewhere, you know, where I'd

12:47

been a while where they had those kinds of time

12:49

benefits, where I had an understanding manager. I mean, you

12:51

cannot, you cannot overemphasize the

12:53

importance of the individual manager and how

12:56

they can make that viable or not

12:58

viable. And at

13:01

the end of the day, I still

13:03

might've lost my job because I just

13:07

hit kind of a wall of,

13:10

of contribution. And I think that's one of

13:12

the things that I often reflect on when

13:14

we talk about balance, work-life balance. I'm often

13:16

like, okay, fine. Let's just

13:18

say that you get your

13:20

partnership and your parenting and your working

13:23

and your self-health in some sort of

13:25

balance. But if you, the person, are

13:27

the fulcrum in the middle, I have

13:30

a feeling you're pretty worn down on all sides.

13:32

Yeah, because it seems to me, I mean, I

13:35

struggle with picking up my dogs from daycare

13:37

at the end of the

13:39

day. So I don't know how you have

13:41

made it through the kinds of demands you've

13:44

had to face, but it

13:46

seems to me that it's always work-life

13:48

imbalance all the time. educators.

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responses will help us create

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an episode that reflects the

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complexity, resilience, and insight of

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queer women navigating today's workplaces.

15:09

Marty, your experience kind

15:12

of flies in the face of the advice all

15:14

of us got in Lean In.

15:17

I'm wondering how you think

15:20

about that. Lean

15:22

In was published at a funny time in

15:24

my career in that I had one

15:26

young child and I thought I could

15:30

I thought I could sustain the pace

15:32

I was living forever. I thought I

15:34

could probably lean in. I bought the

15:36

DIY guilt of

15:38

Lean In. The come on girls

15:41

ask for the next thing. Take the next project. Take

15:43

the risk. I guess I would

15:46

say by the time some of the

15:49

societal feedback

15:53

to that concept had really started to

15:55

get loud about it's not just leaning

15:57

in and it's really not that easy

15:59

for so many. many women. By that

16:01

time, I had another child. And

16:03

I thought, yeah, you know what? I actually kind

16:06

of want to rethink that because I don't want

16:09

to lean in any further. Not

16:11

only at work, but I didn't even want to lean in anymore

16:13

at home. I wanted to lay down. I was

16:15

like, can we stop leaning and take

16:17

a rest here? So it

16:19

does fly in the face of all of it. So

16:22

Jessica, you know, what Marty is saying,

16:24

I think, is kind of a more

16:27

universal experience. And I'm wondering, from your

16:29

perspective, is there a

16:31

narrative that's taking the place of lean in? And what

16:33

is it? I mean, unfortunately, the

16:35

lean in narrative, I would argue is still very

16:37

much with us, even if you know, some people

16:39

have pushed back against the specific notions of the

16:42

book, for example, I think there's still

16:44

very much this expectation. Many of

16:46

the women that I talked to for my research,

16:48

you know, first time mothers or those who are

16:50

just starting out in their careers, still very much

16:53

feel this pressure to to have it all to

16:55

try to be at all to chase every opportunity.

16:57

And also to to set an

16:59

example for other women as well, you know,

17:01

to be that leader in the workforce, while

17:04

also being that Pinterest perfect mom at

17:06

home. If anything, it feels like,

17:08

you know, the only narrative that is threatening

17:10

to unseat lean in at this point is

17:12

maybe the tradwife narrative, in part because of

17:14

how unsustainable you know, it is to lean

17:16

in, especially over the long term. And I

17:18

think that is part of where the

17:20

I talk a little bit about in my book about how some

17:23

young women are leaning into the

17:26

idea of being a housewife instead of leaning

17:28

in at work, in part because they realize

17:30

that it is so unsustainable. And they see

17:32

one of the things that lean in did

17:34

was to deeply devalue the work of care,

17:37

and to ignore both the value that that

17:39

brings to families and communities, and even the

17:41

joy that many of us can get from

17:43

doing that care work, particularly when we have

17:45

the time and the energy to do it

17:48

well. And so I think if anything,

17:50

what we need is to go back to an older

17:52

narrative that has actually been around even longer than lean

17:54

in, which is essentially the one that the feminists gave us

17:56

in the 1960s and 1970s. And that really got

18:00

co-opted by the corporate world when it came

18:02

to messages like Lean In. To give an

18:05

example, black feminist writer and activist Bell

18:07

Hooks was one of the vocal critics

18:09

of the Lean In message, drawing on

18:11

her long body of work on these

18:13

topics. She wrote a critique in

18:16

2013 of Lean In. She

18:18

said, Sandberg sees women's lack of

18:20

perseverance as more of the problem

18:22

than systemic inequality. She effectively uses

18:24

her race and class power and

18:26

privilege to promote a narrow definition

18:28

of feminism that obscures and undermines

18:30

visionist feminist concerns. And essentially,

18:32

she's pushing back against this notion that

18:35

we should try to do this so

18:37

individually. And really, that's part of what

18:39

my goal is to do with my own research

18:41

too, is to help un-gaslight women, to tell women

18:44

that guilt and stress

18:46

are not normal or necessary parts

18:48

of womanhood or parts of motherhood.

18:50

I mean, essentially, we can help

18:52

women to see that they have been tasked

18:54

with serving as a social safety net in

18:57

a society that has forced them to make

18:59

do without the support that they need. And

19:01

my hope is that I can show them

19:03

how women's self-help culture in particular kind of

19:05

deludes us into thinking that if we're struggling

19:07

to manage it all, that it must be

19:09

because we made the wrong choices, because we

19:11

didn't lean in, didn't wash our

19:13

face, didn't get out of our own heads, didn't

19:15

let that shit go, to use some other popular

19:17

book titles, for example. And I mean,

19:20

in reality, it's that we are being pushed

19:22

into doing this work that we are being

19:24

kind of worked over time and underpaid on

19:26

projects that other people have designed for their

19:28

own gain, and certainly not for ours. And

19:30

so I think this is a place where

19:32

one of the core messages of the feminist

19:34

movements of the 1960s and 70s is that

19:36

we really have to

19:38

hold it together collectively, and not on

19:40

our own. It's about recognizing that we

19:43

are strongest when we work together. And

19:45

we are strongest when we fight for those

19:47

who are most marginalized among us, as

19:50

opposed to trying to just individually get

19:52

ahead as far as we can, because

19:54

that's an easy way to fall into

19:57

the delusions and the divisions that are

19:59

designed to keep us scrambling as opposed

20:01

to seeing how investments in stronger policies,

20:04

for example, could better support us all.

20:07

AMT. And at the heart

20:09

of what you just said is

20:11

the acceptance that there are indeed

20:13

systemic inequalities and inequities, right? CM.

20:16

Yes, very much so. And I think

20:18

those often get overlooked in these conversations

20:21

in the sense that in our DIY

20:23

society, all of us have an incentive

20:25

to push as much risk and responsibility

20:27

for care as possible onto someone else

20:29

downstream. And for men, they're often economically

20:32

in the most privileged positions to be

20:34

able to do this, to leverage their

20:36

higher salaries, their bigger titles, to get

20:38

the women around them to do more

20:41

of that work of care, to persuade

20:43

their wives, to persuade their administrative assistants,

20:45

to persuade their colleagues and coworkers, to

20:47

do more of that work that isn't

20:50

as economically profitable so that

20:52

they can focus on doing that most profitable work

20:54

themselves. Now, for women, those

20:56

who are in the most privileged positions

20:58

can offload some of that work also

21:00

by pushing it on to oftentimes women

21:03

from systematically marginalized groups who have very

21:05

little choice but to do the underpaid

21:07

work of childcare, of home healthcare, of

21:10

food service, of house cleaning. Though, of course,

21:13

we can never outsource all of the care

21:15

responsibilities. It often takes a great deal of

21:17

management on the back end as well. But

21:20

this creates a sort of morality trap

21:22

in the sense that oftentimes getting ahead

21:24

for individual, relatively privileged women means exploiting

21:26

someone else. So,

21:28

you've talked, Jessica, about how the

21:31

really hard work of care, of childcare,

21:34

family care, gets pushed on to women

21:36

routinely. I wonder how you deal with

21:38

it in your own life. You have

21:41

kids, right? I do. I

21:43

have a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old. And I think

21:45

it has varied very much depending on the support

21:47

level that I've been able to access and certainly

21:49

the level of support that my husband has been

21:52

able to provide given his work situation as well.

21:54

I mean, when my oldest daughter

21:56

was born, we were living in Indiana. And at

21:58

the time, my husband had just started a new

22:00

job. job. I was a relatively new assistant professor

22:02

and I had access to paid

22:04

leave, to paid family leave, but my husband didn't.

22:07

And so I ended up home with my daughter for

22:09

the first almost six months. And then

22:11

what ended up happening though is we hoped to

22:13

get her into childcare when I had to go

22:15

back to teaching. But like many people, you know,

22:17

we ran into a sort of childcare crisis in

22:20

the sense that the first spot that we could

22:22

find for full time childcare wasn't open until my

22:24

daughter was a year old. So I spent that

22:26

first semester back teaching, cobbling together a few hours

22:28

a week of childcare from college students who would

22:30

watch my daughter while I was teaching and trying

22:32

to finish my first book, trying to do

22:35

my research and really nothing got done. I mean, I was worried

22:37

I wouldn't get tenure. I was worried I wouldn't be able to

22:39

keep my job. I wasn't sure how

22:41

things would go with my relationship because things were

22:43

so unequal and stressful. At the time,

22:45

I remember there was one point where I was

22:47

so exhausted that I slammed my bathroom door in

22:49

my bedroom and it's like a pocket door and

22:52

I managed to slam my fingers in the process

22:54

and lost two fingernails because I was just so

22:56

exhausted and stressed out during those early years. And

22:58

so it was not an easy

23:00

time. And you know, certainly things got better when

23:03

I was able to get my kids into full

23:05

time childcare. And certainly when my husband

23:07

was in a position by the time our

23:09

second kid was born, he had access to

23:11

six weeks of paid family leave. And it

23:13

made a world of difference, but it was

23:15

hard in terms of navigating those times, even

23:17

for those of us who are relatively privileged

23:19

in the process. Jessica, I keep coming back

23:21

to the employer as a

23:24

potential solution. Do you think that's

23:27

naive of me? I

23:29

think about wellness benefits or

23:31

even the idea as simple

23:34

as making parental leave non-gendered,

23:36

same amount of time for either

23:38

parent or care subsidies

23:40

or backup care, you know, accounts where

23:43

they can book a backup babysitter and

23:45

pay with a copay. Some

23:47

of this stuff is out there in the HR

23:50

world. Do you think it's going to

23:52

go anywhere? I

23:54

think there's two parts to this answer here

23:56

in the sense that yes, there are things

23:59

that employers can be doing. and should be

24:01

doing to make life easier for caregivers. And

24:03

that those kinds of investments can go a

24:05

long way in making life easier. Things

24:08

like access to healthcare, access to support

24:10

with childcare, to access to support with

24:13

flexible work policies, that these can make

24:15

a difference and can make life easier

24:18

when it comes to the ability

24:20

to combine full-time paid work and

24:22

caregiving responsibilities. At the same time,

24:24

I think we have to be careful about trusting

24:26

employers to be the ones to solve

24:29

this problem, particularly on their own.

24:31

What we know, for example, is that

24:33

when it's up to employers, like with

24:35

things like healthcare, oftentimes the

24:37

benefits of that kind of a system go

24:39

disproportionately to the most privileged workers in our

24:42

economy, in part because they're the ones who

24:44

have the power and the privilege to demand

24:46

better benefits when it comes to healthcare, when

24:48

it comes to which workers have access to

24:51

paid family leave, when it comes to which

24:53

workers have access to childcare

24:55

benefits or access to decent retirement

24:57

benefits, that those are disproportionately the

24:59

most privileged workers in our economy, and

25:01

that it's the workers who are the

25:03

most precarious, who are disproportionately women, and

25:05

especially women of color in our society,

25:07

are the ones who are often most

25:09

disadvantaged when it comes to access to

25:11

those kinds of benefits. And so I

25:13

think we have to be wary of

25:15

treating employers as capable of solving this

25:18

problem on their own. And I think

25:20

we have to recognize that that's a

25:22

function of the fact that even well-meaning

25:24

employers, ones who want to put in

25:26

place those benefits for their workers, face

25:28

profit pressures that often discourage them from

25:30

giving workers the support that they really need

25:32

to live healthy, happy, and productive

25:35

lives. And this is a place

25:37

where policymakers can step in to

25:39

essentially help take the burden off

25:41

of employers. We know that

25:43

other countries have shown that policies are

25:46

things that allow people to live with

25:48

dignity, to access economic opportunities, and to

25:50

contribute equitably and sustainably to a shared

25:52

project of care, both allowing

25:55

people to have the well-being and the time

25:57

and the energy and the education to contribute

25:59

to the work. workforce, but then also having

26:01

the protection from paid work to keep

26:03

it from demanding so much of our

26:05

time through access to things like paid

26:07

leave and paid vacation time, and even

26:09

things like 35-hour work weeks or four-day

26:11

work weeks. That balance of

26:13

policies can leave people not only better

26:15

off in a sort of health sense

26:17

or a mental well-being sense, can avoid

26:19

burnout, but can also lead to better

26:21

productivity, can make workers more successful in

26:23

their jobs in the end. So this

26:26

is a place where we need to

26:28

think critically about is the system working

26:31

and is this emphasis on employers as

26:33

the only solution the right way

26:35

to go? Man, I want to

26:37

put all that on a very large poster.

26:42

Because it's so interesting when we talk about healthcare,

26:45

I mean, there was a piece from the maternal

26:47

stress project several months ago in the New York

26:49

Times that said, child care is healthcare. Just

26:52

quit calling it a social service or

26:54

even a personal thing to solve. It

26:56

is healthcare. And when women

26:58

are stressed by the precarity of it

27:01

and the inconsistency of it, even

27:03

coming back from COVID is not consistent, or

27:05

you're on a waiting list like you said,

27:07

Jessica, I mean, that stress can last for

27:09

years. And this is a place where

27:11

I would say really the push could and

27:13

should be to move away from employers and

27:16

to say, how can we make these universal

27:18

policies instead in ways that you know, things

27:20

like healthcare, if we had universal healthcare, that

27:22

wouldn't have to be something that employers worry

27:24

about when it comes to competing for workers.

27:26

If we had universal affordable childcare, that again,

27:28

wouldn't have to be something that employers had

27:30

to worry about when it came to figuring

27:32

out, you know, can employees afford to live

27:35

in my community because there's no childcare here.

27:37

And so these are things that

27:39

we can solve systemically with childcare.

27:41

We had national childcare, national public

27:43

affordable childcare during World War Two.

27:46

And this is how we got mothers to

27:48

enter the workforce to be the Rosie the Riveters.

27:50

We've proven that it's possible here. And yet

27:52

we dismantled that policy, in part because we didn't

27:55

want to have to pay the higher taxes

27:57

that would have been needed to expand and

27:59

maintain that system over time. And so I think

28:01

this is a place where we have proven

28:03

that these kinds of care-based

28:05

services are most effective when

28:07

they are universal. And one of the ironies

28:10

of that too is that when these kinds

28:12

of benefits are universal, there's less stigma in

28:14

using them in the sense that right now,

28:17

yes, childcare we know is great for

28:19

women, but women also feel guilty using

28:21

childcare in part because we treat it

28:23

as a benefit for women and not

28:25

also as a benefit for kids and

28:27

for society. We know that kids, you

28:29

know, kids benefit tremendously from access to

28:31

childcare when it comes to developmental benefits,

28:33

the cognitive benefits, the social benefits, and

28:35

the benefits of having less stressed out

28:37

parents in terms of the quality of

28:39

parenting that they can provide. And yet

28:41

we maintain these stigmas and this, you

28:44

know, I talk in the book about

28:46

how there's a long history of fear

28:48

mongering around childcare, trying to persuade mothers

28:50

that kids aren't safe with childcare providers.

28:53

But I think the reality is that the vast majority

28:55

of kids in these situations are better off than they

28:57

could be with a much more stressed out parent at

28:59

home. And so this is a, you know, a situation

29:01

where investments in that kind of care can help de-stigmatize

29:04

it and can help it be more

29:06

sustainable for all. And I think

29:08

it's important to point out that a lot

29:10

of people don't work for companies.

29:12

They work for themselves. So

29:14

that argues for the universal care policies

29:17

that you're talking about, Jessica. But

29:20

we're talking about care, not just for

29:22

children, we're talking about care for

29:25

parents, for relatives who

29:27

cannot take care of themselves. Marty,

29:29

you've cared for your, for your

29:32

fiance, you've cared for your mother.

29:34

What policies, Jessica, would

29:37

you recommend to

29:39

take care of caregivers all

29:41

the way around? And this

29:43

is another place where, where public investments in

29:46

care can help to make sure that the

29:48

kinds of care services are available, whether they're

29:50

childcare services, whether they're home healthcare services, whether

29:52

they are nursing home care facilities, whether they

29:54

are afterschool care for kids, you know, things

29:57

along those lines. When we invest

29:59

in those kinds of policies, we're going to

30:01

be able to do that. at a universal

30:03

level and when we put a decent level

30:05

of funding behind them, we can ensure that

30:07

they provide not only the high quality of

30:09

care that people need, but also that the

30:11

work of caregiving is sustainable. And we have

30:13

examples, you know, things like Washington State has

30:15

the Wacares program, which is putting in place

30:17

publicly funded long-term care insurance for everyone within

30:19

the state. Or, you know,

30:21

places like Minnesota that have invested in

30:24

universal affordable childcare to take the burden

30:26

off of individual families and individual employers.

30:29

Jessica, given that those policies aren't

30:32

entirely available, how do

30:34

women prepare themselves for

30:36

the caregiving that they're gonna be called

30:39

on to do? It's so unpredictable. Yeah,

30:42

I mean, one of the things I try

30:44

to do with my work is to un-gasulate

30:46

women, to essentially help to prepare them for

30:48

this idea that the messaging in our society,

30:50

I talk about the sort of myths that

30:52

we use to delude Americans into believing that

30:54

we don't need a social safety net and

30:56

to keep us divided, you know, by race

30:58

and class and gender and politics and religion

31:00

in ways that kind of keep us thinking

31:02

about ourselves as opposed to coming together to

31:04

demand the kind of safety net that could

31:06

better support us all. And I think this

31:08

is a place where helping women to not

31:11

blame themselves, to recognize that this is a

31:13

system that is stacked against them, but

31:15

also to help them stay hopeful, because

31:17

that's not a particularly hopeful message. And

31:19

to remember that we are strongest together

31:21

and that this is a place where

31:23

we can be using the energy that

31:26

we do have to say, okay, you

31:28

know, who are the other women around

31:30

me and how can we be collectively

31:32

organizing in ways that can demand better

31:34

policies, better support from our employers, from

31:36

our communities, from our policy makers, because

31:38

essentially, I mean, yes, individual women can,

31:42

to some extent, hold it together on their

31:44

own. But what that risks enforcing is this

31:46

idea that I talk about in some of

31:48

my research that kind of good choices can

31:50

save women, that if women just pursue

31:53

the right career path or find the right partner or

31:55

live in the right community, that

31:57

they will be able to protect themselves from

31:59

falling in love. into these kinds of

32:01

expectations from becoming the default caregiver or from

32:04

having to face these kinds of inequalities,

32:06

when the reality is that even, you know,

32:08

as in Marty's case, good choices can't

32:10

necessarily always save women. And

32:12

oftentimes those kinds of good choices also require

32:14

a great deal of privilege to make. And

32:17

so I think helping women to remember that we are

32:19

working in a system that is not designed for us

32:21

and that if anything is designed against us and

32:24

to see how really it'll take us coming together

32:26

and finding allies, you know, to be able to

32:28

fight for the kind of system that would better

32:30

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33:03

That's hbs.me slash

33:05

l-e-a-r-n. So,

33:12

Marty, you are now back

33:14

at work full time. Yeah. How

33:16

did that shift go? How did you do it? It

33:18

didn't go well. It

33:21

didn't go badly. It's

33:24

amazing to me how still

33:28

when push comes to shove, I

33:30

am the one typically who accommodates.

33:34

We enrolled our high schooler in a school

33:36

that's quite far away from our home. It's

33:39

a long drive and it's through the

33:41

city and there's construction and traffic jams

33:43

and there are days where I would

33:46

really rather not do that at both ends of

33:48

my work day. I

33:51

shouldn't even say ends at the middle third and

33:53

second third of my work day because school is

33:55

of course shorter than work. same

34:00

time, I find that where

34:04

I work now, people are willing to say,

34:06

okay, that's fine. Go be

34:08

there at the right time. Get

34:10

your student home. I get them home in

34:12

a timely way so they can get on another class on Zoom.

34:17

And so I juggle the time. And

34:19

so last night that looked like I worked 90 minutes

34:22

at home in the evening while my

34:25

kiddo was on their Zoom class. And this morning I worked

34:27

60 in the

34:29

morning before I got the youngest on the bus.

34:31

So there is flexibility

34:34

in the sense of I'm being trusted

34:36

to get the work done where and

34:38

when and how I can do it.

34:41

But there is no reduced workload. There

34:44

is no transportation option

34:46

for my child or

34:49

even letting my child take their Zoom class

34:51

at the high school building and stay there

34:53

all evening, those kinds of things. In fact,

34:55

I said this morning, I said, your school

34:57

really needs a co-working office right there. If

35:00

I could drive you, drop you, take all my

35:02

calls, pick you up and leave, we'd be an

35:04

hour and a half ahead. So

35:07

I think to me that idea

35:09

of co-locating some things and

35:12

making it possible for people to

35:14

study and work and eat

35:16

and get services done all in the

35:18

same place, it didn't

35:20

really take off after the pandemic like I

35:22

thought, hoped it would. And I know there's

35:24

a lot of neighborhoods that aren't built for

35:26

that. They just are not set up to

35:29

have those kinds of things together. But

35:31

it really splits people's lives up when

35:33

they have to commute to

35:36

everything. And more

35:38

often than not, it's the moms in the drop off

35:40

line. And it's utterly

35:42

exhausting. So

35:46

Jessica, I wonder having heard what

35:48

Marty's dealing with now every day,

35:50

if there's anything you can offer

35:52

her. Is there context, is there

35:54

advice that would help her out

35:56

here? I mean, I think

35:59

this is again a place for everyone. I'm hesitant

36:01

to put the onus of responsibility onto individuals in

36:03

part because that's the message that we've been sold

36:05

so long is, you know, if you just make

36:07

these right choices, you can find some seven step

36:10

plan that will get you out of the stress.

36:12

And I think, unfortunately, what I can offer is

36:14

is solace to some extent in the sense that

36:16

you're not alone in this kind of struggle, that

36:18

this is a system that is not designed

36:21

to help us, that is designed to

36:23

extract from us and to get as

36:26

much from us as possible while leaving

36:28

as little behind as is necessary to

36:30

survive, but not necessarily thrive. And

36:32

this is what we're up against. And I think

36:34

what maybe does give me hope and maybe can

36:37

offer Marty some hope is that I think we

36:39

are at a moment kind of politically and socially

36:41

where there is growing recognition of

36:43

these challenges and growing recognition of

36:45

the need to do something

36:47

about the care crisis that we are facing,

36:49

because I think we've reached a tipping point

36:51

where it has become deeply unsustainable,

36:53

where this is not just affecting those who

36:56

are in the most precarious position, but where

36:58

even those with extremely high levels of privilege

37:00

are struggling to make it through day to

37:02

day. And I think this has shown us

37:05

how unsustainable this is. And I'm hoping that

37:07

this will lead to policy momentum to change

37:09

both at the individual level of employers, but

37:11

also at the broader societal level. And we're

37:14

seeing some states move in that direction, which

37:16

I'm hoping will provide a testing ground to

37:18

show that these kinds of changes can be

37:20

made at a broader level to put us

37:22

in a place where we're actually able to

37:25

get the care that we need for ourselves and the

37:27

support that we need to care for others and to

37:29

have that better negotiation of the

37:31

parts of our lives, as opposed to maybe

37:34

the balance that might be too elusive to

37:36

get. Yeah,

37:39

we've got a long way to go, but

37:42

there's hope if the right people can

37:44

hear the message and hear

37:46

the need. Indeed, indeed. Well, I

37:48

want to thank you both, Marty,

37:51

for sharing your story and Jessica

37:53

for sharing all your insight and

37:55

wisdom. Really appreciate it. Thank

37:57

you. Thank you. All

38:00

right, Aimee, you heard our

38:02

conversation. What struck you? I

38:05

mean, so many things. Obviously, of

38:07

course, deep, deep empathy for

38:10

Marty and what she went through. You wouldn't

38:12

wish a year like that on your worst

38:14

enemy. And I think as a

38:17

woman who relates to being the person

38:19

in many people's lives who keeps things

38:22

running, like a

38:24

kid having an unclear illness, I

38:26

just could immediately think of the

38:28

four conversations that involved with

38:30

the doctor and waiting for the callback and

38:32

stepping out of a meeting. The

38:35

sheer number of logistics that Marty has

38:37

had to deal with, never mind the

38:39

emotional content, is just so intense.

38:42

For me, what I really chimed

38:44

with was this idea that if

38:47

one ball drops, they're all gonna drop,

38:49

you know? And I kept thinking as

38:51

I was listening to the conversation, how

38:54

many women are bending

38:57

time every day just

38:59

to find the hours to do their

39:01

job? And you add

39:03

in these caretaking responsibilities, whether it's

39:05

for dogs, children, parents, husbands. Spouses.

39:08

Right, yeah. Like plants, you

39:10

know, we can talk about the plants in a moment,

39:12

but like all of this

39:14

caretaking is goes

39:16

unacknowledged. And it's supposed to be in

39:18

the curves of

39:21

the rest of the things that we do.

39:23

Well, and I mean, everything Marty was dealing

39:25

with was legitimately

39:28

urgent. Yeah, except maybe the plants. Maybe the

39:30

plants, exactly. And I have to say, I

39:33

literally said out loud, Marty let the

39:35

plants die. Plant murderer. Yes,

39:38

but you know what? Marty probably loves those

39:40

plants. Who cares? Like stop judging which balls

39:42

she's choosing to keep in the air. That's

39:45

her choice. And I think

39:48

the message is not, hey

39:50

women, let's stop our perfectionism. Let's drop

39:52

some of the balls. It's

39:56

how do we help build

39:59

a society it doesn't

40:01

feel like everyone's building a

40:03

house of cards. I

40:05

actually have this pretty extreme

40:08

example, this woman I know,

40:10

and I'll be careful to preserve her privacy,

40:12

but- So her name's in the show now?

40:14

Yes, her name in LinkedIn provost. Okay,

40:16

sure. But she's

40:18

married, she and her husband have the same job, they

40:20

have two young kids, and she

40:23

and I see each other every few years, and the

40:25

last time I saw her, I was like, how are

40:27

you managing? And she said, we're not.

40:30

I just refuse to accept any

40:33

expectation from my husband

40:35

or from society. Our house

40:37

is a mess, our kids don't have clean clothes,

40:40

oftentimes we're cobbling together crackers for dinner,

40:42

the school has to chase us down

40:44

for every permission slip. She's like, I'm

40:46

sure everyone at my work and

40:48

in my life thinks we're a disaster, but I

40:50

refuse to do the perfectionist way. And

40:53

I'm like, what are you doing with all the time when you're

40:55

not being perfectionist? She's like, I'm reading. She

40:57

gets to read novels. Oh, wow. And

40:59

she comes from a pretty unconventional family that's challenged

41:01

a lot of society's expectations. So

41:03

I think this is a path she's slightly

41:06

comfortable with, but she recognizes

41:09

that to outsiders who have

41:11

bought into society's expectations, that

41:13

it looks bonkers. I

41:17

mean, I think every time I've signed something

41:19

for Harper or like show up for something,

41:22

I think, oh, my friend is not doing

41:24

any of that. I

41:26

think there's a lot to be learned from your

41:28

European friend. Yeah. I loved Marty's

41:31

sort of offhand suggestion that the school

41:33

have a co-working space. Oh, I like

41:35

that idea. I was like, this is

41:37

brilliant actually, because it was such a

41:39

good metaphor for everything Jessica was talking

41:41

about, right? How do we make the

41:44

system just easier on all

41:46

of us in a collective way? And one

41:49

piece of homework I'm taking, and

41:51

I think I hope some of our listeners will

41:53

as well, is to read Jessica's book and

41:56

really understand what she

41:58

calls this DIY society. how

42:00

it's come to exist

42:03

and I mean she has solutions

42:05

in there policy level solutions of

42:08

how we can change it. And the

42:10

link to Jessica's book will actually

42:13

be in the show notes. Yes she

42:15

wants to be found. That's

42:23

our show. I'm Amy Gallo. And

42:25

I'm Amy Bernstein. HBR

42:28

regularly publishes articles with advice

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42:37

Employees Are Also Caregippers. Here's

42:39

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42:43

at Work's editorial and production

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