Financial Feminist - 265. How to Make a Career Pause Work for You — Not Against You (with Neha Ruch)

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

What if pressing pause on your career was actually the smartest, most strategic move you could make? In today’s episode, I’m joined by Neha Ruch, author of The Power Pause, to challenge the myths we’ve all been fed about stay-at-home motherhood, caregiving, and career pauses. We dig into why our culture undervalues care work, how identity gets tangled up in motherhood, and what it actually looks like to take a pause. Whether you’re considering stepping back from work to raise kids, support aging parents, or simply regroup, Neha shares smart ways to protect your finances, keep your skills sharp, and eventually re-enter the workforce on your terms. Neha’s links:Website: https://www.thepowerpause.com/  Visit ⁠https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod⁠ to stay up to date and find any resources mentioned on our show! 00:00 Intro & Identity and Career Breaks 01:06 Myths & Stereotypes of Stay-at-Home Motherhood 04:13 The Financial Realities of Motherhood 08:21 Identity Shifts & The Power Pause Concept 12:27 Making Career Pauses Temporary, Not Permanent 14:53 Building Skills & Staying Connected During a Pause 21:56 Validation & Measuring Success in Caregiving 28:11 Positioning a Career Pause on Your Resume 31:50 Financial Power Dynamics in Relationships 40:09 Elder Care vs. Child Care Pauses 47:04 Reentering the Workforce: Pitfalls & Strategies 49:54 What Does a Successful Power Pause Look Like? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if a career break wasn't a step back, but rather a power move, especially if you're a parent? Today, we're chatting with Neha Rush. She shares how women can keep their skills sharp, maintain financial dignity, and reenter the workforce with confidence. If you've ever wrestled with the idea of an identity shift of caregiving, questioned how to protect yourself financially during a career pause, or wondered how to position that experience on a resume, this episode is for you. And yes, if you're watching on YouTube, and you should be watching on YouTube, because the videos are great. plant needs a drink, I just gave it to her. Let's get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. If you love financial feminist and you're listening, so I hope you do, we've got something to take your learning even deeper from the podcast, especially if you've ever felt like personal finance is a

confusing maze. My book, Financial Feminist, Overcome the Patriarchy's bullshit to Master Your Money and Build a Life you love, is out now. It is a New York Times bestseller that has sold nearly 300,000 copies, and it is not just another financial guide. It's everything you need to get better with money step by step, but through the signature feminist lens that you know and love here at Her First 100K. There is so much in the book that we've never discussed on the podcast. There are homework assignments. There are deep dive lessons, and there's even more information that you've never heard it here on the show. You can get a copy of Financial Feminist wherever you get your books. And if you're listening on Spotify right now and are a premium member, you can get

the audiobook read by me for free. You can get signed copies and learn where it's sold at Her First 100K.com slash FFPod. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. So whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. From their drag and drop templates to their email campaign tools to the ability to accept payments, you can do all of this right in Squarespace. Head on over to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to Squarespace.com slash ffod

to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. You've worked with hundreds of mothers. What's the biggest myth you wish we could blow up about women who take a break from their careers? That their brains go and die, that they're in some way giving up. Yeah. When we talk about the kind of societal or even the personal feeling of that, Where is that stemming from, that feeling of, oh, my brain's just going to rot for the period of time that I'm taking care of my children? Well, we have this very shut-in image of the idea of stay-at-home motherhood, right?

Even that framing that language implies shut in one place, stagnant, not moving forward. And if you date back, let's call it like the 1970s, right? we saw this incredible wave of feminism that did so much to bolster our careers and move us into the workforce and say we were capable. But the undue side effect was that anyone doing care work in the home was mislabeled as like a traditionalist defending tradition. And left behind, by the way, like date back to 2023, we surveyed 1,000 members of the general population, 1,200 out-home parents, if you ask anyone what they think of as a stay-at-home mom, they will still say June Cleaver, which is like a remnant from the 1950s show Leave It to Beaver. If you ask them who they think of as a working mother, they will say Cheryl Sandberg, Michelle Obama and Beyonce. It's just this like very extreme power chasm around ambition and success and it doesn't represent the reality of most of the women in between. Yeah, talk to me a little bit about that stereotype. of what we think a stay-at-home mom looks like

or what her experience is versus what the reality is actually. Well, I think first, we think it's a forever thing, right? We think of a stay-at-home mother as, I mean, the caricature is someone in complete servitude to her family and in that role for entirety and oftentimes defending tradition, apron-clad. And then, by the way, the only memes who have replaced it with is like Desperate Housewives, the Pinterest mom, the soccer mom. And none of it expresses the reality that the data shows, which is one in three women who are working out of the home are going to pause their careers in the next two years. One and two are going to downshift their careers. And 90% of the women on pause aim to return to the workforce. Right. So it's much more ever evolving and fluid. And I think a lot of it is that we just didn't update the dialogue. to now where women are having kids later than their 1970s counterpart.

So they're coming in with a foundational work and education experience. They have much more hands-on partners. If they're in a heterosexual two-partner home, the dad is spending three times the amount of time as any generation prior. And they have access to all these digital tools and technologies and freelance and creation. And so there's a lot more gray area between those. those black and white ideas of stay-at-home and working. Well, this traditional portrait of a stay-at-home mom is largely rooted in fiction,

and you mentioned that in your book. But now we've also traded it for something else, or we have this other archetype that is existing, which is the working mom who does it all, right? The you can have it all and then some. How is this also not helpful for women? Right. I think it's that we don't show the vast in between

so we don't have enough options on the table. that's what we want right this work of the power pause is never to say that pausing is the right choice or the only choice it's to say that if you need or want by the way one in three women feel forced because of the cost of child care right right 60% would cite a financial consideration if you need or want to pause that you are recognized as having made a bold nuanced decision and you're not written off with any tropes and you're recognized for the reality and dignity of what that day-to-day included. But on the other side, we also want to demystify the like Diane Keaton from Baby Boom in a power suit with a baby dangling off and show, wait a second, there's also women

who have negotiated a two-day work week as a radiologist for her season, or they have passed on management duty for this year because they just need a bit more headspace at home to manage through their teenager who's going through a new mental health diagnosis, right? We just want to be able to show all the aspects that are making work work in a myriad of different ways. And that way it becomes more accessible to say, yes, I'm going to have a long, sustainable career, and it's going to look different in different years. You mentioned the financial cost, and of course, we can't have this episode without talking about that.

We found a survey that said 13% of women felt it was viable to return to full-time work after having kids, even though 98% wanted to. So we have a gap from 13% who think it's viable, which means almost nobody thinks it's viable, but 98% want to. So what does that tell us about how work is or is not set up for motherhood? Well, I think a lot of it comes down to paid family leave, right? The saddest messages I get are the ones of women who are two weeks postpartum trying to make a really big decision. By the way, without having had this sleep.

or the support to make a really informed decision about care. So when you start to deconstruct, well, how are they creating an infrastructure around themselves to return to work with confidence? Well, they haven't had the time to heal, let alone sleep, let alone come up with a very complicated structure that they're about to hand off their child to, right? So there's a lot around that. And then there's the cost piece. And we commissioned that same survey I mentioned and 60% cited financial considerations. But the reality is it's often much more complicated, right? That a 84% site, like a very valid want to spend time with their kids, which like, yeah, they're human.

They want a little bit more time than six weeks. And we're obviously, you know, the lowest common denominator in terms of family leave. I think that, you know, the other pieces of it are cost of child care. Other pieces of it are flexible and remote work. Like you see headlines like last weeks or from the Washington Post about women, seating from the workforce again, well, of course they are. If there's mandates to return to five days a week in office, right? We saw gains because we were putting more options on the table. One of the things I think about a lot in even my own personal decision about whether I want to be

a parent or not is the identity piece. I think for men, they get to be dads along with all of the other things they are. And society, as soon as you become a mom, that's your entire identity. And I think especially with stay-at-home moms or what Tiffany Dufu, who's a previous guest on the show called non-compensated working moms, what that ends up doing is like, you're not only a mom, but you're that archetype, right, of the woman who's staying home. So how does the identity piece influence a woman's decision on whether or not she stays at home to care give. I think identity in our culture is so tied to what we do for a living. Right.

What do you do has come to stand in for, well, who are you? And when you part with your paid title for a chapter, you suddenly have to reconcile, well, how do I answer that question at a cocktail party? and how does that make me feel about my worth in this room and how people are going to perceive me because those like five pithy words that you've gotten used to saying have come to represent like your creativity, your competence, your determination, and we don't have an adequate or commensurate dignity for mother, right? What I can coach women to say and advise women to say is this is your chapter.

where you might get to create an identity bigger than work because all of that experience did not disappear, right? If I'm a 15-year brand marketer, that doesn't go away. I'm that now plus a little bit extra, right? Because now in this next chapter, I'm going to say, right now I get to be with my kids. I'm exploring what comes next. And I get to add to that the parts of my identity that I want to bring with me. And actually, it can be a really interesting moment of saying, these are the experiences and accomplishments that as I take stock of, I want to carry on. And they're now a foundation that I get to build a whole portfolio of non-traditional experience and perspective and skill. Yeah. I mean, your approach is called a power pause. How is that different from simply quitting or stepping away

from work? And why does that framing matter? Well, I think, and I know you agree, that language matters. right? The way we talk about ourselves matters, the way we tell our story to the world to future employers, our partners matters. And for too long, we've said, oh, they're opting out, they're dropping out, they're leaning out. And it's come to seem antithetical to ambition and success and growth. And I felt very strongly that as an ambitious woman, when I was saying, wait a second. I need to be for a lot of reasons. It was cost of childcare. It was my husband's job at the time. It was that I genuinely just wanted that time for myself. I wanted language that spoke to, I am for chapter, shifting my time and energy and focus to something else of priority.

For me, it was family life. For other people, it could be health or elder care. And in doing so, not only am I making that as a strategic shift, but I'm actually going to actively think of it as a time where I'm growing alongside my family, that I'm going to actively think about ways I'm going to expand my interests, my skills, my network, so that when and if I'm ready to return, I'm actually coming back with that sense of enrichment. Well, and speaking of the language, I think I just wrote down, you know, you keep saying for a chapter or for a time. I think about our audience or I think about anybody I talk to in our community, any decision to our brains feels like a forever decision, right? I talk to people who want to be business

owners and they go, oh my gosh, but what if it doesn't work out? And so they like work themselves into a tizzy just like stressing about that feeling of like, this is for forever. But you're making a really important distinction, which is this might not be for, forever. This might just be for a chapter. Can we talk more about why the like time frame is so important as opposed to making a decision where you feel like this will be my identity, this will be my life for until I die? Because that's so much pressure. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's just sounds intimidating listening to or describe it that way. The reality is that we are in a very specific moment in certain circumstances that may challenge our sense of time and energy, right?

Yeah. If you have young kids and limited access to quality child care, that's going to change when your children age into school. If your children are going through a particular diagnosis at age nine because of neurodivergence, I'm just thinking about some of the stories that have come up for me in doing this interview. Yeah. you're going to navigate that period and there will be unlocks of time as you move forward, right?

And by the way, an expansion of new interests that might lead you in new directions. And I think trusting that process and also just giving yourself permission to recalibrate and reexamine. I say to everyone, if you don't know what to do, take it in three-month increments, six-month increments, one-year increments. and it allows you to make the best decision for right now without feeling trapped by the decision in a year from now. Yeah. I'm liking it to running a business

because that is the thing that I know. But I think so many people get caught up in making the wrong decision. And I'm like, sometimes you only know that's the wrong decision for you after you've made this decision and you experience life in that decision. And you go, actually, this isn't working.

And then you can change your mind. Well, clarity. I heard Megan Hellerer say this. who is a clarity coach. And she said, clarity comes through motion. You have to move yourself forward. It doesn't come from all the pros and cons list.

I can give you all the journaling prompts in the world. But in the end, you have to experience it. Yeah. This independent podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. You know me. I've used in love Squarespace for a very long time. And one of my favorite things about Squarespace is it makes It's so easy to build a website.

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So again, saving you money, you don't have to use yet another email campaign tool. All of it's happening inside Squarespace. Head on over to Squarespace.com slash FFPod. And when you're ready to launch your brand new website, use code FFPod to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So when we're talking about building those skills, what are some tactical ways to keep your financial skills, your network, or your resume warm during this power pause? I think the understanding first that this is a moment in time and on the other side of it,

you are going to want to know that you have grown in state connected. When we say we're going to take a beat for our family life, or our elder care, whatever that may be, that becomes tunnel vision, our sole metric of success. But what happens then is very quickly, you'll start feeling this nudge of, oh, I'm stuck, like I'm not moving forward. And the reason why is because if you've been in a traditional career for a decade, you've gotten used to benchmarks for how you're moving forward, right? Promotions, salary bumps.

And in the absence of that, if we start saying, well, I guess our new metric of success is like, how well our kids behaved. The kids don't die today. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to feel real listless, real soon. And so, you know, I encourage women to say, yes, you might not be like drowning in excess time when you have two young kids. However, you can start thinking for the first time without the sort of confines of what your job told you success look like, you can start thinking, well, what does like authentic success look like for me when no one's telling me what it is. And there's a number of different ways to do this, but I always encourage women, write your ideal day in five years, who you're spending time with, what you're spending time on. How do you feel in your relationships? How do you feel in your mind? How do you feel in your body? What does your home environment feel like? Not because that's going to be who you're going to be tomorrow, but because it reveals to you your truest version of success, right? And then from there, you can look at personal goals, professional goals, and family goals. And

You know, again, I had two kids. And at the time, no paid help. And when I did this exercise, I was like, well, I don't know how I'm going to write a book and do a, well, you can start to break it into really measurable small ways, right? So if my personal goal in that five-year exercise was, I want to be a calm or human, well, my metric that worked for me that year was I'm going to listen to one podcast a week on women in communication and women in anger. And, that's going to help me evolve my sense of my own awareness of my emotions, right? And that was it. On a professional level, I'd always wanted to write. And I'd never gotten to in like no job was hitting me right back then. So I thought, well, this is my time. I'm going to do three blog posts a week. That's it during naps and night times. And on a family goal, it was so small. I just wanted like a sillier household. I wanted my kids to look back and be like, we had a silly I was old and it was I'm going to have one dance party every single week. That's like that was success. And it's not to say that they like need to be that small or they need to be much more grand. It's to say that I was moving through that day to day with some degree of intention that I could look back and be like I moved myself forward. And then obviously as more time became available to me, my kids aged into school, I could build on all of that and expand those metrics. I think it's so important what you just said, because whether you are a parent or not,

life gets away from you, time gets away from you. And it's so easy to look back over your week, the month, the year, and go, what happened? Like, time just went by. And I think we often get to the end of, yeah, again, it's the month or the year and go, what did I accomplish or what do I have to show for this year? And yes, those can be like very specific accomplishments. But they can also just be, yeah, we were civil. And we have some great times because we made intentional time to dance around the house for five minutes a week.

That's incredible. Like those are the memories you're going to have. Those are the moments where you're going to go, yes, I am living all of the dreams I had or I am living in my authentic purpose of being somebody who shows up for the people I love most. And I think taking those really small steps of trying to build the life or the person you want to be in five years, it doesn't have to be, I'm saving a million dollars by tomorrow. I am the best mother that you've ever seen in the world, you know, in this week, it's small steps that you're taking over time. And then it becomes a filter of how you structure your day-to-day. And I think that for me, and I think for the women in our community, if you have a clear benchmark on, I want to move myself forward during this year in a networking.

capacity. I want to build community. We've been fed this idea that if you're a quote unquote stay at home mom, I have to be a super mom. And that means I have to build, you know, I have to do arch and crafts in the morning. And then I have to make lunch in the afternoon. And then I've done, well, maybe I can say like the perfect meals aren't actually not important to me. I'm going to actively say that's less important so that I can use that lunchtime to meet other friends in our community. Right. I'm going to get 15 hours of a babysitter or 10 hours of a babysitter. because I do actively want to nurture my network outside of the home. And maybe my professional goal for right now is just to have one meeting a month with someone

from a different industry so I can just explore. Because that was the gift of my power pause was this idea that suddenly the track that I thought I was on was more open. It was like a playing field. And I got to explore and test and learn a little bit. I'd already check the ego at the door because I was suddenly a stay-at-home mom. So, like, might as well start that little blog. And, you know, I think allowing ourselves to have a little fun with it is exciting. I know I keep comparing this to running a business, but it's the only

I am not a parent. That's your baby. That's the thing that I keep thinking of. Yeah, it is my baby in many ways. But one of the things that's been so difficult as a CEO is nobody says out of boy. Like, I don't have a boss, right? I don't have a boss to be like, hey, that was a really good social media post or hey, this converted really well. I have to like get that internally. And I think that that is probably if I were to relate my experience, one of the most difficult things about being a parent and specifically a mom is you don't have a boss or somebody above you or even co-workers to say, hey, you made it to school pick up on time even though it was really hard. Nice job. How do we add a boy ourselves? Like how do we find validation?

in this work that society devalues, that often we devalue ourselves because of all of the narratives. Like, how do we keep validating the work that we're doing in a society that does not validate it at all? Oh, that's good. I think there's, you know, there's this one exercise that keeps coming up for me as you're speaking. I did it during my pause and I still do it now. Open an iPhone note or Google Doc. And write, like, every time you feel proud of yourself. don't let that moment go by, right? Or even when your interests feel sparked, right? Or you had a really deep conversation or you listened to something that made you like linger a little bit. Not because all those dots are going to immediately make sense, but because when you look back at the end of

six months or a year, you can start to extract themes. So as a parent or a woman in a career shift or career transition, you might glean from it, wow, like I'm really interested in family policy or I'm really good at project management. I didn't even realize that about myself. Like, who knew I cultivated that skill? Or, wow, like, I have really made an impact in our community. I didn't realize how many parents or community members I was interacting with, whether I was, like, you know, dealing with, like, getting better parking in front of our apartment building or, you know, managing a big set, whatever that is, you're suddenly triangulating for yourself, this, like, pipe pile of, I'm really good at a lot of things that went unnoticed in the

background of the ordinary day that is, like, actually quite extraordinary. And I think in parenthood, like being a founder, a lot of it is minutia. And it can get lost in that, like the day-to-day can get lost in that until you step out and take notice. a little by little of the ways in which you're developing and the ways you're impacting. Because at some point, for the woman who is ready to return, she needs to be able to package that all up, right? And you know, you write career pause for family life or career sabbatical for family life. Well, once you have those bullets, then you just think, wait a second, that time that I was like on the family education forum for school, I implemented like a highly publicized. community engagement program.

That's what I actually did. And suddenly that becomes much more confidence boosting to move yourself forward into the next space. You are mentioning something I wanted to talk about anyway, so I think this is the perfect time.

How do I position a power pause on my resume? How do I position a power pause in an interview? I know as somebody who now hires people, I'm seeing more and more of this, which I fucking love, of women who are, like, saying, oh, for these four years, I, you know, managed my household.

I got everybody to school pickup once. Like, it was, it's so great to see that. So how do we position that in an authentic but also effective way if we do choose to go back to the workforce? I think a big part of it is owning it with clarity. We interviewed a number of women who were navigating the stage and oftentimes we're recruiters will say it's much better to call out why you took that career break and say it was for family life it was for an international relocation it was for elder care so that the question marks are taken care of yeah and so my answer to people will often say it doesn't make sense to write career pause on my resume and i'll say yes and yes and you want to give careful time to all of the sub bullets that go under there because oftentimes when you're parsing through that iPhone note or your Google Doc, there are applicable pieces.

I always use this example of a woman down in North Carolina. She had her Google Doc. And when she was looking back, she saw this time that she had reorganized the bus route for her kids pickup because they just weren't getting picked up on time. And when she was looking back, it did two things. One, it made her think, wow, I'm actually really interested in project management. I'm going to start gearing my search that way. I'm going to take an online certification. and double down on that direction. But it also offered her a really compelling bullet. She wrote, instead of like, reorganized my kids bus route,

she wrote, implemented highly technical infrastructure change to local organization. And that's what happens. That's like the actual, on-inspiring work of parenthood. But oftentimes, you need to take that time to reflect on the advocacy, the research, the planning, the family operations, that were happening in that day to day. The part two, though, is give yourself at least a year on transitioning that and think about ways in which to brush up, whether that be online certifications,

whether that be advising or helping a friend on their business, use small opportunities in the school or whatever environment is local to you to just build up those relevant supplements. And ideally, and a lot of the work of the book is sort of charting, out ways you're sort of doing that over the course. So the years that you've been on pause, but if you are just listening to this and you're just thinking, well, I want to return, give yourself that year to start to build that story back up. I think this is one of the ways AI could actually be really useful is you plug in everything you did and AI can spit out at

you the like official resume statement because I think it's often hard of like, how do I use corporate jargon to explain what I did? So I think that can be really, really helpful. I would just add one thing on career portfolios. I want you to think of it as a career portfolio. That term was not introduced by me. It was a woman named April Rainey who wrote the book Flux. She's an operational, organizational expert. And she basically said, we are moving towards a workplace that understands jungle gyms versus ladders. Right. And when you're interviewing, look for the employers like you, Tori, who would value that, who would value that you might. You might be able that you might have taken a deviation and developed more experience that layers onto that portfolio and actually makes you a whole, wise contributor. Yeah. Okay, I have to get into something that does not get talked about enough, especially in like the mom influencer post we see online. Okay, so when one partner steps back from earning income to raise kids, then the financial power in the relationship shifts. that can bring up everything from guilt to resentment to just this straight up

imbalance of power and ownership over money and finances. So how do we start to shift those power dynamics when one partner is holding the financial reins? We talked a lot about reframing ambition. Yeah. I think tied very closely to that is reframing our idea of financial dignity. Right. I think we in grossly undervaluing care in this country, right? We've dumped it down to diapers and laundry. Meanwhile, by the way, $231.1 million a year spent on parenting books, 141.1 on parenting apps because everyone is trying to do this immense work of raising this next generation. And yet we don't have a line in the GDP for the actual work that has to go into taking care. of these children.

This is a delicate and nuanced conversation. I want to start by saying, I think, stay-at-home motherhood. We talked a bit about this in the beginning, but stay-at-home motherhood of the many myths that have surrounded it, we have assumed that it's a luxury. And the reality is that 60% would cite financial considerations in making that choice because it's the best choice for their family at that season and because the cost of shopping. When you realize that, it's not to say working out of the home is a luxury, it's to say that the privilege is to get to choose. And the reason that that's important is because when we say one side, quote unquote, is a luxury, we deem it of less value and we deem it worthy of less support. And I think stay at home mothers or women who step into a career break immediately step into this feeling of, well, it's a luxury that I get to do this. instead of what we offer, which is two parents together are making an informed decision.

And by the way, one in five, stay-at-home parents right now are dads. So, you know, gender aside, two parents, hopefully doing money meetings every year. That was something I was very grateful that my husband had started. He ran a tech company at the time, so he basically copied the P&L and applied it to our life very early. So we had income in, income out. And we sat down in January, every January, and said, well, these are the budgets that align with our values. And when we had a child, it became glaringly obvious what the budget line item would look

like for child care. And by having an explicit dialogue, we could then have a really informed discussion around what are our values for right now. what do we both want? What do we both imagine for our life? And then we could think about, well, how can we move things around, right? Where would we shift from family vacations or dining out to allow us to make this shift? Right. Like, you know, and the point was to say, we together were making a decision that benefited the entire household because I was not going to depend on him for the income, he was also going to depend on me for doing the care

work that let him single task outside of the workforce, outside of the home. Being able to have an explicit conversation that we were an interdependent household, making a strategic choice for right now, allowed me to feel like I am still financially dignified. I still have access to this household income because even if I'm not contributing in pay, I'm contributing. He could not have run to the Bay Area every time a new VC called if there wasn't a security blanket at home. And I was very clear about their contribution. I don't think every couple has that immediate understanding. So if you as a couple are sitting down and the partner on the other side does not have that same immediate understanding of that mindset, slow down. Do not make this decision

until both partners are on the same page, bring in financial planners, bring in a relationship therapist, until you do feel like you're on the same page. Consider a post-nuptial agreement, right? Like, I think we don't talk about pre-nups and post-nups a lot, but we enter contracts all the time in businesses, and that's just a way of making yourself feel safe and protected when whichever partner is stepping into that shift. You know, I think the other piece, and you and I talked about this in the very beginning, allow yourselves a checkpoint to come back and re-examine, right? That way the partner, who's continued to work out of the home, doesn't feel like this enormity

of pressure forever. It's a decision you're going to make for whatever, you know, 18 months, two years. And if it is not financially available to you to take a full pause, consider all of those other options we talked about, right? Think about what you're optimizing for. If it's more time at home, could you consider a part-time more? If it's more headspace, could you consider moving off of certain projects or out of management duties? There's many ways to make room for family life. It doesn't have to be a full pause. I have good friends who, before they got married, I talked to them about their pre-up. We had drinks in a bar in New York and we talked about it.

And one of the things that was so incredible about their pre-up was they decided if she steps back from her career to take care of children, he will compensate her. Like, he will pay out from his salary to make sure that her retirement accounts are still contributed to, that she has money to do the things that she needs to do. And it kind of inspired a post that ended up going viral that I made where I said stay-at-home moms should receive a salary. It got a very spicy comment section, which of course it did. I'm sure. So should stay-at-home moms get a salary? And what would that look like? So the data says, that if they were to get a salary, it would be $184,000 a year. Yep, that's the point I made as well. Yeah. Now, that research is admittedly already dated, so it doesn't include inflation. Yep. It was,

that's from 2021. The challenge with that is that no one's paying that any time soon. So I think the better, more solid, realistic path forward, is that in your household, you come up with a very clear set of parameters that work that both of you feel like you are contributing and that your contributions are seen and respected. And if that's a line item in the money meeting, just to keep it like front and center, that works too. I think if this, this, this conversation is so important, not just because of like, oh, I want to feel financially dignified. It's also we need to feel worthy of support. Because just because you have paused your paid work doesn't mean you don't deserve support. No one would be expected to work 24-7

without breaks. And I would argue now working out of the home much more, the work that I did in the home for those five years on full pause was demanding. It was physically demanding. it was emotionally demanding. It was complicated. It was nuanced. I didn't have as much breathing room. And so it was very important to be in a household, in a dynamic, where my workday was recognized such that then I could say, we together are going to clean at the end of the day because my workday is over, your work days over, like, you know, we're going to split up the rest of the things. And or that when we thought about investing, and I would suggest this anyone, whether they work out of the home or in the home or exist in between, any paid

help, whether that's a cleaning person once a week, whether that's a mother's helper for 15 hours a week, comes out of the joint household income. It's not out of the mom's salary. It's an investment in the whole household dynamic, right? And it empowers everyone to be rested in a whole. But that's a big mindset shift in a culture that has grossly undervalued care. Yeah. I mean, the most common, let's call it, disputing comment to my video was, well, we're a team. And as soon as I start paying her, it no longer becomes a team. And I think it's the same logic that people use for, I should completely combine finances with my partner because if not, then we're not a team. And if anybody's been listening to the show long enough, you know I call so much bullshit on that. Because, You need to be financially protected. Now, I don't think I know anybody who is a non-compensated stay-at-home mom, working mom, who is making $180,000 a year, but, you know, who might, again, make sure that the money that's coming in

is still contributed to her retirement accounts or that, you know, this couple that I mentioned, one of the things that they negotiated is that because she's taking time off the workforce and she knows that she's going to come in and not make as much money, right? her earning potential has shifted, that will be accommodated for and compensated. So I think to your point, there's these small things that you and your partner can determine works for both of you, where, yeah, there's that dignity, but there's also the protection of your money and of the growth of that money, even if, you know, you are not getting compensated for 18 plus years of work.

And one thing on IRA, there is something called a spousal IRA, which is so important to, like, in the laundry list of things that most people don't know, your partner should be contributing to that immediately if one of you has taken at career pause. I think one of the, you know, there were so many examples of how couples prepared for their shift. one of them that was my favorite and she happens to be an accountant so she was well-versed in the topic she had her she started to put for six months her income her paycheck into a separate savings account for herself and it let her build up her savings and it let them trial what it looked like and felt like to live on one income and so you can see how there's no one size fits all. But it is all about having the dialogue around value and making sure you feel safe and protected and that there's adequate amount of planning. Like they, you can see, you know, in their example, they plan for six months ahead of time. It's almost 20 to 26. And if you're

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When you're flying Emirates business class, sipping your favorite cocktail at our onboard lounge, you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly Emirates, fly better. You keep bringing up elder care as well, and I think that is something that, again, our society deeply devalues because it's usually women doing it. are there ways that an elder care pause is different from a maternity or a caregiving for children pause? Is it more socially accepted? Like, how does that work in reality? It's interesting because people have said that the joy of taking care of aging is much less than the joy of taking care of babies, right?

Which makes total sense. It's literally life versus death. Right. So there's that piece of transaction. But I think sometimes when we think that work is done out of love and joy, we think it has less value. So by that I mean we think of it as not work. It's just something we do when we take care of kids, right?

But it is work. Because it's not as like torturous. Is that the idea of like caring for your early parents as you're watching them die? Yes, caring for, is you're struggling enough, right? Yeah, yeah, you've earned it. And so there's a little bit of like you are doing really hard work by doing that. And that is like, whereas like kids is just associated with like maternal, like because we do it out of love. It's a baked in requirement.

It's a baked in requirement. And I think that that's, it's an, it's a. tricky distinction because, you know, one is not harder than the other. One is not, and one is not less time-intensive than the other. One has historically gotten a little bit more scaffolding in the workplace than the other. I think elder care, but it's the same tension, right, which is that I have shifting, I have to make a complicated choice in my work dynamic to make room for other priorities. But it is interesting you bring that up because I've been noticing this trend of older gentlemen, like, you know, in their 50s, 50s or so saying, like, I'm taking a career

sabbatical. And everyone is so impressed by this career sabbatical. Oh, yes, of course. And yes, we take what we, but we have been taking career sabbaticals for other priorities too. They'll talk about health. They'll talk about exploration. They'll talk about travel. And it, well, It seems sexy when men do it. It's like, oh, it's exciting because it never happens. And like, good for you taking time, right? Or good for you taking care of children or your ailing parents. But then it's just a requirement for women. I read this post the other day from a classmate from a different life. And it was this long thing about how, you know, and stepping away from work, it's really opened his perspective, which really allowed him to experience people in a different way. his efficiency, his empathy, I'm thinking, well, that's funny because that's how I feel about motherhood, but I've had to rebrand the whole thing to make people pay attention, right? So, you know, I think we're dealing with all of those forces. Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting. Like, again, men take a break and it's like, because I'm coming back stronger and everybody's like,

you're so right. And then when it's women, it's like, but there's no possible way you could manage your time with children. Like, there's no possible way you could be a good employee. here. The double standard kills me. One of the things I wrote down, I don't know if you've seen these posts. I usually joke it's a research paper, and by research paper, I mean, I watched a TikTok. But I've seen all these videos that Europeans have a slightly different way of raising their children, that there's less children-centered activities that you bring your kids to

or that you set up for your children and more that children just come with you while you do things. And I think it's a really interesting difference. And when we're talking about, you know, how do you protect your own time as a parent? How do you protect your own development while also caregiving? I think that can be an interesting shift. Have you seen this in reality of this like, okay, I'm going to go run an errand or I'm going to go meet with my friends and I'm bringing my kid along as opposed to this dedicated activity just for them? I think both and, right? Like, I actually think some of the most, some of the myths that surround these career

pauses is that your network's going to die, your interests are going to die. But the reality is I met more interesting women at a baby group or in a place space or a playground just because they were in a shared stage of life. By nature of where we lived, you know, they were also making complications. decisions about their work and family you might talk about your diaper bag for 30 seconds but then you very quickly move on to like you know what were you doing previously what are you interested in are you taking a class right now are you thinking about going back to work what's your relationship with like with your partner right like the conversations aren't limited to the baby just because

they're happening in a baby group yeah so I would say that I think your network and your interest can still expand even in traditionally play-centered or child-centered environments like a playground. That said, I do think that there is more dialogue around how can we integrate our children into our day-to-day. So yes, I do see a trend movement towards more grown-up spaces like restaurants and cafe is becoming more accepting. of bringing children along, and I think there's more dialogue around women deserving breaks and being able to invest time with their friends and make it, I think it's also just allowing ourselves to know that we have permission to invest in ourselves alongside our kids. So it's less

about like the spaces it takes up and more to say that yes, this chapter in our lives might have a focus of raising kids, but we're allowed to also raise ourselves too. and make room for that, whether that's getting a babysitter for a handful of hours, whether that's dragging your head along to like a networking event. When it's time to reenter the workforce, if someone decides that's what they want to do, what are the biggest mistakes you're seeing women make and how can they avoid them? A lot of the pitfalls surround deciding that they want to return and then expecting it to work the next day.

Like, I think that we are surprised by how long it takes. And part of that is the economic forces and the current job market. And I think part of it is that we do have to approach our reentry with strategic care, right? I think there's, you know, some of the best tips I can offer are look for at stepping stones, right? So, meaning, look for the friend who needs help like five to ten hours a week. Look for women-owned businesses, small to medium businesses, tend to be more open to non-traditional work experience and fractional work, right? Because the best thing that I'm seeing right now is women pivot out of their paths, right? Like they decide to start work of meaning that affords some flexibility. And then they hire other women because they understand the, capacity for efficiency and time management. There's also this piece where we're underprepared

on the transition back in terms of child care and support. The reality is just because it's freelance or flexible work doesn't mean you don't need support at home, right? There's no invisible magic time. And so I think allowing yourself some time, not just for the planning around reentry and what job am I returning to, but what's it going to feel like in my family? what's going to have to give? Like, I'm not going to be able to pick up my children three days a week. So who is going to do that, right? There's sort of a recalibration around expectations in the home,

expectations with your partner. And I think the last pitfall that I think we all fall into is discrediting the immense amount of experience we just gained, right? I think we overcompensate, we undersell when we walk in, we, we take, on the sort of small way of like we have to earn our stripes now that we're back. And the reality is that all of that amazing experience didn't evaporate, you just gained an incredible amount of perspective, leadership training, empathy, communication skills, organization, time efficiency, do not discredit that. And I think humility is one thing, but being able to walk in and stay

confident is another. My last question for you. What does a successful power plan? laws look like? It's an openness to the ways in which you're going to grow, an ability to get intentional about how might I reserve a little bit of room to move myself forward professionally, personally, and in a way that feels aligned to my family values. How do I give myself permission to structure my days so that there's a little bit of room for me week over week? How do I give myself permission to get the help I need, whether it's from my partner or, you know, or or paid so that I can invest in networking a little bit, right? And tapping into the relationships that surround us in all of these different non-traditional environments. How can I pay attention

during this time to what lights me up, whether it's scrolling Instagram and just stopping a little bit where I notice that I'm getting excited or I want to dig deeper and allowing this to be a moment of real self-study because I think we don't get that chance to study ourselves and redefine what true success looks like. But I can promise you if you take that time, it'll serve you well. Your book has been all over my timeline. Everybody's been talking about it.

I'm so excited to recommend it to everybody in my life who needs it. So plug away, my friend. Tell us where we can find it. You can get the PowerPaws wherever you love to get books or you can subscribe to the newsletter at the PowerPaws.com. And we have tremendous free resources, like how to write a postnap on the PowerPos. So important. I love it. Thank you. Thank you.

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