Quit Apologizing for Living

I know the Thursday posts on this blog are typically devoted to advocacy. But I was caught in my tracks yesterday by a conversation with my spouse, and frankly it’s stuck in my craw. So this is a bit of a rant.

In short, we were chatting about the challenges that working parents face with regard to establishing boundaries between career and home life. Considering the ubiquity of work-life balance conversations happening in the professional sphere, it’s astounding to me that I’m still seeing colleagues, specifically women, feel as if they need to apologize for having a life outside of work.

We all know those cringeworthy moments witnessing a co-worker suffer through the roller coaster of responding to a school emergency or child’s sickness. Just as concerning, though, are the challenges to balance the mundane events in ordinary, everyday life.

By the nature of my own work and the organizations with which I partner, I coordinate with colleagues in multiple time zones every day. We are constantly balancing schedules, and are often called on to hold early meetings. Needless to say, early in the Eastern time zone is even earlier in Central and Mountain time. Without fail, those early call times overlap with the school drop-offs, breakfast times, and daily routines of my co-workers out west.

Because of those overlaps, one of my female colleagues is almost always forced to join our zoom meetings via audio only, and often cannot weigh in on a question in real time. And somehow, every time we have one of those calls, she feels obligated to apologize for providing for her family. Thankfully she hears from senior leaders that those apologies aren’t necessary, that our family commitments come first.

Most importantly, it’s regularly conveyed in our organization that we are trusted to judge for ourselves what meetings we absolutely need to attend. I can speak from personal experience in uniform and while working in Congress that such trust is an uncommon organizational culture trait. Thank goodness I’ve joined a flatter organization, that has its priorities straight.

Listen, I understand the social pressure, the politeness gene that pushes us to apologize in those moments. But if we are truly serious about work-life balance and encouraging working parents to continue to advance their careers, it’s absolutely unreasonable to create cultural environments where that type of pressure is allowed. Leaders owe it to their teams to account for the more important job, that of parent, that we hold outside of our working day.

The toxicity of poor work-life balance, and the cultures that perpetuate it, are often unrecognized until too late. Good employees tend to leave organizations after having been drawn too thin over years. Great organizations, and those that would aspire to greatness, need to take a hard look at how they’re continuing through the ongoing pandemic. We need to figure out sooner, rather than later, if we are ignoring an opportunity to provide our teams the most tangible employee benefit: time.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to work schedules. Manufacturing, tech, agriculture, sales – every industry faces unique circumstances. But they all face a culture where a growing number of families rely on dual income streams, and we have to get serious about our cultures. The companies that move forward, developing innovative approaches to scheduling are destined to draw top performers. Those that don’t are going to lose out on the talent race.

But until those changes start to happen, I have a bit of unsolicited advice to my fellow working parents. Quit apologizing for living. We owe it to our employers to deliver on our work. But more importantly, we owe it to our children to deliver the best version of ourselves. Parenting is a full contact sport, don’t apologize for trying to make it to the championship.