{"id":177,"date":"2026-05-28T13:09:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=177"},"modified":"2026-05-28T13:09:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:09:16","slug":"motherhood-is-completely-at-odds-with-a-career-obsessed-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=177","title":{"rendered":"Motherhood Is Completely At Odds With A Career-Obsessed Society"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cThis whole career thing is really at odds with being a new mother,\u201d a woman said in the privacy of my office. New to my team, she had just returned from maternity leave after her first child and was juggling first-time motherhood and a new, demanding career that pushed her to work long hours and take long business trips away from her newborn. I knew she was right, but it was the first time in many years of management that I had heard it stated so succinctly and powerfully.<\/p>\n

Read more If Dating Is Breaking The Bank, You\u2019re Doing It Wrong<\/a><\/p>\n

What I experienced that day was illuminating for both of us. For me as a male professional, it justified what I had so often thought when having other conversations with female coworkers navigating pregnancies and motherhood. For her as a young female professional, it was obvious that she felt a burden lifted and could admit what so many other female professionals seek so desperately to resist, deny, or control \u2014 namely, that modern careerism and motherhood are in deep, perhaps irreconcilable tension.<\/p>\n

A Sympathetic Supervisor\u2019s Constant Quandary<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve been in various supervisory positions for almost the entirety of my marriage. When we first married, my wife had her own career. But not long after the arrival of our first child, she traded that job for life as a stay-at-home mom. I wasn\u2019t sure how I felt about that \u2014 playing the role of breadwinner was a lot for a twenty-something guy to contemplate, and in the back of my mind, I hoped my wife would, in time, reenter the workforce. Now that we have a litter of kids, her homeschooling and motherly duties far outpace the stress levels I could manage \u2026 and I work two jobs, usually clocking in about 70 hours per week!<\/p>\n

Over those years, I\u2019ve supervised a good number of women who are either pregnant or caring for a newborn. Because I know what it\u2019s like to help a wife with a newborn, I\u2019ve gotten a reputation as someone who is sympathetic to mothers\u2019 experiences. And, as someone who is pro-family and pro-life, I try to foster a work environment that accommodates the needs of pregnant women and nursing mothers. But, admittedly, it\u2019s never an easy fit.<\/p>\n

I remember one woman under my supervision who, after her first child, was regularly trying to find a place to breast-pump. There was no nursing mother\u2019s room, so she would try to find an empty conference room. Multiple times, other coworkers would interrupt her and apologetically explain that they needed the room for their meeting. I would advocate for her, but it was obvious coworkers bristled at adjusting their schedules to accommodate her pumping schedule.<\/p>\n

Another time, I was asked to take on a new employee who had gotten pregnant (seemingly to the frustration of her management). She had been expected to do some long hours and even some extended travel, but as her due date approached, that was obviously impossible. What she interpreted (perhaps correctly) was that the baby in the womb was perceived not as something to be celebrated, but as an inconvenience to be managed.<\/p>\n

When the Light Clicks for New Mothers<\/strong><\/h2>\n

And, finally, there was the new mother I mentioned above. When she returned from maternity leave, we sat down to discuss job expectations. I told her I would do everything I could to shield her from long hours or travel, but it would be impossible to indefinitely postpone the inevitable. \u201cThey\u2019re making me choose between my baby and this job,\u201d she said, frustrated. Then she declared: \u201cI\u2019m going to be answerable to God for this child.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think you necessarily need to be religious to appreciate her comment. The value of a child is so infinitely beyond the value of a job, and \u2014 despite her multiple degrees from prestigious programs \u2014 she perceived the unavoidable tension every mother avoids, denies, or tries to address with the latest \u201chack.\u201d Indeed, there is a massive cottage industry of literature devoted to navigating motherhood and careerism. <\/p>\n

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There\u2019s book-length advice on how to \u201cbaby proof your career,\u201d how to \u201cmake motherhood work\u201d with your career, how to \u201cthrive\u201d while being a working mother, and leveraging \u201cprioritization\u201d and \u201cdelegation\u201d to be a \u201csavvy working mom.\u201d Regardless of how sophisticated that advice might be, it all confronts the inevitable fact that babies need their moms. And not just for weeks or a few months. They need them for years<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As political philosopher Harvey Mansfield argues in his new book The Rise and Fall of Rational Control<\/em>, true freedom is not defined solely by achieving rational control over ourselves and nature via the latest \u201clife hack,\u201d but by fleeing \u201cback into the arms of God and nature.\u201d Mansfield explains: \u201cPerhaps the original mistake was to define an opposition between freedom and nature, which tried to compel us to escape what cannot be escaped.\u201d That seems an apt description for women\u2019s attempts to juggle parenthood and high-octane professions.<\/p>\n

Careerism Is a Joy-Suck For Everyone, But It\u2019s More Than That for Moms<\/strong><\/h2>\n

No doubt, my role as a dad is essential to the well-being of my children. They need me, and they need me to be integrally involved in their lives, right from the beginning. Every time I take a business trip I feel the tension not only of leaving my tired and overwhelmed wife, but of missing out on being a daily source of love and stability for those children. I know they need their dad.<\/p>\n

But for young children, the need for mom is amplified multiple times. Some of this is simple biology \u2014 babies need to be nursed. As female subordinates have told me, breast-pumping at work is soul-crushing, because it undermines mother-baby bonding. But that mother-baby relationship is also social and interpersonal \u2014 there\u2019s mounds of anecdotal and research-based evidence that kids whose mothers are deeply invested in their early development do better across a host of categories.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, as much as I am happy to support working mothers and expectant mothers, there is a profound, inescapable conflict between their careers and their kids. They should be home with them, not navigating nursing mothers\u2019 rooms, breast pumps, and debilitatingly expensive day care where strangers raise their kids. <\/p>\n

This has nothing to do with the feminine ability <\/em>to be a competent professional. But it has everything to do with what makes us most human. Being a new mother isn\u2019t something to be technocratically managed, but to be honored for the beautiful, ennobling, and soul-enhancing experience it is. The career can wait. Your baby can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s Restitution For Biden-Era Lawfare Is Just, But Not A Permanent Solution<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being a new mother isn\u2019t something to be technocratically managed, but to be honored as beautiful, ennobling, and soul-enhancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[746],"tags":[288,747,748,749,750,423,751,752,753,754,755,756,757,758,759,760],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting","tag-babies","tag-breastfeeding","tag-careerism","tag-careers","tag-day-care","tag-feminism","tag-feminists","tag-harvey-mansfield","tag-homeschooling","tag-maternity-leave","tag-motherhood","tag-mothers","tag-newborns","tag-parents","tag-pregnancy","tag-work"],"yoast_head":"\nMotherhood Is Completely At Odds With A Career-Obsessed Society - Property Transition Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=177\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Motherhood Is Completely At Odds With A Career-Obsessed Society - 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