Norfolk Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: Resilience in Leadership

Well, now we are going to move to our next presentation. So, Jennifer, can you turn your camera on and say hello? Hello, I am Jen Ripley. Good good afternoon everyone. Well, we are excited to have you with us and just go to the presentation mode and take it away. Okay. Are you guys seeing my presentation right now? Wait, let me make sure. Um, we see it in PowerPoint mode, but not in slideshow mode. But not in slideshow mode. Give me two sec and I'll move that to slideshow. All right. How about that? Looks great. Take it away. Okay. Well, welcome. Um, today is Chinese New Year actually. And when I was thinking about uh doing a presentation on issues that women care about in the workplace, I thought about a Chinese saying. Um so this saying was actually um credited to uh Mao Zong um an old you know communist Chinese leader from history. So I'm not making any political statement whatsoever. just for the Chinese people. I had the uh fortunate experience of being able to go visit China a couple times over the last decade and the women there really I found to be remarkable in the ways in which they were holding up half the sky. So as we get going I am uh Dr. Jen Ripley. I graduated from VCU in 1999 with my PhD in counseling psychology. I am now the endowed chair of integration at Regent University and I've been a professor of psychology since 1999. Um when I graduated I was tenured when I was 33 years old and I have two young adult children in my life um and my mom life. So um it gives you a little sense of of me. Um this Chinese proverb I'm really fond of it. um partly because it gives credit to the amount of work that women do. Although I really would probably say that in many situations, particularly in service roles and companies and organizations, women often hold up more than half the sky. So I don't know if that's been your experience in your organization or not. Um so I'm going to talk a little bit about work life balance. I'm not going to just talk about mother role, but um I am going to talk a lot about family role. So, I thought I would put uh forward just a little bit here. Um these are my two kids, my young adult kids. And I don't know that we can really say too much, but if you want to put in the chat, how many of you had a mother who worked in a job or a career where you had role models or maybe aunts, sisters, grandmother, or great-g grandandmother? Um, I know for myself, I'll let people put stuff in the chat. My own experience, my mom was home my whole life, so I didn't have that as a role model. My grandmothers did work, but out of necessity due to um divorce and or um financial stress. So, it was kind of like the women work, but really only if they have to kind of a thing um as the norm in my family. Um, and yet I felt like it was my role to take on a career. So, so yeah, an aunt for some of you. I see. Uh, your mom was a working mom. Yeah. And that's more and more common, I think, as the years go by. Whoops. um as more and more people have um either a mom or an aunt, a sister, that sort of thing who are uh doing career and you get to see different ways that people do work life balance in family life and other aspects of life. So, I did want to throw some data at you because I'm a psychologist and we love data, you know, it's kind of one of our things. So um the labor labor force participation rates among women are are pretty high but recessions really do matter. So this is from the US chamber analysis. So this is federal data. Um, but notice how around the 2008 recession when we had the housing uh problems that women's labor force participation went down there and then um it continued to kind of like go down some since then and then there of course was a sharp drop um during COVID when a lot of women were trying to figure out how could they possibly help their children do school from home and do work and they were trying to find other ways to take care of themselves. Of course, this is really difficult for people who don't have that choice. People like my grandmothers who really had to work in order to have food. Um but you still do have a large percentage of the labor force um that is women um working. This is the percentage of women that are working um in the labor force. Recessions do matter and there still is a wage gap. So, while lots of progress has been made in terms of trying to have equality, um, and women's wages are are rising, there is still a good bit of wage gap. This is a complex conversation that an economist, I'm sure, could do much better than I can as a psychologist. Um, but just reading the data a little bit, it's not just the fact that women often choose professions of lower pay. There they feel more free to do that or there's more interest in that. Of course, there are many professions that are dominated by women that have lower pay. And I have to say in my own field in mental health care since it's become predominantly women over the last 2530 years, the pay had gone down up until recently. So, um so you sometimes get if the feminization of a field happens then the actual wages will go down. So we do have some evidence that it's not just um the professions that choose women choose or that sort of thing that there is some kind of complex interplay for women. So this is the landscape um and I'm sure you're all very aware of it and we're all living that. I did want to say I I am talking a little bit about mothering because it is the most common reason why women struggle to do their balance of work right between their work and the rest of their life. Children have a way of needing a lot of attention. They need a lot of uh time, right? And so, uh it becomes a struggle for women who need to work long days or the career demands that. Um but it's not just that. It can happen at any age or any family situation. Um I'm sure you know that women tend to provide most of the family caregiving whether it's parents uh a spouse who might have a disability or an illness. And then of course everyone even if they have no family whatsoever um have their own personal needs for their health and mental health. Just as the previous talk was discussing we need to prioritize our health, our mental health and take care of ourselves and many of those things take time. We need time to exercise and time to prepare food that's going to be healthy for us. That sort of thing. Um or maybe for you work life balance is you're going to write the next great American novel or create a great work of art and that's where you're trying to balance uh your work and this other part of your life that's not work. So we all have work life balance issues as we um operate in the world. Mothering is uh a particular one that's received a lot of attention in the literature. So um almost 80% of women who left the workforce said it was due to family care in comparison to 23% for men. So that is a big stark gap. Um and so they're leaving it sometimes for for elder care of family members, sometimes for child care, but that is a a common reason. Now I do want to add to it. I will support 100% in my heart and my words and deeds any woman who chooses to stay home with her children or care for an elderly family member because they feel like that is the best thing for them and their family. The whole point of the world we live in today and so much work that's been done is so people would have choices to do that. But we do want them to have choices and to not feel undue pressure that they can't do the work and do the mothering or the family caregiving that it's impossible to do, right? That's what we've all been working on for a couple of decades now. So, we want to make sure there's no guilt or shame. In fact, lots of praise for people who cut back, do the slow lane whenever they have young children or a family member who needs care um or to to stop out for a while. um from the workforce. Um however, even though so these are two different numbers, 79% of women who left said it was due to family care. Of women, 74% of women with minor children are in the workforce in some way. So you can think about the people in your workplace. How many of them have children, right? How many of them are parenting and caring for their children right now? and they're trying to figure out how to make a soccer tournament and also get a report done on time, right? All of those things. Um, and then the number one reason that people tend to withdraw that's listed in the in the workforce data is uh the cost of child care. So, this is a national problem and um and the cost of child care has gone up in the last uh few years even. It's it's had a a significant increase and uh for lots of reasons for that. For many women who are mothering or caregiving, flexibility in hours and remote work is really important, especially when they have younger children. And yet, we're in trends back and forth, you know, for working from home. And then people are pulling people back in to not work from home. Again, not commenting on federal things right now, but that's happening and it's affecting a lot of people. And so people are needing to figure out what do I do now with my young children when they may have had a little bit of flexibility um if they could do remote work um or could be flexible in their hours maybe work you know from 6:00 to 3 or something instead of being there um you know in the after school hours. So those are um you know larger issues and part of the problem with this is that we have a collective action problem um that you know second shift as a mom is real. I remember um doing a Saturday marriage retreat. So I'm a couple counseling is my area of specialty and um once in a while I'll do a kind of a marriage enrichment talk or something and I I had done one on a Saturday. my kids were still young and I got to the end of it and I actually was co-leading it with a guy and this guy was really sharp and thoughtful um kind of a guy made a lot of difference actually to work with somebody like that and he kind of turned to me at about 3:30 when we were heading out and he's like ready for your second shift and I said yep that's exactly what's going to happen right because my partner he had been home for you know all day um and you know taking care of kids and you So fortunately this guy, he had the same issue. He was going to go home and do secondhip with his kids too. They were similar ages. So this is real, which means that women who are parenting and some might be even grandparenting, right? So not doing it with younger with more energy, but but helping to raise children of that are grandchildren, so they're an older age. um and they're working all day at our organizations and businesses and then they're going home and they're working to care for children and all of their needs in in that time. So, I'm just kind of bringing all of this forward into our into our consciousness. It's real. Um I did want to bring up again couple and families is my area. I don't know if you remember this from the pandemic. This guy was presenting on a news show and you know remember during the pandemic they were all doing this like from home right and in the middle of his talk his kids like wandered into the room right they like opened the door and came in while he was doing a national news show and his wife was like scrambling in to try to get them and we all I'm sure saw the clip and saw it afterwards if you didn't see it you know uh during um and so it was really kind of interesting Um he was a BBC reporter by the way. Um but it really brought to the forefront what families were trying to do during the pandemic but even since and this was someone who was working from from home and also it looked like his wife his wife there that lovely wife um was also there at home too and they had two jobs though and they had children and they were trying to try to manage and take care of their children. So, um, we are all facing these kinds of issues, but I thought this one was a particularly good one. Um, yeah, I I've watched it a good bit, too, and really appreciated it. Um, just kind of felt like, oh, yeah, I know exactly how you feel, you know, with all of that. So, for couples that have two jobs, for those that are in a couple uh relationship and they're doing, you know, two parents, two jobs, um, is there equal share in partners? The research isn't horrible, but it's not great. Okay, that's the take-home message, right? Essentially, what we found across the literature is that 56% of fathers say, "Yeah, I think I share equally." Whenever the both partners have jobs, right? They surveyed people where both partners have jobs. And the fathers are saying, "Yeah, I share equally." And the mothers are saying, "Not really, only 46%." There's a 10% difference there. Right? This is are male female couples. Um and on top of that, the research tends to show that mothers are more likely to manage school requirements, all the things that the schools need, medical care and appointments for their children, managing morning routines, getting lunchboxes ready and um kids to the bus stop on time and all of that. Um, there's a funny little story I had seen, um, I thought you might enjoy. And this is a father who was trying to be really helpful and really engaged and say, "Hey, when will we run out of diapers? I can I can pick up some." And the mother's response is, "I've already ordered those five times, right? Like since the last time that you asked about diapers, right?" And this is just a good example of the mental load that women often carry. So, they're not just doing the dishes and vacuuming. Um, and maybe the husband does just as much of that, but there's also a mental load of is is the kid all right? When's the next appointment? Do they need to have a dentist appointment? Do I need to reschedule that? Um, are we low on diapers? It's kind of a long list. I remember being in that phase of life. Um, for me, too. I'd like to uh propose that this is a wicked problem and a collective problem. meaning no one person, no mom um or woman who's caregiving in any way, whether it's children or or elders or uh disabled people um and no one family can solve this alone. It really is a collective problem. It is a national problem. It is a local problem. um here in Hampton Roads area, right? We have daycarees around. We have child carees, but you know, some of the good ones are really tough to get into. We we know, right? you and if you're not really on top of it or you move to the area h you know I've I've seen that with my students who have children and they're trying to find child care and it can be really difficult to find good quality particularly good quality lowcost child care and they can't control that right but they're facing that challenge so I'd like for us as leaders in the community to think a little bit about this for us One is what can I do for us to think that my work is not just to take care of myself and figure out things alone, right? I'm not a solo person in the world. I live in a community at work. I live in a community in my neighborhood and with other people that I have, you know, friendships and relationships with and organizations in the community. We have supervisors and co-workers, their spouses and partners. uh family needs are everyone's shared concern. And an organization or workplace that has that mentality is much healthier, right? And tends to have much better retention of their employees if you know the bottom line is needed for for people as you think about not just policies in the work that you do, but also thinking about the kind of attitudes, right? the kind of assumptions that might be communicated in small words in staff meetings, right, when getting together. Um to be able to respond to someone saying, "Hey, I'm going to need to take my mother to a doctor's appointment on Friday. She's not driving anymore." And to have people respond with, "Oh, of course." Okay. Right. um and to have an acceptance of that and an an encouragement of that. Now, we all know there are people who have difficulties with managing all of that and then they can become difficult in the workplace as a co-orker or a supervise um because they're having difficulty managing the workloads and they're not communicating well about it. But I think that we can expect good communication. And I think that we can expect that everyone in a workplace will sometimes need to go take care of their health at doctor's appointments, have their child care providers call in sick and not be able to take them um or have to take an elder family member to an appointment or something like that. Um we can advocate in our workplace. I I have really enjoyed I have to say um when I first had my kids uh region's a fairly small university really and um fairly young university and so I had my first child in 2001 and I was told at least by at the time I didn't check the records but I was told that I was the first faculty to continue working full-time after having a child right and so they were kind of like are you going to come back and I was like yeah of course like I I'm really early in my career um and um they you know said okay that's the first time that's happened and there weren't like policies and things in place. Now I had a little leadership over me that were really kind that talked to me about it in a thoughtful way, right? Knowing that I was getting kind of scared like what's going to happen? There's not a policy, right? Like there's there's and there's not a history, right? like there's not like oh 10 people have done this before and this is how they did it right so I did talk to some of the other faculty who had you know had children at home but they just weren't there at the time they had babies um but I can tell you that there was an older woman there who kind of hazed me and kind of said hey uh well you know I had to figure it out and I had to quit my job um in order to care and I had to do all these things so I I don't know why you, you know, get can get away with it kind of thing. And I I mean that was 25 years ago and I still remember that conversation. It was it was hurtful and I had to do some forgiveness work which is important work to do. Yeah. Um but I want to share that because I had other people who were really supportive and one of the things I've enjoyed as I've become an older woman myself and moved and sometimes I've been a director been a mentor to people. um being able to say to my my teaching assistant right now is having her first child to say um this week she uh even this week she's she brought up um oh you know the baby's coming in April. So I said, "Okay, so it sounds like you're finishing at the end of March and we won't have any responsibilities." And she's like, "Yeah, that's okay, but you know, if you need me to get on online on something and maybe handle something in April," and I said, "But of course not. Things will get covered. You're on leave, but of course not." Right? And so she's vulnerable as a teaching assistant, especially um in a vulnerable role. and when we're the older woman to not haze the younger ones um who are having their children but when they have their maternity leaves to say but of course please take your leave take the full leave right and I will support you in that and help cover for you in that I think that's important um so even if you made different decisions so we all make different decisions and like I said some people continue working some people um you know don't do that some people do have time in slow lanes, right? And so, how can we support each other in all the decisions? You know, if a woman is quitting, we don't need to talk down to her either if she's not going to work there anymore in your workplace. Um, if you're in an executive role, I just encourage you to consider, do you have good policies in place? Have they been reviewed in the last five or 10 years to see if they're up to date? Um, or consider creating a committee to address policies that promote work life work life balance. these those tend to work better if it's not just focused on younger women who are having their children, but understanding that the research shows that that's kind of like the bulk of stress is on uh younger women having their children. U if you are a mentor in your workplace, a listening ear to a younger woman who's facing the crunch of young children and still in that early to mid-career role where they're trying to establish themselves goes a long ways. And so thinking about who's around me and who can I, you know, give words of encouragement to. If you're a community leader among us today, um, thank you for anything you do that promotes quality daycare centers and after school programs in our area. They are crucial to the children of our community as well as to the families. Um, and that radiates out into our workplaces. We are all dependent on these things so that, you know, half of the sky can continue working. Um, and if you're in a crunch, um, and feeling like the resources are too few, really being thoughtful that there this is a collective action problem and what is appropriate for your organization to provide what's in your power um to advocate for yourself if you're in this role. Um generally the research says ask for what you need in a careful but direct request to either your partner at home right your family members or to your workplace. Um there may be issues of stress reactivity in the family. And so it's important to not engage that and to pick the right time. Um basically it's funny our brains rely on sugar and as the day goes on the blood the brain sugar goes down. That's why it's easier to get tempted by a piece of cake at night than in the morning. Um because our self-control tends to kind of go down as the day goes on. And so like picking the right time to have a difficult conversation with your partner, but also with your boss um to say your understanding of what you think their interests are, what you think they need out of it, and then make a clear direct request for what you need, listening to each other without dismissing the other person's perspective. Um, what's in your power? Oops. I think I've already done that. Oh, no, I haven't. So, um, I've talked about clear direct uh requests. Lower income families do rely a lot on extended kinship networks. So, watching out for any lower inome families in your network that don't have extended kinship networks. That can really be very difficult on them. Whereas, higher income families tend to rely on hired assistance. Um, but clarifying goals or responsibilities with those that you are coordinating with, whether that's uh caregiving an elderly family member and kind of regularly sitting down and talking about what are our goals here. Things keep changing with caring for, you know, Aunt Mabel and um like what are the responsibilities? Do they need to shift? Um, a good childhood doesn't have to include parents taking their children to all their events and activities every day. And so I just kind of want to like say that out loud. It's really okay if parents aren't at every single thing at all time. Uh but peer support as well as mentor support is also really helpful. Um this same kinds of things that I just said about partner, they also work with a boss. So, just kind of reminding everybody, you can take those same things to a boss, but might be better to ask your boss for, you know, maternity leave or uh FMLA leave or something in the morning when your boss is kind of feeling okay and make a clear direct request, but also communicate what you think their interests are going to be and their needs are going to be in the workplace. All right. Uh, basically, I end my talk with just some thoughts about how work life balance is for all of us. Um, everyone has to deal with work life balance. And I'll end also with a short story. Um, originally the story was about a wise father, but I'm going to make it about a wise mother because this is a women's form. So, um, there's a story of a wise mother whose children noticed that every day she took off something, bent down, and put something on the banyan tree at the end of their property. When she came home, she bent down at the banyan tree and picked up something before coming into the house. They asked their mother, "What are you doing each day at the banyan tree?" And she said, "When I come home from the office, I hang the garland of office pressure, politics, and everything related to the outside world in the tree. And then again, when I go to the office, I stand under the tree and put in the garland of the outside world and go to the office." I hope we can all find a banyan tree to hang up the stress of the outside world and enjoy that work life balance for all of us. Thank you very much. Well, Jen, thank you so much for that wonderful presentation. And yes, everyone, please keep those questions coming into the chat. Yes, first comment from Lesa says she had to go back to work one week after giving birth and she didn't have maternity leave at the time and it was a lot. So, thank you for sharing that. And here's a here's an interesting question from Opal. And Opel says,"I started a new job in the fall. Great job. I negotiated flex hours that I will need as kids spring sports begins. How can I tell an older male boss?" And she knows her older male boss is not going to like it. Any tips on how to position that workload as I leave at three, I will get back online at 8. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, the ideas are to think about when is a time during the day when that older male boss is more, you know, has more sugar in his brain, right? The sugar goes down as the day goes on, right? So, you know, don't pick a time that's not a good time for him and when he's going to be tired. Um, so that would be a good thing to do. And then I think also going to the to him and saying, "Hey, I know that me leaving at 3 to do some children, you know, things with children could be a problem at work." And I've been thinking through this and those are some things I was thinking that I could do to try to mitigate that um and try to address it. And um you know, maybe I can check email in the evening for sure so that things aren't sitting from 2:30 until the next day or you know, the communication in the workplace, that sort of thing. Every workplace is different, but um but let let me bring that to you. Um sometimes a little uh older guys talking about their grandkids or something and what they appreciate about them, you know, there's a little empathy that can build there, too. So, I think those would be things I would be trying to do. Well, thank you. Well, here's a fun question from Flora. From Flora. She said, "Real problem. A younger staffer is taking advantage of our flex policies. She probably doesn't realize that old ladies see her Instagram. Any tips on how to tell her that unlimited PTO is not for eyelash extensions? Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, humans are humans, right? We're all humans. So, not everybody likes their work, you know, and feels that sense of responsibility for it. Um, so I mean, I think if you saw someone on Insta, I think it's probably worthwhile to tell them, you know, so, and just to have a little bit of a, hey, I saw on Insta you were getting your eyelashes done, so um, I'm just looking out for you. You know, the bosses might see that sometime, too. And you know, I'd hate for you, you know, in many places that's something you can get fired for. So, Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Thank you. Yeah. I think we have time for maybe one more question before we go to our next presentation. And this one says, "What is a first what is a first step in achieving balance? I'm in sales and I'm always selling even in carpool line." Yeah, you know, I really like um I I do like these fiveinut quiet spots in my life for getting a little bit of balance. And it five minutes actually feels like a really long time sometimes to just sit and do nothing. But it's amazing to me when I don't do that how much it affects me. Um, and so saying, "Okay, five minutes once or twice a day is not going to change my, you know, my sales at the end of the week, right? That's not going to make a difference." And knowing that if I give myself enough space, I actually will be more effective after I take that five minute or even maybe a half hour walk at lunch or something. Um, just so that I can have a sense of things. You can also try to train other people how to treat you a little bit too, right? Like, hey, I take a half an hour for lunch and I'm not going to answer the phone from 12:00 to 12:30, but I will love to talk to you from 12:30 on. Yeah. So, it's a thought. That's wonderful. Thank you. So, as we um wrap and move to our next presentation from Stephanie, any final words of wisdom for our viewers today? Oh, no. I just hope you were able to find that work life balance. I know it's a lifetime thing for me too. So, well, thank you so much for your time and your fantastic presentation today. Thanks.