Some couples truly do seem to have figured it out. Take Molly Anderson and her husband, Richard Berger. Molly worked at Deloitte as a strategy consultant before and after her children were born.
She did what many career-driven women do: She worked long hours to support her clients’ needs, traveled extensively, and rarely got home in time to kiss her babies good night. As a young mother, she didn’t mind because Richard’s career as an engineer meant he worked more stable hours. He could be home early to cook the family dinner, bathe their two children, and read them their nightly bedtime stories.
Eventually, Molly’s priorities changed. She knew she wanted and needed time with her children, so she decided to pause.
Molly said, “When I left Deloitte, I didn’t have an intentional well-thought-through plan. I wasn’t thinking about my long-term career. I just knew I had had enough.”
So, like me, she scaled back her career and became a “single shingle” consultant working part- time from home. For eight years, she managed the playdates, the grocery shopping, the doctors’
appointments while Richard committed himself to his career. It was, as she says, “marvelous” and
“frustrating.” She had worked hard to establish herself professionally, and there didn’t seem to be a path for integrating her role as mother with her role as professional.
While Molly was away from Deloitte, the company had spent time realizing they had a “brain drain” problem. Bright, talented women were leaving in droves once they had children. Deloitte had invested time and money in these women. Rather than view it as a “woman’s problem,” Deloitte viewed it as a talent retention problem.
In 2004, they created a new program called the “Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women.” They placed their rising star, Cathy Benko, as the head of the initiative. Cathy and Molly had worked together before so when Cathy took on the job, she reached out to Molly and asked her to come back and help launch the program.
Molly and Richard knew this would mean she would have to be “all-in, all-of-the-time,” so Richard decided to scale back his career and become the lead parent. Now he was the carpool king, the homework helper, the playdate manager, and Molly was the power-suit-wearing, always-gone-on- business primary breadwinner. Richard continued in his role as lead parent until their children were in high school. Then Richard relaunched his own career and is now working as an engineering lead at a health care start-up.
Molly and Richard were able to spiral their roles as lead parent and lead breadwinner because they both had workplaces that allowed them to thrive. Neither were penalized for their career pauses and, as a result, both have had the benefit of experiencing the joys and challenges of being primarily responsible for the children and primarily responsible for financially supporting their family.
“My husband and I spiraled our careers in a way that allowed us to truly have the best of all worlds. It wasn’t easy and we made many sacrifices and compromises along the way. But we feel we have managed to find our own version of having it all,” Molly told me.
The good news is that we are seeing more and more couples approach their partnerships in this way. One Women on the Rise survey respondent shared the following:
My husband and I agreed when we married that we both wanted to work and raise our children. We are both in a creative field that offers more flexibility than most in stepping in and out of “career” mode, and in working part time from home. When one of us takes on a major project, the other one steps more into the parental role. So in this case, I paused my work while my husband was researching and writing his book. Then, the day after his book tour ended, we moved to another state so I could start my book research … We have learned the hard way that each switch creates new challenges and uncertainties. But it has allowed us to build
“pauses” into our lives together.
For other couples, spiraling hasn’t meant leaving the paid workforce, but rather taking turns with who serves as lead parent. Jodi Detjen works full-time as an author, a leadership consultant, and a professor of management for Suffolk University. But when her children were young, she downshifted her career to around twenty hours a week and became the number one parent. These days, it is her husband, Mark, who has taken the role of lead parent.
“My husband worked hard when our kids were younger and now that his career is more firmly
established, it’s his turn to have the chance to pick them up from school, be in charge of their various activities, and serve as the go-to parent. We’ve shifted parenting responsibilities back and forth over the years. It’s been a win for the entire family,” Jodi told me.
Spiraling requires a constant commitment to equality and a willingness to break traditional gender roles. For men like Richard, it means getting comfortable being the only guy in the “moms” group. For women like Molly, it means giving up control of the household. Conscious couples understand these challenges and proceed in ways that allow each partner to work, pause, and thrive.
CHAPTER 12
Money Matters, Plan Accordingly