Financial Feminist - 82. Motherhood Killed My Career with Emily Tisch Sussman

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

The United States hates mothers. At least, their woefully inadequate policies, like no federally mandated paid parental leave, lack of access to affordable childcare, and increased criminalization of women’s health care and reproductive rights, seem to suggest so. It’s no wonder that many who (or hope to) enter parenthood feel completely abandoned by society and often have to make increasingly difficult decisions about how they’ll even be able to manage having a child in the first place. We’re tackling this subject head-on with Emily Tisch Sussman –– the author of the viral article “Motherhood Killed My Career” and podcast host of the She Pivots podcast. Emily joins Tori to talk about her own experience becoming a mother while working on high-profile political campaigns, how she pivoted her career as a result, and what she’s learned as an advocate for progressive policies for families. Learn more about this episode, read transcripts, and get additional resources at https://herfirst100k.com/start-here-financial-feminist-podcast Not sure where to start on your financial journey? Take our FREE money personality quiz! https://herfirst100k.com/quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, financial feminists! Welcome back to the show! Happy to have you here, whether this is your first episode or your 50th. I don't know what that was. If you're newer here and you're enjoying the show, make sure you're subscribed to new episodes so you never miss a new release. We'd also love it if you'd leave a review. If you love the show, leave a review. If you don't, go listen to Dave Ramsey. That seems to be just my common thing. I don't know. It's like, truly, no hard feelings if you don't like the show, but like, don't listen to it. Go listen to something you like. We actually do have a channel in Slack where we share nice things and community wins. And especially when the patriarchy is getting me down and when men are really mean on the internet, it's really, really nice to see

the nice things. And when you resonate with a guest or when we can help you negotiate your salary or pay off debt. And so feel free to share a little love in the reviews. All right, enough shop talk on today's guest. Let's do it. Emily Tish Sussman is a podcast host, women's empowerment and family policy advocate, leading democratic political strategist, contributing editor to Marie Claire and mother of three. Oh, we get into that. This might have been the craziest turn of events on this show that I think we've ever had. Emily is the host of a new podcast, She Pivots, which features women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success. Throughout her podcasting career, she has interviewed countless leaders and influential women on her podcast, including

speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Stacey Abrams, and Sophia Bush. Emily served as a senior advisor for paid leave and is a constant advocate for how policies can support families and businesses. We chatted with Emily about her viral article entitled Motherhood Killed My Career, in which she dives into how becoming a mother completely changed her path and how it showed her the importance and necessity of learning to pivot. We also talked about the state of paid leave in America, aka it's dismal, and how policies like abortion bans have a financial effect on women and families, and how you can become a better advocate in your local community to help support women and children in your own neighborhood. This

is a perfect complement to an episode we did a couple months ago with Amanda Littman from Run for Something. We'll link it down in the show notes. I believe it's called How to Save Democracy. And this is a great one-two punch, especially if you've been feeling very depressed by the state of the world, by the lack of feminist policies lately, the anti-trans bills, anti-drag bills, all of this shit. So if you need a little bit of inspiring firepower to keep us going, this is like a great one to punch. Emily is an incredible guest. And regardless of if you plan on having children or not having children or a family, this episode is super important because when we have more progressive policies to support women and families, everybody wins. So let's get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors.

I'm digging the purple hair. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been... Is it always purple? It has been for like a little over a year. But yeah, I mean, it's a permanent choice for me now. I'm digging the purple hair. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been- Is it always purple? It has been for like a little over a year. But yeah, I mean, it's a permanent choice for me now. I'm committed. I love that. I've never dyed my hair a crazy color.

And I don't know, I kind of feel like it's a rite of passage that at some point you gotta. But I've also, I've never done it. So who knows? Well, I mean, I thought those were my teenage years. And then it turned out 39 was actually my next wave of colored hair. It looks great. The purple looks great. That's probably what I'm most concerned about is it's like either bleaching it beyond repair, because I've heard horror stories or just like, it's just looking like washing me out or something, you know? Well, I think it depends on the shade. Like I go darker purple in the winter,

and then more of a lavender in the summer. So it kind of moves with the vibe, you know? I like it. It's like a mood ring. Your hair's a mood ring. That's amazing and iconic. Yeah. There was a lot of discussion. We went to Florida this winter for a long weekend and my hair was the winter purple, but in a summer location. So there's a lot of discussion among my kids. Yeah, big discussion. They're all on board. They're like, they know what needs to happen. That's very funny.

They kept being like, but why is your hair dark purple here? I was like, I know. It's very confusing. Because it was dark purple somewhere else and I didn't have time to change it. I know. I couldn't put on my summer hair for this weekend. Yeah. Sorry about it, guys.

Didn't have the chance. I'm so excited to chat with you. You and I connected because I came on Instagram live with Marie Claire when I was marketing and promoting Financial Feminist. And your work has just been so impactful. And so I'm just really excited to chat with you. You've had this long history of working in democratic politics. Can you talk about what brought you into politics in the first place? I just always felt like I wanted to do something that meant something. Like, I didn't know what

the jobs were. I didn't know, like, what I wanted to do or that I even wanted to work in politics. I felt like when I was like a sort of, you know, teen in college, I just felt so wound up, like just so wound up like the injustices of the world. And I didn't really know what to do about it in a way that I think made me very rebellious when I was younger and also like a little I couldn't relate to my peers that well when I was in college. I was like, oh, like, aren't you guys so fired up about this in a way that I'm angry that you're not? So right when I graduated college, I went to go work on a political campaign. Again, not because I knew what I was doing. It just seemed like the right thing to do in that moment.

So I just picked up and moved to the nearest swing state and worked on a campaign. And then this light went off and was like, oh my God, like this is what I can do. I can make a career out of this. Like all this stuff that I feel like I'm doing, it turns out are jobs. And like all the play, the way I want to make an impact in the world, like this is a whole career path that I didn't even know about. And I wasn't hugely successful in school either. So I also didn't, wasn't sure that I was that smart. And then all of these things that I didn't know were skills really made me successful working on a campaign. I could grind out the work. I could stay focused for hours. I could keep morale up in the office. All of those things are

skills in a workplace and huge skills on a campaign. So it was the first time that I was both personally kind of really turned on by the work. So it was the first time that I was both personally kind of really turned on by the work. And it also made me feel like, okay, now I have something productive that I can do with all of this energy. We lost that campaign, spoiler. So then I was totally lost again. But now realize that maybe I was not as not smart as I had originally thought that I was. So I was like, well, there were all these lawyers on the campaign. Maybe I could be a lawyer. I thought lawyers were these untouchable, smart people. And I was like, well, I definitely feel like I was smarter than some of them. So I applied to law school right after the campaign and started right away. So I went to

law school and that was another real turn on moment for me. But I was like this, you can impact so many people this way. Like if you can change laws, then your impact can be huge. And from there, I went back to work on Obama's first presidential campaign right after I graduated law school, and just stayed in it. I stayed in it for like a decade and a half. It's so interesting to me to hear you say, like, basically, I was not confident, got into these places, didn't think I had any skills. What was the realization of like, oh, I can make money doing this? Like, was it a particular moment? Was it just the realization of like, oh, I'm good at my job and a bunch of people don't seem to be as good at their job? Like, what was that light bulb moment or that shift for you? for you? Because I imagine we know a lot of people listening, right? You get into your career, you have this imposter syndrome. You're like, oh my God, I'm not good at this. How do you shift from that to being like, oh, I'm actually pretty badass?

I had a very administrative job, that first campaign job. I was like the information hub for my team. So I had to compile all the information and check in with everybody and, you know, print out daily reports. And it just wasn't skills that I thought that I was I could necessarily do. But I realized all of a sudden, like, wow, I am really on top of my job and other people are not as on top of it. put me in charge of running our morning meeting, which meant that I came in every day and got everything prepped and put it in front of like the top people from the campaign, like from the state. And the fact that I could get little pieces of positive feedback from my boss that, you know, he would go out, I was his admin, like he would go out and he would do the big thing. And then he would pass it over to me to execute it. And for me to feel like I could actually execute, like he trusted me enough to be executing on this thing that he was doing. I feel like that was the light bulb for me. And I was like, you know what, if he trusts me, I must be good at this. Like, why am I putting so much

self doubt in when actually he believes in me? Speaking of your career, you wrote this article with a like, I'm glad my mom died level title, which is like, motherhood killed my career. I think it's something a lot of women can relate to. Talk to me about motherhood and how it became one of the reasons that you decided to pivot your career and like what the impetus was behind writing that article? Well, I mean, motherhood kind of killed my career for me, like it pivoted my career for me, like I didn't really make the decision. So, you know, we talked about like how I started out into it. So, you know, fast forward like 10, 12 years is that I did really well in politics. I was very successful. And I knew it. Like I knew I worked

incredibly hard. I kept that hard drive. And I knew that I was really at the top of my career at what I had worked for until that point. But also like kind of I was above where I thought I was going to be like I really was well accomplished in politics, got married and had heard all of my friends say that it'd take them like a year to get off birth control. So I thought like, oh, I don't know, like maybe I'll have kids one day, but I'm, but I really think about my life in terms of a presidential cycle and we're going into a presidential. So obviously I don't want to have kids in a presidential because that would ruin my career and I'm doing so well. And I got pregnant immediately.

So also this is, this can also be like a real lesson to you there. And I just cried. Like, I was so depressed. I was like, I just like, I just hadn't thought I was never particularly drawn to kids. I was never I never connected with babies. thought of I had built a huge amount of self-worth and it was all tied to being accomplished professionally and accomplished professionally in politics. And I knew what that trajectory looked like. And it was not possible as far as I could see with a baby, with a kid or even I mean, I was really sick through my pregnancy. So like immediately I couldn't even keep up during the day. Like I used to have in my desk, I had like that shoe pile under the desk. If people can remember going into the offices pre-pandemic, we all had like a pile of our heels under our desk. And I would just lie on it at three o'clock every day because I was like a dead weight

and I couldn't use my brain. And I was like, oh my God, like I'm not the person that I was. So that was just a really hard realization to come to. And even when I had my first baby, I still didn't feel a real connection to him. Like people say like, oh, you know, the minute the baby came out, we bonded and I knew my purpose. I was like, thank God that labor is over. But now I have no idea how to take care of this baby. So I felt like my career was on the decline. And I didn't have the positive coming back at me of what everyone had told me was this trade off

was going to be worth it. I didn't feel that at all. And then which thank you for saying that, because I I go back and forth about whether I want children or not. And one of the things that I'm worried about is having children, even though I, you know, that's not what I a hundred percent want, but feeling like I'm obligated. And then like, what happens when it's not as magical as you,

as everybody tells you it's going to be. Yeah. And then it doesn't like kind of click on. Right. Right. Right. It's not like a seismic shift out of nowhere. No, I didn't have like an instinct on how to correctly wipe a newborn like no there was no like i don't know if

anybody does but like the way it's communicated often is it's like you should i don't know a tone i mean even like breastfeeding in the beginning there was no like instinct around it i was like holy shit that hurts like are you to suck this out? And it turned out it was fine, or it wasn't that fine, but whatever, you know, like it happened. Like it was what it was. So I did breastfeed for a couple of months, mostly because I couldn't figure out how not to. And which they also tell you that you can't really get pregnant when you're breastfeeding. Well, guess what can happen? You really get pregnant when you're breastfeeding. Well, guess what can happen? You can get pregnant when you're breastfeeding.

So now I am pregnant again. You're really having, do you watch Gilmore Girls? I'm like, you're really having a Lane Kim moment. You like have sex once. Did you ever watch Gilmore Girls where she literally like on her honeymoon, she gets pregnant? I feel like I need to go back. I feel like I need to go back and watch it but i do know that my mother was walking around

saying to everyone like emily is so smart she can you know like she's a lawyer but you can't even figure out how to not get pregnant and i was like it's fair you know like it's totally fair so i'm pregnant again two baby what two under two like we're at two under two yeah two under one and a half i had two under one and a half So I've barely begun to think that I'm coming back. And now I'm back in the office and I'm sick again. Like I'm sick again. I have a newborn. My bandwidth is getting lower.

And by the way, this job, this amazing political job that I have was actually created to bring me into this think tank. So they have it. So the job was tailored to bring me in. So it played to all of my strengths, my strengths, like being able to be in multiple things at the same time, my strengths of being able to drive really hard, my strength of being able to stay on top of evolving information every second, which is like the 24 hour news cycle. Well, what goes out the window once you're tired and sick all the time? Being able to stay on top of multiple pieces of information, being able to

keep your head in multiple things. So I was totally failing at the job that had been created for me. So it was impossible for me to accept. It was so hard for me to accept that. So at the end of my second maternity leave, I was about to go back and I was like on the day countdown to go back into the think tank. And I started to think, oh, my God, I couldn't do this job with one kid. I truly don't know how I'm going to do it with two kids. And I don't know what to ask for. Like, I don't know how to say like, oh, this is how I'm going to make it work. Like, I'm just so overwhelmed and probably a little depressed and not really connected to either of these babies. So I just didn't go back after my second maternity leave. And I remember

when I went to go talk to the president of the think tank and give her my resignation, she was incredibly supportive. And I was like, you know, I just I don't think I can come back. And she was like, oh, are you going to take some time at home? And I was like, no, who do you know? I was so offended by that idea because my whole identity was tied to being this political worker. I was just going to say it's an identity crisis because, okay, I had this identity as someone who's really good at their job, who really thrives. Okay, my output is no longer what it used to be. Okay, I could have an identity as a mom but i don't feel connected to that either and then the guilt of feeling potentially not connected to that and

then it's like okay i the venn diagram there is no crossover i just feel in the middle siloed in between the two circles not in the two circles so yeah it sounds like an identity yeah just like who am i what am i supposed to do am I? The no Venn diagram is a perfect way to describe it. Like there was just no, no identity, no positive identity and self worth in any of that. So I just went to everyone I knew. And I said, now I'm consulting, do you want me on a project? So I started doing some political consulting. And I did it through that cycle. After about a year of doing that, I had this kind of realization moment that I was working just as hard as I had before, but I was doing it from the floor of my closet because that was the

only place that my kids couldn't find me. And like no one's, I felt, I kept feeling like I had something to prove. Like I have to prove that I can be successful on my own. I can prove that I also, the think tank that I worked was very prestigious. So I really felt like I had a lot to prove that I had value in this industry outside of the think tank. Like I wasn't even sure for myself that I had it. Like I was proving it to myself. And then I actually don't really know who I thought I was proving it to. But I had this

realization where like, I was like, I am just as tired. I'm just as overworked. Who am I proving this to? Like nobody see, I don't even see anybody. I just stay in the floor of my closet all day. So I thought, okay, I've got to recalibrate this. Pregnant again. I'm sorry to tell you, I was pregnant. You can't see me. My mouth is wide open. So I finally think that I started a political podcast. Emily, which can I just pause you?

This might be crash. I'm just glad you're having so much sex. Like, I'm just like, like that's probably that's probably inappropriate to say but like the whole time i'm just thinking like damn she's getting it though like times of crisis you know you know great we love i know i mean quite frankly i wish i wish that was the answer it just turns out i'm like unbelievably fertile and i feel like every conversation about like having children and working is like, oh, how to get through IVF, like how to get through fertility. And all of those conversations need to have just like, I will pump pump of the jam.

I am just pumping them out, baby. I know. I'm like, I'm so sorry to tell you, you can get pregnant. Like, and I was shocked that I was this fertile. I was like, I really like, I feel like I would have known this before in my life. I did not. So now I finally feel like I am starting to get maybe some sort of hang of my life. We've decided to leave Washington, move back home.

I am pregnant again. Cried all three times. Was like, I cannot handle this. I cannot go back into it. But so now I was like, all right, now I've got a roadmap. Now I know how to go back into this. So I have this political podcast. I had been trying the whole season to get an interview with Secretary Clinton. Her team kept moving it. They kept moving it. They kept moving it. We finally have a date. And they're like, oh, I'm so sorry. We have to move it again. I was like,

I got news for you guys. I am 10 months pregnant. If we are not doing this interview, she is going to have to come to my hospital room because I am not passing up this opportunity. I do not care that I'm pregnant. The timing ended up being incredible that the interview with her came out the Friday before the Iowa caucuses of the 2020 election. And she said on my podcast that she didn't think that Bernie Sanders had done enough to bring along the Democratic Party. If you guys have memories that can go along that long ago, it's a 2020 caucus. But so it ended up running an exclusive in The New York Times. Rashida Tlaib responded to it at a Bernie Sanders press rally.

So the entire weekend news going into the Iowa caucus was all based on the interview that I had done. Which incredible. Well, I was like, mic drop. I can go on maternity leave now, to some degree. Because, you know, I work at the intersection of politics and media, both things that only matter as much as the last thing you did two minutes ago, like three minutes ago, you're dead news. Right, if you're relevant. Right. So I was like, okay, maybe now I have the smallest amount of credibility to be able

to take some sort of leave and then keep myself relevant enough to go into the 2020 presidential and like get a great client. Maybe I'm actually going to surprise myself and I'm going to go back and work on the presidential. I don't know. Then COVID hits. Oh, I thought you were going to say pregnant and I'm going to go back and work on the presidential. I don't know. Then COVID. Oh, I thought you were going to say pregnant again. I was waiting for pregnant.

Oh, you were like, girl, lock it up. I was waiting for pregnant again. Yes. COVID. COVID. Yes. Very serious. Yes.

COVID. COVID hit. So I now have a three week old, a two year old and a three year old,old, a two-year-old, and a three-year-old. Not even a two-year-old. And a three-year-old. So I was like, it's all gone. Like, I can't, there is no part of my brain that can operate at a professional level, definitely not at the way I want to present myself professionally. And it just was the total gutter of self-confidence and professional opportunities. I didn't even know

how I could market myself as a political consultant. I was like, oh, do you want multiple children crying in the background of every conversation we have? Then I'm your girl. And I had never seen a pregnant person or a person with young kids work on a campaign. I had just never, I didn't think it was possible. It did change in the 2020 presidential. Both multiple Democratic primary candidates had people either pregnant, give birth or with young children. So that I truly don't know how they did it, to be honest with you. But that has changed. And it was on the Biden campaign, too. But it was just like the pits. You know, like we moved, we kept we moved eight times in 18 months. I cannot figure out how to take care of three children. Like it's just so much chaos that I was like, I don't even know what my

professional North Star is anymore. Like, I don't know that I can actually be what I want to be as a high functioning political strategist. I don't think I can. And I don't live in Washington anymore. So I'm not like in the mix either. I don't really know what's changing and what's happening. So I started thinking, I just don't know how to, I don't know how to see my way out of this.

And I need to hear stories to inspire me. Like I need to hear examples of women who had been killing it professionally, or maybe not killing it, but like, professionally had been on track, and something personal derailed them. It doesn't need to be kids. It can be different things. But I need to know that there is a model that I'm going to come out of this at all. Like, I'm going to come out of this with some sort of professional work product, some sort of identity. I don't know what it's going to be, but I just need to see other models of women who have done it. And I thought, well, the thing I know how to do is podcast. So and how will I get my idols to

talk to me? Put them on a show. So I created the idea for this podcast and it of She Pivots, where I do exactly this. I interview women who have who have their lives have been derailed for totally personal reasons. And their professional career came out totally different. Like their perspective changed, and then their output changed. And that took a bunch of different forms and turns. You know, I thought about launching it originally as an award show, because I thought people would show up to get an award. And that was my revenue model. And then I then the podcast would be like the ancillary product for it. I ended up changing that revenue model when the sponsorship person dropped out at the last minute.

But it also meant I changed my trademark. And then when I launched the show as Pivot, I got a cease and desist order from the trademark holder of Pivot. You know, like this has gone through like multiple iterations. And it is still constantly evolving. And I'm not in politics now. And I kind of wish that I still was, but I know that it's not possible for this part of my life. But I also know that I'm super involved locally. And I got to interview the Vice President of the United States, which I never would have been able to do if I was like still in the system. And I interviewed Lala Kent from Vanderpump Rules, which totally got through my maternity leave. So, you know, it's like the door had to close

for this door to open. Yeah. So let me talk to you about that, because I think a lot of women don't make the pivot that's necessary. This has become this resounding theme somehow of this season is that like when we're comfortable, and I don't mean a safety comfortability, I mean just like, it's fine, right? This is fine. We don't pivot because it's fear of loss or it's hard to look at a career and be like, I'm going to do something different because this isn't working. What helped you come to peace with the idea of a pivot, even if it meant going into this period of uncomfortability and the unknown and leaving behind all of these accomplishments and this, again, identity? The identity piece, I think, was the hardest part for me. And I think I structured a lot of the

beginning of launching She Pivots around the identity piece for me, that I felt like I had to reposition myself in fields that I was not not in. Like I've not been in straight media. I have not been in the career sector. I have not been in, you know, like a parenting lifestyle sector. I felt like I had no credibility. So leaving behind a field where I did have credentials drove a lot of my decision making, good or bad.

I think that, you know, the women that I interview on the show tend to have pretty extreme life events that happen to them. And I think that's because we are afraid of change. Like we would rather just stay in the stasis and the fear of going into something new. So you often don't change unless you have to. There's one guest that we have on this season who I booked by accident. Like I had kept saying, yes, I thought that she was a different, I thought she was the cult, the escaped cult member, but she's actually, which we did book, but she started a STEM business, like a tutoring service. And by the time I realized who I had agreed to, I was like,

oh, I didn't mean to book her. But in the end, the lesson was excellent out of her conversation, which was that she was in a situation where she had a job where she traveled a lot, was getting divorced. And if she stayed in that job, she would have lost custody of her kids. So the pivot was the safer choice for her. Like she became an entrepreneur to be able to maintain custody of her children and also be successful in another field. So that was actually a really great perspective. And I'm happy to be able to add into the mix of it because it is scary to leave behind. Like I think often we don't jump because we're so afraid of the unknown. And I think a great place just to be, you know, very tangible and practical about it

is just to identify yourselves for yourself, what skills you have, like hard skills, not specific to your industry. And what industry do you want to go into? And just start having conversations with people that are in that industry to understand how those skills translate, because I promise you, they do translate. 100%. The informational interview, it's super impactful. If you can take somebody's... People are typically so generous with their time, whether it's 15 minutes, 30 minutes on the phone of just like, tell me about what you do. Here are the skills I have, figuring out how to bridge that. That's really impactful.

Totally bridging that and understanding the language and the calendar of a new industry is critical because then you can actually start to take a look inwards at what your skills are and apply it in a way that people who are in that industry can receive that information. That makes perfect sense. To do our own little mini pivot in this episode, we've talked at length on Financial Feminist about how the pandemic has affected women in different ways. on Financial Feminist about how the pandemic has affected women in different ways.

And some of the data your team shared with us talked about how, as anybody listening probably knows, women are more exhausted, we're more burnt out than ever. But we also know from research that women almost unilaterally were the ones who left jobs to stay home and care for young children during the pandemic. And it sounds like it's similar to your story, trying to figure out how do I support my family while also support my own career aspirations? So what sort of long-term effects are you seeing from the impact of the pandemic as you work with women? Well, I want to start with the positive, which is that the pandemic, in breaking us down, we just went into survival mode. Like there was no like, what is my best self? Like it was straight survival. And it was get our kids through the day. And hopefully they're going to be a little bit not weird because

of this. Like it was just straight survival. So it really broke us down to what do we what are the necessities? Like what do we really need? And it helped us reimagine other parts of our lives that we thought maybe it's the professional part of our life, but maybe it's another part of our life that we didn't think were movable, like that we didn't think could change and were flexible. So I think out of that, we're seeing a lot of growth. And I think that's the place that women are starting to rethink, like, you know, this thing that I always thought that I had a passion for, maybe that is a career.

Maybe there are, you know, maybe it's an Etsy shop or maybe it's going into financial literacy. Maybe it's being on my community school board. All of these different things that we didn't think were possible, we now understand are possible. And we're willing to make different choices. Like, we're willing to sacrifice different things to make those things possible. I mean, look, I am a suburban mom now. This is I didn't even have a driver's license until my second child because

I couldn't put two kids in an Uber with a car seat. You can put one and you can't put two. So like this is this is on the school board. Like this is a real new life for me. And women are just making different choices. We're a little bit out now, and our kids are in school again. That is all great. But a lot of the structures, especially for parents with young children, are still really broken. The child care industry was basically decimated. So if you're looking for child care centers, many of them are closed or understaffed, have very long wait lifts or are unaffordable. We still don't have a national

paid leave and companies are starting to cut their paid leave, which is bananas to me. I didn't know that. Oh, God, really? Yeah, many companies are starting to cut their paid leave programs as a way to cut costs, which actually is totally counterintuitive to me because your employees will either quit or show up unable to do their job. So I actually think it's like the dumbest financial planning they can be doing. Yeah. And I think the other thing that I saw, too, is like just if yeah you're leaving corporate life or you know some sort of compensated job to work uncompensated as a caregiver for whether that's children or ailing family members

because we had you know plenty of people of course get sick with COVID or die of COVID and the women of the you know of society were going home to work or to care for them. I think that it's stagnating earning potential if you do choose to go back, right? If you choose to go back to, you know, a compensated work environment, well, you've been out of the game for, you know, three plus years. And what does that mean for, you know, the raises and the promotions and the kind of status that a lot of corporate jobs require. That's absolutely right. And I think another piece that prevents women from shifting fields is that you're not going to be at the same level. Like, that's just realistic. You can't go in at the same level that you were in a field previously. So, you know, having to start at a lower rung, at a lower pay scale is just a reality of what's

happening, whether you're changing industries or whether you're going back in because you have been taking the time out. Look, a lot of women in particular made the decision that it was not cost effective for them to be working during the pandemic. The cost of child care just kept going up and up and up. And it was actually more cost effective for their family to be staying home. So it was not an ambition question. It was not a drive question. They just couldn't afford to work. And now going in to potentially a new industry or even the same one, I think companies are a little more understanding of this gap, like this resume gap of the last couple of years. but I honestly haven't heard enough data points to know that for sure. It's a little bit anecdotal. But I think that women who are

going back into the paid workforce do still have to make the argument for them to understand that, the skills are not rusty. My brain is still my brain. And I developed and honed a lot of skills in unpaid care work. Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, of course, we know in this country, there is no mandated federal leave. Can we talk more in addition to a lot of the companies cutting leave? What is the current state of paid leave? What's happening in the political sphere? Can we get an update on that? So the current state is that you can't be fired on unpaid leave after you have a baby, like birth a baby. That is the status.

It's not great. So a lot of women will go back immediately because they can't afford not to. They are physically healing. They have a baby that a daycare center won't even take until six weeks. But they just literally can't afford to not work. My sister's baby was born seven weeks early and was in the NICU. And the woman who was next to her was a city bus driver and could only visit the baby, you know, maybe once a day, probably not even that, because she had to go back immediately

to work, which is inhumane, truly. Yep, truly. So the status we have right now is that you cannot be fired after you have a baby. The bar is on the floor, is what you're telling me. The bar could not be lower. And that is only unpaid. So the Biden administration last year had proposed this big federal budget called the Build Back Better plan that had both hard infrastructure, things like roads and bridges, and then also we'd call it economic infrastructure, things like paid leave, increases for child care centers, etc. That was broken up into two pieces. And like the roads and bridges pieces was passed the piece that involved family like family

economies was not passed last election cycle so if we can all remember back as far as november republicans took the house republicans now control the house we all know how a bill becomes a law is that it has to be passed by the House and the Senate, both of them, and then the president signs it into law. Even though about 75% of the country, party, irregardless, across the board, 75% of the country supports having a paid leave program, the Republican Party does not support having a federal mandated paid leave program. does not support having a federal mandated paid leave program. So President Biden just put out a proposal budget that has robust 12 weeks of paid leave in it, which is the best we've ever seen from a president. So the bar is going up of what we're seeing, which is good news. If we're looking short term, the bad news is there's zero chance that this Republican House will pass it as part of their budget. We actually don't fully have the votes in the Senate either. But it is it's a

one vote margin right now in the Senate, which is much closer than zero percent in the House. I would say the good news is that there has been more conversation in the country right now about paid leave than ever before, thanks to people like you. And this is now something that is on, you have to, I mean, you are using your platform on an issue that has not been discussed before. So lawmakers are starting to feel accountable for it. They're starting to feel like they expect, that people expect them to pass it. And that is how we build political momentum to an eventual law. I think we are very close in the Senate. I think if Democrats take back the House again, it will be a very early

bill that has passed. So I actually feel more optimistic than I have in a long time, just not in these next two years when Republicans control the House. And I will say there are Republican versions of paid leave. It generally borrows in the future from Social Security that you then so it depletes it in the future or it gets into payroll tax. It's not really it's not a federal subsidy. The way that the bill had worked in the last Congress was that there would be a federal subsidy to companies who provide leave. So it actually helps subsidize the business to provide the leave, which I actually think is the best option for small businesses, because then they can actually afford to do it. Yeah. So if we're looking at basically two years till we see any

progress, other than, of course, continuing to talk about it, talk to our legislators, what else can we do? What sort of policies can we pass? I mean, obviously, the obvious one for me is protecting a person's right to choose, protecting abortion access. What other things or what other policies can help women and families? So a lot's being done at the state level, actually. Illinois was just the third state to pass paid leave. A lot is actually moving. And at the state level is, yes, we see extreme partisanship, but we can also find some bipartisanship because they don't feel like they're responding to like the Fox News cycle. So there is actually opportunity to get involved and advocate at the state level. Look, not just all our entire package of reproductive

freedom is really on the chopping block right now. Like it's not just that we've lost the right to an abortion nationally and in many states, but also there's a lawsuit right now that is going to decide the status of the medical abortion pill, which would be nationwide. It would ban it nationwide. There's also laws that are coming up around Plan B. You know, South Carolina just proposed they would actually have the death penalty for women who seek an abortion um texas already has laws around calling a driver like it's like an uber driver essentially like take someone to a clinic would be charged as a accomplice in an abortion this whole web of laws yeah like this whole like web of laws is just continuing to chip away at a woman's right to autonomy, to literally family plan, and then to be able to have enough economic security after

you have the child to be able to be successful. So I would say every opportunity there is to sit down with the lawmaker, and by the way, they are looking for people to talk to them. Like we think that we can't talk to them. But actually actually when they hold town halls in your town, the same like six people show up every time. Like you can have a big impact. Go to the local school board. Talk about what paid leave your town has. What does your county have?

Like, what are you doing? Are there childcare subsidies that are available? Is there housing subsidies that are available? Because they're affordable housing tax credits. A lot of counties will have first time home buyer tax credits, like really dig in locally. And there's actually quite a lot to be done. We had Amanda Littman, who co-founded Run for Something, if you know her. Yeah. So Amanda, we go back. She was incredible. And we'll link the episode in the show notes. But basically her whole thing, right, behind Run for Something and one of the most well-spoken people I've ever talked to, she discussed like there's this all of this focus on these national elections, right?

The presidential election, which is so important, right? But really, the things that are going to impact you on a day-to-day basis are the local laws. And that's where you have the most sway. So you're saying the school board, right? Like, perfect example. People are trying to bar or ban certain books. They're trying to remove critical race theory from schools, right? You can have so much impact that will affect you on a day- day to day basis at the local level, as opposed to just

these national politics that honestly, sometimes just seem like way outside of, you know, our reach. Totally. And it's hard to access information on the locals. Like, look, it's hard for me to access information, and I know what to look for. But the races are one in law. And so in that case, I would say, go find a trusted source. It might be a person in your community that really is super plugged in. It might be the local paper that you feel like covers everything really well. It might be a community blog. Our next door is popping off. Maybe sometimes in sort of a weird way, but our town's next door, very big on the local propositions. Like people are discussing and debating it.

It's there are ways to actually find out what is going on. And the amount of power that your one vote has on the local issue is massive. dipping my toe back in to politics this cycle is that I worked on our local community affordable housing proposition that was in the three towns around us in our county. And one of them won by less than 100 votes. Like you can literally talk to 100 people. You probably do. And and say, like, this is how I feel. This is what I'm voting on. So you can actually one person can really have an impact on local elections.'s incredible that margin of 100 votes you're exactly right like I know 100 people maybe like okay I know 50 cool like I'll talk to 50 people or I'll talk to 20 people or even like two people cool it's better than nothing better than nothing and also where

the honestly where social media can have an impact is that we were not sure if it does or if it doesn't. I mean, it does on your local community. Like if people just know where you stand, you are a validator of your circle of influence and your circle of influence is probably bigger than you think it is. So if you don't have to go around like if you're uncomfortable making cold calls, that's totally fair. That's a little weird if you've never done it before. So if you can just say, I support this and this is where I stand, it makes an impact. Like I tried to do an organizing training for our PTA around the affordable housing. Not a huge success, I'm going to tell you. But not not I my presentation was excellent. I'm not going to say there was a huge turnout. But the fact that I put it out there that this is something that I have a stance on and something that I think is worth of my time.

I like to think at least sent that message to those in my larger circle to say this is something that I should at least pay attention to and maybe vote if I wasn't going to thinking about voting in an off year. One of my last questions for you, when I'm thinking about navigating life as a woman in a country that doesn't seem to respect me, or be interested in giving me rights, what hope do we have? I know that's a big question, but what do you hold on to and what can we concretely do? What is one thing that somebody could do that'll take them 10 minutes after listening to this episode that will feel like, okay, I made an impact today? Validate someone around you. okay, I made an impact today. Validate someone around you. Reach out to someone that you see, like you really see them.

You see them trying their best to hold it together, trying their best to accomplish getting their kids out the door that day or trying to accomplish building something or getting through a day after maybe they're suffering from loss and just validate them. Say to them, I see you hustling and I know that you are capable of it. I don't think we do enough.

And this is not some like toxic positivity bullshit. This is like we do not give and receive affirmation and confirmation unironically. Like we don't know how to do it. If someone says, if someone says, like, if you hear someone say, I really see that you are doing a great job with this, you'd be like, oh, no, I'm not sure. Like, no, just say it and stand by it. Like, there's no but, there's no follow-up. And I think I've seen more of, I definitely have seen more of that than ever, the way that I think moms of young kids in particular have banded together

in the last three years in a way that I didn't know as a childless person, I didn't know this happened. And I don't know if it did happen before COVID. I have no idea. It wasn't my life. But the way that moms have banded together to say, I will help with your pickup. Do you need me to watch your kid? Do you want me to pack an extra snack? Has been unbelievable. And the only way I've been able to operate, quite frankly, like it's the only way that I've been able to do what I can do. You know, when I got the opportunity to go interview the vice president, it was in 24 hours in Minneapolis, where I do not live. And the only way that I was able to pull that off was by, you know, looking out to my network of moms, some work, some don't work, and saying, hey, can you do this

pickup? Can you keep my kid happy? Can you grab them here? And I think that has been so strong and so powerful. I think we're just waiting to see it bubble up into culture change and into lawmaking. You know, hopefully the next step will be people raising their hand with Amanda's group and run for something and say, yeah, now I'm ready to take on the local water board. Now I'm ready to take on the school board. And then we're going to see real impact from that. But I think it's already happening. Well, and what a beautiful example that I don't know if I fully put together until you just said it like, you know, this the whole old adage of parenting takes a village, right? And just what you said there of like,

fucking love women, women are the best, right? Like, coming together, like, you know, what do you need? I'm here to support you. That's how we change anything, right? And I think that when we look at these huge problems, or we look at, you know, even our day to day of like, trying to figure out how we're going to exist in society, what sort of, you know, what is our passion? What is our purpose? It's very easy to get, again, really discouraged and feel really hopeless. And it's that's how we've changed everything. It's just like a couple people coming together and a couple more people and then a couple more people. And that's all you do is you have, that's all you can do is have these micro interactions, doing what you can and

allowing that to grow into a movement eventually. Yeah, exactly. We're social creatures. We want to feel included. And we don't say enough that when we respect somebody or when we see what they're doing, we think that it has to be some great big thing for people to be acknowledging that we're putting in the work for it. So just looking over to someone and saying, I see that you're doing it and I really respect it, I think goes a very long way. Talk to me about She Pivots. So She Pivots is out every week where I interview a different woman who is just what we've talked about, like had some career, something crazy happened in their life, and then it changed their perspective and they changed their career as a result and found success. I think sometimes She Pivots gets kind of pigeonholed as like a mommy podcast because that was my story and that's how I came to this. So I'm actually pretty specific to not have other women that have the same story as me, like having the kids change their lives.

So it's a whole variety of things. It is everything from coming out as trans. It is leaving a cult, finding sobriety. Like it's a whole, we have a huge range and it's something that we really prioritize in the conversations to make sure that we are able to hit on women who were in different phases of their lives. But we have this common thread that it was the perspective change that led you to the success. Like you could not, to say it the other way, but for the perspective change, you could not have had the success

that you had in the end. I mean, we really want to break this cultural myth that we make all of our professional decisions for professional reasons. It's really a combination of personal and professional. And I think the way that we're going to do that is by uplifting the personal in the professional decisions.

I love that. I can speak to my own experience. You know, I majored in theater and organizational communication. And at first, I thought I was going to be an actor, got into college, realized I wanted the more stable option, so decided to become a marketer, was doing that. And then Donald Trump got elected. And I don't think financial feminist would have existed. I don't think her first 100k would have existed if I hadn't been sort of radicalized when I was 22, 23. So yeah, I'm thankful for that. Also pissed off by that. But I think that, yeah, that was my story as well

as this kind of this, this realization of like, what kind of person do I want to be in the society that I didn't expect? So I love that you're doing that work. And actually, the more conversations I have, that actually was a big pivot moment for a lot of women it reprioritized for for a lot of women about where they wanted to spend their time and have what kind of impact they wanted to have on society i hear that a lot it is a little dark for me to keep revisiting that moment over and over in conversation right but i think i mean it's pandemic same thing too right we're gonna have these like very two big shifts in the last 10 years which was you know donald trump and then global pandemic it's it's it's absolutely true

and i also want to validate your theater background is that throughout my entire career in politics and now on she pivots it is unintentional but i seem to only hire people that have backgrounds in theater fuck yes i see it all the time too too. It's so interesting. I have a TikTok going viral right now talking about like my experience in theater. And so many people are like, that makes perfect sense. It's really transferable skills. Yet, of course, the narrative is like, what are you going to do with that liberal arts degree? And I'm like, I don't know, make a bunch of money, start a global movement and a company. But okay, let me tell you what I'm going to do with it. And actually and actually this season i have coming up

an actor named carla stickler who went do you know who carla is i do she went a little viral during the pandemic because she played elphaba on broadway retired from theater became a software engineer she's the one who came back and like saved wicked right she played elphaba and like came back yeah they went through like 10 like 10 Elphabas who all had COVID and they brought her back in to be Elphaba. So I have her on the podcast this year. And she's actually in the print issue of Marie Claire because the point that she had really brought forth

in that conversation that we hadn't heard before was that you can love something with your core and it can still burn you out. Yeah, totally. Which is something I needed to hear. I loved politics with all my core You can love something with your core and it can still burn you out. Yeah, totally. Which is something I needed to hear. I loved politics with all my core and it still burnt me out. Yeah, totally.

Because capitalism. And I'll just end it there. Because capitalism. Emily, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for all of your work and your expertise. And I'm just so inspired by you and your pivot and your broadening your story to be able to include others so that we all feel a little less alone. So in addition to She Pivots, tell us where we can find more about you. Well, we're on Instagram. We're newly on TikTok at She Pivots the podcast. And you can find my column every week in Marie Claire. But I'd

say mostly go to She Pivots wherever you get podcasts check it out I love it thank you for being here thank you so much a huge thanks again to Emily for joining us make sure to listen to She Pivots wherever you get your podcast also are you looking for information on the podcast or our supporters or where you can get started with your finances we have a landing page for the podcast linked below if you just scroll down so you can find exactly what you're looking for. I am really trying to get members in our community to commit to taking actionable advice. We love when people listen to the show. Obviously, it really, of course, supports our work, but also hopefully makes an impact on you. But just listening, right? You got to take it a step

further and actually work to implement these things. And so we're giving you step-by-step personalized free tips, guides, step-by-step plans over on that landing page. You can check it out in the episode show notes on your podcast player. Thanks as always for joining us, Financial Feminist. We appreciate you being here and we'll catch you soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields. Marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Sharice Wade, Alina Helzer, Paulina Isaac, Sophia Cohen, Valerie Oresko, Jack Koning, Khalil Dumas, Elizabeth McCumber, Beth Bowen,

and Amanda LeFue. Research by Ariel Johnson. Audio engineering by Austin Fields. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolf. And audio engineering by Austin Fields, promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com or follow us on Instagram at financialfeministpodcast.