Rhona Sweeting says that when she tells people she doesn\u2019t want children, she often gets the kind of reaction someone might have expected when coming out as gay years ago. In an interview with the BBC, she said, \u201cThere’s the same sense of shock\u2014perhaps that’s too strong a word. But it’s a lifestyle people don’t expect and it may challenge their world view.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rhona is 31, and she\u2019s part of a growing group of women who are choosing not to start families. And though it\u2019s only recently that women started to actually have the choice, it\u2019s one that\u2019s growing in popularity. Studies show<\/a> that at midlife (between ages 41 and 55), nearly half of all women with careers in the United States don\u2019t have children.<\/p>\n Grace Lee, a technical recruiter at RingCentral, doesn\u2019t have children yet, but her new-normal situation of working from home has allowed her to foster over a dozen kittens\u2014at times she has had to bottle-feed them every two hours\u2014and to devote more thought to plans to start a family. \u201cMy work as a recruiter hasn\u2019t been negatively impacted by working from home, so I\u2019ve started having conversations about long-term remote work with my manager,\u201d she explains. \u201cWith the newfound flexibility of working from home, the thought of starting a family is taking shape.\u201d<\/p>\n Lee is a woman whose career happens to be thriving amid these strange times. For many women, of course, the reality is quite different. In early 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit, women were hit hardest. Indeed, women accounted for 60 percent of the jobs lost in March<\/a>.<\/p>\n Before the pandemic, as of December 2019, women actually constituted the majority of the workforce<\/a> for the first time since 2010. But by April, their rate of participation in the labor force had dropped more than that of men\u2014below 55 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n And when we look at the demographics involving working women, more and more of them are single. In fact, Morgan Stanley Research predicts that, by 2030, single women will make up an estimated 45 percent of all prime-working-age women<\/a> (25 to 44)\u2014the highest that number has been in history. We can\u2019t ignore that workingwomen\u2014and single workingwomen, at that\u2014are on track to become the majority of the workforce.<\/p>\n Whether a woman is partnered up or not, there\u2019s another choice she now has: whether or not to become a mother.<\/p>\n We tend to equate \u201cworkingwomen\u201d with \u201cworking moms.\u201d Especially when it comes to women in remote work, the discussion centers on being a mother who works from home.<\/p>\n \u201cI get it,\u201d Deb Tennen writes in an article on FastCompany<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m a woman and a mom. When I think about the best parts of working from home as a woman, a lot of what comes to mind is mom stuff.\u201d And Tennen is right: Much of the content about, support for, and coverage of working from home\u2014especially in the pandemic\u2014focuses on working moms.<\/p>\n This trend isn\u2019t for naught\u2014there\u2019s a lot to be said about mothers who work from home, good and bad. Plying her trade from a desk off the kitchen might allow a mom to remain closer to childcare duties, but it can also increase the burden she already carries in the home. A March 2020 Gallup poll<\/a> found that a majority of working women who have working husbands still handle most domestic duties like laundry, cooking and cleaning the house.<\/p>\n To add to the already stressful situation of juggling work and motherhood, working mothers have been hit hardest by the new circumstances many were thrust into by the pandemic. Single mothers, in particular, have lost jobs at a higher rate than other families with children<\/a>, and we\u2019ve seen the tagline \u201cyou can\u2019t have both\u201d go viral. In a recent New York Times article<\/a> aptly titled In the Covid-19 Economy, You Can Have a Kid or a Job. You Can\u2019t Have Both.<\/i> <\/i>author <\/i>Deb Perelman recalls a line she often hears uddered to working mothers during the pandemic — \u201c\u2018You shouldn\u2019t have had kids if you can\u2019t take care of them,\u201d\u2019 is comically troll-like, but has come up so often, one might wonder if you\u2019re supposed to educate your children at night.\u201d<\/p>\n Many are arguing that being a parent and working from home is impossible\u2014and recognizing that the burden of working from home has fallen more heavily on working mothers (see, for example, this article in Rolling Stone<\/i><\/a>).<\/p>\n Still, the fact of the matter is that not all women working from home are mothers, and there are many reasons women choose to work from home other than parenting.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Historically, women have been discriminated against for not having families. Monica Torres recalls<\/a> that \u201cEarly in my career, I had a male manager who casually told us during an all-hands meeting that one reason we would not be getting raises or paid time off was because we did not have children to support.\u201d A bit shocking, right? How about the notion of employees who are also parents receive childcare stipends, more time off, or other benefits that non-parent employees don\u2019t receive? This article cites a recent example at Facebook where at a recent company-wide meeting, Facebook employees repeatedly argued that work policies created in response to Covid-19 \u201chave primarily benefited parents.\u201d<\/p>\n Bella DePaulo, an expert and the author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After<\/i><\/a>, works to debunk the common misconception that<\/a> \u201cif you don\u2019t have children to support,\u201d you don\u2019t need to have a life outside of work. \u201cThat\u2019s a common stereotype that gets attached to single people,\u201d DePaulo says.<\/p>\n There are many stereotypes associated with being single or choosing not to have children that affect the treatment of women at work\u2014whether they are working from home or not. \u201cSingle people without kids get saddled with the stereotype that because they don\u2019t have a spouse or kids, they \u2018don\u2019t have anyone\u2019 and they don\u2019t have a life,\u201d DePaulo explains. \u201cOf course, that is totally untrue. Single people have people who matter to them, and commitments and interests and passions that matter to them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll that should be irrelevant anyway\u2014the workplace should be about work. Everything should even out\u2014how often you get to leave early, come in on the holidays, get your choice of vacation times, etc.\u2014such that over time, every worker is treated the same, and marital status or parental status do not matter at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, these stereotypes lead to women being treated poorly at work. In a poll of more than 500 women working full time, a significant number observed greater flexibility given to parents. And of those, over 25 percent said that \u201cwomen with children were more likely to be given flexibility in terms of things like working hours.\u201d<\/p>\n Now that many more women are working out of the house, additional flexibility is a must for mothers. But that doesn\u2019t mean that workingwomen who are not moms<\/i> shouldn\u2019t also<\/i> be given flexibility to focus on other areas of their lives.<\/p>\n Working from home provides many benefits to women, regardless of whether they are mothers, like time to prioritize their health and well-being, a more comfortable physical environment, and the space and time to invest in hobbies.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s all wine and roses. The reality is, it\u2019s important to support all women who are working from home, whether they\u2019re mothers or not.<\/p>\n Melanie King, the PR director at Lendio, has focused much of her energy on supporting colleagues who might feel isolated or live alone. \u201cMany of my coworkers have struggled with social isolation since working from home, so I\u2019ve made a point to have virtual lunches with them and keep up a cadence of informal connection,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Sarah Fricke, a senior manager of global sales enablement, suffered a miscarriage at the start of the pandemic. \u201cIt’s amazing how many people share a similar story to mine, but how little we actually talk about it,\u201d Fricke says. \u201cI\u2019m finally comfortable sharing with my teammates and realize how important it is to support each other\u2014nobody knows what others are experiencing.\u201d Sharing her own experience with colleagues has helped her feel more supported at work and in her adoption of a new puppy, Walter.<\/p>\n There are women who don\u2019t have families, women who are trying to start families, and then there are women who opt to pursue hobbies, alternate lifestyles, or grind it out on a side outside hustle, and they too deserve the same amount of support and benefits from their colleagues and place of employment. Flexibility matters to all of these women, regardless of their choices.<\/p>\n Everyone deserves the same treatment, support, benefits, and flexibility, no matter their situation. It falls on managers and leadership to recognize this, and to place equal weight on the things happening in single or childless employees\u2019 lives (see this HuffPost<\/i> <\/a>piece).<\/p>\n Briana Lassig, a senior product marketing manager at RingCentral, is one of several members of her team who don\u2019t have children yet but who are planning weddings. \u201cWe touch base about our wedding plans every so often\u2014I\u2019m curious what others are going through and how they\u2019re adjusting their plans,\u201d she says. \u201cExpressing interest in what\u2019s going on in others\u2019 lives\u2014and not centering that conversation around kids and homeschooling all the time\u2014is important to keeping our team connected and everyone feeling like they\u2019re on equal footing.\u201d<\/p>\n Especially since the initial transition to working from home, the emphasis has been on children\u2014they are often seen popping into video conferences or video happy hours (which is greeted with far less of a stigma than it previously was). But the idea that someone might be working on their craft hobby or planning a wedding is a little less obvious, unless it\u2019s brought up or asked about.<\/p>\n Obvious or not, we\u2019re seeing women largely thrive while working from home\u2014and this despite the added anxieties of the present moment. Mothers and non-mothers alike are finding they have more time outside of work when they work from home. For mothers, a lot of that time is given over to childcare and family duties, but the way Melissa Regan sees it, it\u2019s like having electives at school. \u201cWe have the core classes\u2014work and responsibilities\u2014but all of a sudden, we have the choice of taking some electives,\u201d says Regan Manager, Manager of Global Sales Enablement & Onboarding for RingCentral. \u201cAre you going to choose to spend more time with your family? Are you going to choose art? Are you going to choose working out? We now have a choice of how to spend the time we\u2019ve gained by working from home.\u201d The idea that everyone has electives, including women who don\u2019t yet have or have chosen not to have families, is crucial to setting everyone up for success.<\/p>\n Looking forward, the likelihood is that when circumstances afford people the option to go back to the office, women who are not mothers will likely be expected to return to work at a higher rate than those who are single or empty nesters. For leaders, it\u2019s more important than ever to consider that working from home might be a net positive for many women and to give them the choice of whether to return to the office\u2014regardless of how many dependents they have.<\/p>\n Read more on how women are thriving in their at-home work environments:<\/p>\n Chapter 7: The myth of exceptionalism\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Chapter 8: The pandemic is making it easier for the “first” woman <\/a><\/p>\nWorking woman doesn\u2019t mean working mom<\/h2>\n
The stereotypes of not choosing motherhood<\/h2>\n
Supporting women\u2014all women\u2014working from home<\/h2>\n
Supporting women, no matter their decision to parent<\/h2>\n
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