Mother’s Day will be celebrated Sunday, May 11, 2025.  This holiday was founded by Anna Jarvis. Jarvis lived in Philadelphia while trying to get the holiday recognized, and if you are in the Philadelphia area, you can actually see the mother’s day historical marker in her honor.  Jarvis was inspired by her own mother’s work to get the contributions of mothers to society recognized.   

In this newsletter, I want to talk about the contributions of mothers in the business world, and the struggles that they face.  Many struggles are common to women in general, whether they have children or not, which was explained to me by my own father when I was studying to become an accountant.  We were in the car together, and he turned to me and asked, “Amy, do you drink coffee?”

“Yes,” I answered, confused.

“From now on, drink it black.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he said, “in the business world, you will often be the only woman in the room.  If they start talking about coffee, don’t get up and get it for them.  Turn to the person next to you and say ‘I’ll have a black, thank you very much’.” With this advice, he taught me to have a voice and to stand my ground in the business world.  Women need a seat at the table, but they have to get invited to the meeting first.

But mothers in business face additional challenges as well, especially when it comes to work-life balance and childcare.  To be frank, I don’t know if there can be a balance between work and your children.  I was a working mother, and I tried to make it a point to work in a way that prioritized my children.  When my children were in kindergarten, I would take one morning a month off of work to help in their classroom.  They were in a half-day kindergarten so I would spend that morning and lunch with them, then drop them off in their after-school childcare, and return to work.  I also made sure to be there for their activities and attend as many of my son’s baseball games as I could.

So many people don’t have that flexibility.  What happens if you are a teacher, who has to write up and submit all of your lesson plans for a substitute teacher before taking a day off?  What if you are a doctor or a nurse, someone whose job is truly critical for saving lives?  Many people just can’t take a day off whenever they need to spend with their children.

Daycare is also an issue, which is so expensive these days.  If you want to put your child in daycare, you have to start looking months in advance and you may still not be able to find anything.  My daughter was looking for daycare, and found a daycare whose hours were 8-5.  At first glance that feels reasonable – those are the hours many people are working – but if you think about it, they would be inaccessible for many parents.  If you work a 9 to 5, you will have to leave work early every day to pick up your child before the daycare closes.  What happens if you have an hour commute to work?

Mothers in the workforce need more support and protection on a wider scale, but until that happens I am trying to support and protect the parents in my business.  I allow my team members the flexibility that comes from working for home.  Whether my employees are hourly or salaried, they have proven that they will put in the work and complete their tasks efficiently, even on a nontraditional schedule.  My employees can also request the time off to see their kids shows and recitals.  I let my team members know they need to take that time out.  You blink, and your children grow up.  We are working to live, not living to work.