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The Modern Moms Roadmap to Balance Podcast
Is it really possible to find balance as a mom? Each week, I'll be bringing you inspiring chats, interviews, and dialogues all based around helping moms like you unlock their potential and lead the balanced life they want. If you enjoy listening to topics that help you lead a more balanced life, then you've come to the right place. I'm obsessed with helping moms lead the life they want without the guilt.
With the right information and support, you can find balance in motherhood without sacrificing your needs.
The Modern Moms Roadmap to Balance Podcast
Episode 26: Challenging Conventions in Motherhood, Career, and the Valuation of Domestic Work with Special Guest Joanna Newton
In this weeks episode, special guest, Joanna Newton, is flipping the script on the typical grind, advocating a focus on quality moments over the tyranny of the clock. Tune in for a frank discussion with Joanna about the art of tightrope-walking between the demands of motherhood and a career, where carving out time for self-care isn't just necessary, it's a revolutionary act. Her journey through the challenges of ITP reveals a paradox: sometimes, it's our struggles that teach us the most about living well.
The conversation takes a turn into the societal labyrinth of motherhood and identity, where we confront the "Karen" stereotype head-on. Joanna and I dissect the pressures that coerce women into putting themselves last, and we champion the importance of preserving individuality alongside the role of a mother. This segment is a rallying cry for women to hold onto their dreams and aspirations, challenging the archaic notion that personal fulfillment should be sacrificed at the altar of parenting.
As we round off our discussion, we navigate the evolving landscape of family dynamics, where traditional roles are being redefined. We share stories of fathers embracing the hearth and the seismic shifts this can cause in a couple's professional journey. Joanna's experiences illustrate the profound impact that support at home can have on career success, emphasizing the need for society to reassess the value of domestic work. Join us as we celebrate the mosaic of family choices and advocate for a workplace that honors the juggle of work-life harmony.
Helpful Links:
Website: https://www.millennialmktr.com/
Email: joanna@millennialmktr.com
Social Links:
https://www.instagram.com/joanna_atwork/
https://www.tiktok.com/@joannaatwork
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanna-newton-510a9629/
About the Podcast Host
Kayla Nettleton is a licensed therapist based in TX, business owner, mom of 3 kids and coach for therapists who want support and guidance in their journey in creating an aligned business model so that they can live the freedom based life they've always dreamed of without sacrificing their own needs.
In her private practice as a therapist Kayla specialize in helping women overcome anxiety, perfectionism and people pleasing tendencies so that they can lead a more fulfilled and authentically aligned life
Find Kayla on IG
@kaylanettleton_lcsw
@themodernmomsroadmaptobalance
Email: kayla@kaylanettleton.com
TX Residents can Schedule a Free 20 minute therapy consultation here.
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Welcome back everybody. Thanks for tuning in. Our guest this week is Joanna Newton. She is the co-founder of Millennial Marketer and she is a leader in e-learning, marketing and sales. She has spent over 10 years building unique, organic strategies for education, focused brands and content creators alike. She specializes in utilizing innovative and fresh marketing strategies, often used by influencers to not just acquire customers, but to create fans. Welcome, joanna.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about all the things today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know and I know your bio is heavily marketing focused, but I do wanna preface to our listeners that we're really not gonna talk about marketing. We are gonna talk about motherhood stuff and balance today. But, as with the question that I asked everybody, what is your definition of balanced life?
Speaker 2:When I saw this question I really had to take a minute to think about it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for giving it to me in advance because I was thinking about what that means. Because for me I've never been a super routine, very specific, routine, focused person, Like I've always been very comfortable bouncing in and out of personal life, parent life, friend life, work life. I've never been I wanna sit at my desk from nine to five and then not think about work after ever. Like I've always very fluid in my approach and so when I was thinking about the times that I felt the most balanced in my life, it's when my time is very focused, and what I mean by that? Well, thank you, I like that kind of term. What I mean by that is when I have family time. I have family time and my focus is on family and I'm not thinking about work or worried about work or worried about something else. When I'm at work and I'm focused on a work project, I'm not thinking, oh, I should be spending more time with my family and like distracted in that sense and really focusing on having set times for different focuses.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that's really great, and it's so funny that you say I never really had this. I guess structure right, but the focus is really important because you don't have to have this structured routine but you can still have focused areas in your life. And I completely resonate with what you just said, because I am also someone who doesn't really have this specific routine that I follow every day. That's to the T. Yes, I have things that I do normally every day, like I have to drop off the kids at places, so that's one thing that I do the same every day, but what I do during that time is not always the same at the same time every day, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, and that's the thing is some days may be more work, like work life heavy, and some days might be more family heavy or some days might be more personal care heavy right, every day is a little bit different.
Speaker 2:And actually being able to wake up in the morning and say what is it that I actually need today and I recognize that, being a business owner, I have a lot more flexibility than a lot of people but I know when I did work in nine to five it was hard for me to have to like wake up, put my make up on, shower, eat breakfast, get in the car, commute Like that morning kind of drudgery like was really hard for me. And the flexibility that I have working for myself of being able to say like I don't have any meetings this morning, so I don't feel like showering till 11 is really nice, like it's really nice to live like that, and I love being able to have a flexible schedule and not be so worried that it doesn't look like other people. So I know a lot of entrepreneurs are like the five AM wake up with the like.
Speaker 2:I am not into that right, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, if I wake up at five AM because I happened to fall asleep right at 8.39, cool, but I am not going to force myself to try and wake up at five AM every morning, because that's just miserable for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's not good at all. Then I'll be in bed at seven and that's not really very productive for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah and I think that's the really important thing to keep in mind is it's important for people to have a routine or a plan that works for them that is also flexible to whatever their needs are at that time. I think, when we are thinking of balance and having this balanced life, we often can focus too much on okay, what is this plan that I'm gonna do every single day, when that's not necessarily realistic Because things happen, our needs change, our energy levels change and I don't think that that's really talked about enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and finding that time to prioritize your personal needs is really hard. I've kind of been forced to have to care for myself in the past year. I was diagnosed in early 2023 with something called ITP, which I couldn't pronounce for you if I tried, but you could Google ITP and see how to pronounce it. But it basically means that my blood platelets, like, are really messed up. My immune system and my blood platelets don't function properly and my blood platelet count levels are crazy low, which means my blood's thin, so I bruise really easily, I feel fatigue, I get a lot of fatigue, I have a lot of issues.
Speaker 2:So because of that, the only way that I can perform while in life is by doing things to take care of myself. Like I take certain supplements, I have to make sure I get enough water, I have to make sure I get enough protein, I have to get exercise. If I don't do those, the symptoms of what I have are worse. So I've almost been forced into having. I have been horrible about taking care of myself most of my life and it's hard. Your mom, I own a business, I have a husband, like it's hard to do it all, but I got kind of forced into having to take care of myself and like I almost feel better than when I didn't have a weird rare disease. So when you're actually do the things you're supposed to do, you can show it better in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, isn't that crazy? Like you just said, I feel better now than when I wasn't suffering from this disease. Right, like it shouldn't be that way. We should be able to learn how to take care of ourselves and meet our needs before things like this pop up in our life. Yeah, totally yeah, and it's so crazy because this is really a phenomenon. That's like a heavy problem for women. And I have to pull up this post that I stumbled upon earlier, like right before we got in, and it is from feministmomtherapist and she had written women grew up spending their leisure time reading magazines teaching them 100 ways to please a man, while men were taught how to focus on their hobbies and ambitions. No wonder mothers today spend their free time being told how to gentle, parent and improve their relationships, while men play video games and train for marathons. I was just yep, that is so true. And those Cosmopolitan magazines with like 100 ways to please your man is what popped up for me, like that image of that magazine popped up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we get taught that in every single area of our lives. So, as a woman, there's so much in society in literature, read and shows and movies and magazines, all of those things that are telling us that our job is to serve right, whether that's to serve our husband, serve our children and it even, I think, really trickles into the workplace too, like when you're a woman at work, like you're expected to go above and beyond, do things outside of your job description, open the parties, host the get-togethers, do all of those things and constantly accommodate. And when you stand up for your needs, your boundaries, your things in any facet of your life, it's like very unexpected and people are like very taken aback. I thought about this because I was in a meeting the other day and kind of put my kind of set a boundary about something and you could tell it made everyone uncomfortable. Like everyone was like I wasn't mean, I was just like, well, that's not. Like it was just very direct, very straightforward about what was happening and it made everyone super uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:And then I got off that call. I felt really bad, I was like I shouldn't have done that. You know like those thoughts in your head. But I thought when a man does that in a meeting, he's considered like a leader and a boss. And like when I do that, people are like who does she think she is saying no?
Speaker 1:And it's pretty crazy it is it is, and unfortunately that happens. We see about it and hear about it and then we're labeled as oh, she's a bitch, right, or she's not easy to work with. When it's nowhere, the woman is setting the boundary, she's trying to protect her time and her space, and or she is trying to set a tone for how things should be moving forward. Yeah, with whatever the goals are for the company or for whatever she is doing, but instead she's called names.
Speaker 2:Totally. And then you add in, you add in motherhood, a marriage relationship, like the expectations of your life to accommodate, accommodate, accommodate for your children, accommodate for your husband, accommodate for your boss or whoever is not performing well enough in your workplace, right, we're constantly giving of ourselves. Those things can be exhausting and then you get that stereotype. I remember when I was younger, like when I was like a teenager, I'd always look at like a lot of older women always seemed like a little crazy to me. Do you know what I mean? Just like they could go off at any minute. You know, like in that, like over 40, you're like you could just set them off at any minute.
Speaker 2:And there's also the like, you know, stereotype of the Karen right which, at the end of the day, is actually just a woman who's like saying what she needs, like I know that it can be. I know like the stereotypical Karen can be inappropriate right, and be rude and mean, but like the baseline stereotype is a woman who didn't get what she want at a restaurant and says it was wrong. Like, come on right. Like this is insane. And you know, if standing up for what you believe in gets you stereotyped like that, you're going to like bottle it up, and that's what can make us sick, that's what can make us go off at any minute, because, yeah, something could set us off at any time, because we're literally holding down all of the emotions and holding everyone else in the world together, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because women shouldn't need, shouldn't have needs, they should just accept everyone else's and accommodate everyone else's Exactly. That's not. That's not the case, and women have have been seen as like these angry people oh she's just angry, or oh it's because she's on her period, but it's because they're forced. Women are forced to bottle everything up and to not speak, not say anything, because they're going to inconvenience someone with. That's such a problem, 100%, and we do. Women do end up exploding because you can't hold it all in forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and I would say like nine times out of a 10, like at least in my life, if I've explored, like if I have one of those like explosive moments, I like yell at someone or lose my mind I have probably calmly and respectfully asked for that thing about five or six times, right? So I probably I've probably directly asked indirectly. I probably tried five or six different strategies to get someone to listen to me before the explosion. Then the explosion happens and it's like oh, this is out of nowhere. And I'm like is it like, is it out of nowhere? I don't think so. Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I do want to point out that that's that is not always the case for women and moms, because I know a lot of a lot of moms just don't feel like, well, if I say anything it's not going to be listened to anyways. But then we have cases where they do say it and it's just ignored and you're right. Then it's like, oh well, it came out of nowhere, it didn't?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not the case. Yeah, and I think about like, and I think what's so tough about about motherhood is what, like the truth is I definitely became more of a feminist after I became a mom. Maybe it's because I have a little girl. But I also say I didn't really feel the effects of toxic masculinity until I was a mom. So, yeah, and I think some of that came from, like, how I was treated Like once I was becoming a mother, people expected that that became my identity.
Speaker 2:The amount of times like I would see a doctor while I was pregnant and they would be, like you're not going back to work, right, like, like, get that question. Yeah, like seriously this. I mean like, multiple times you know people were, oh, like you're just going to be part time, right, like, and it's like the expectation that once you become a mother, all you are is a mother, like fathers don't have that. No one, like no one would say, oh, what are you going to do about work after the baby? Like, no one will say that to a man.
Speaker 2:The expectation is that you sacrifice your career, your dreams, for that. But if you think about, if you're a mom and you're listening to this like would you want your daughter to sacrifice everything she ever wanted to have children? Now, it's one I'll say if your dream in life is to be a mom, take care of your kids, do those things. That's fantastic. Do that right If that's your dream and goal. But the reality is we're all individuals. We all have different ideas of what we want our lives to look like, and that's a fantastic thing. The point is is that you don't need to fully strip away your entire identity and have your only identity be mom, and even if you're choosing a life as like a stay at home mom or like a primary parent, you should have things in your life that you love and enjoy outside of just being a parent.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. And whenever you were saying that you feel like you really became a feminist after becoming a mom, and I was thinking about that and how I really I do resonate with that because I feel the same way. I think that that's really when and my first child was a boy, so this still, so it still works.
Speaker 1:So resonating it still resonates it still works, and I think it's because, for me, I noticed, as I was thinking, I did notice this this toxic or problematic masculinity. It was just presented as well. That's how men are. You're just going to have to deal with it. That's what you have to deal with when you're a woman. You have to deal with this. And so, okay, cool, I'm going to deal with it.
Speaker 1:But then, when you become a mom, there's so many other responsibilities and you start to think, well, at least I did. I don't want to deal with this. This is not okay. I don't want my son to be like this. I don't want him treating women like this, and it shouldn't be okay. On top of I shouldn't be the only one handling the responsibilities of the house and cooking. No, that's not okay. We need to have conversations about this. And so I think that's really when you start to realize, okay, maybe you can handle a load when you're single or when you're just have no kids, but once you become a mom, it's like everything is your responsibility All of a sudden. No, that's not okay. And so, yeah, I would totally agree. Yeah, I really became a feminist when I became a mom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will too say, like when I became a mom kind of started personally feeling some effects of it. I then looked back at my life and was like, oh, like you know, you have those memories. You're like, oh my gosh, like that happened to me, Like what?
Speaker 2:that happened to me I once like this is not really related to motherhood in any way, but like when I was a kid I had in recess a little boy through a rocket, me like at my back, like I was looking in one direction, Like I lost, like it took out of me everything. That little boy didn't get in trouble because he said that he threw the rocket me because he liked me oh my gosh. And like and like I was told to not make a big deal of it, Like I remember crying. It was told to stop being hysterical. Like, literally, like, literally fourth grade and. And he didn't get in trouble. And it was like you know he shouldn't have done that, but he was just trying to get your attention because he likes you, Can you? Oh my gosh, there's so many problems there.
Speaker 2:Like there's so many problems there, but that's just like. So you take that, you and I think girls, girls get that messaging like, oh, yeah, to just be, you know, not make a big deal of things, just be okay with it, move on. And then, you know, are thrust into this. Most, most women are thrust into a role and they have kids, they have a husband, they're taking care of the home, they're taking care of the kids, they're doing all of that work, which is a 24 seven job, and the expectation is like, oh, that's just what you do, you're just supposed to be happy about it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and so this is, like, I think, a great segue into your non-traditional circumstance where your partner is the one who stays at home. How did you come about making that decision and how did you make it work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely was a bit of a journey and it started out with the intention of being temporary. So my husband was in grad school while I was pregnant and he was finishing. He like finished up right as I had May, my, my daughter and he had started a job. Like right when I had May, he had started a brand new job and the job was about an hour and 15 minute commute. So it's a bit.
Speaker 1:It was a big commute One way.
Speaker 2:One way.
Speaker 2:It was, it was a really long commute and it was like odd hours and what our thinking was we were like, okay, if you start this job, I was like let's make sure like you love it and it's good and we'll just move. We were in a temporary like apartment kind of housing situation. We were just like we'll move closer if as long as this is a good thing. So he's like four weeks into the job he hates leaving, he hates not seeing his daughter. Like it's just awful for him. And the job is like horrible, it wasn't what he expected. The working conditions weren't great, like people weren't following protocols that that were, that would be dangerous for him. You know if if people weren't following protocols and he hated it. And we didn't actually have a plan for childcare. I did work from home at the time but and I was working for a company, not myself at the time we didn't have plans for childcare and I was like, look, we can't move. I was like we can't move for this job. You hate this job, we can't move and and doing this commute every day is going to kill you and if you have to get childcare, you're never going to see her because I'm going to drop her off Like it's going to be not a good situation for any of us. We're all going to be miserable.
Speaker 2:Because he previously been a student. We were only living off my income for a couple of years while he was a student. So I was, like we'll be fine with one income, like let's just, why don't you quit? Start, just quit, you know, give your two weeks notice and you can look for something else. Right, and then, in the short term, you'll take care of her while I'm working.
Speaker 2:And then he just like loved it, like he. He loved he loved taking care of the home, he loved being with her, he loved spending time with her and he just loved it. And now it was. It was a process because, well, first of all, when kids are baby babies, trying to like do all all the housework and all the things is a lot, right, like that's a lot.
Speaker 2:And and I think we naturally just shared it because I didn't assume it was 100% his job Right, like being like a the mentality of woman. He understood that since he was home, he should be doing stuff. And I understood that I shouldn't expect dinner on the table and the house clean up five o'clock, because that's unrealistic, right. So we just really worked together and communicated and figured out, like, what things he should do, what things I should do, and it really worked out really well. Now my daughter is in school, like during that day, and he's still just focusing on being a stay at home dad. And one thing I'll tell you is, first of all, the school is not that long Like she's done it no 330, 345. Yeah so, yeah.
Speaker 1:So if he had, you still need childcare, even if they're in school.
Speaker 2:I know, like that makes no sense. And then, you know, being that I'm a full-time business owner, I work all the time, like, and I like it that way, like it's not like a complaint, but you know, I, my business partner and I are building our business from scratch. We're completely bootstrapped, we haven't taken any funding and so that does mean like a lot of work to be able to grow. You know, because we were trying to generate cash from our services to build the new things, which means I work a lot, right, so I sometimes work late.
Speaker 2:You know, I have clients on the West coast, so my schedule's weird. Sometimes I work weekends or nights and I don't think I would be able to do what I'm doing without his support, like at all. And so you know, and then, like the snow days and the days off and all the uncertainty, I don't know how, you know I'm sure you have listeners that have two, you know, two parents who are working like full-time. I don't know how, if you have a full-time, two people with full-time in-office jobs, how you take care of your kids, like I don't know how that works.
Speaker 1:You don't, someone else does.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying that in a mean way- but it's true, like you don't, because I was in that position, my husband and I. My husband works outside of the home at like nine to five I don't know, he goes in at seven, seven to three, but and I was working outside the home like a regular nine to five job too, and I would wake up, get the kids ready, drop them off at daycare, and then I would go to work and I would pick them up from daycare and someone was picking them up from school, like my mom or my grandparents or something, and so I wouldn't see them till five or six by the time we got home. So we're not raising our kids. Other people are, and it's great if you have that support system to be able to do that. But I didn't want that. I didn't want to be away from them for that long and then be drained, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I also wanted to highlight that when your partner stayed home, you were working a corporate job. Correct, correct, yeah, yep, yeah. And so him. I heard your story. For the listeners that are like how do you know all this? So I heard part of Joanna's story in her podcast called Her First. Correct, correct me if I'm wrong. That's the name.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's nice.
Speaker 1:Her First podcast and so and she was talking about how having her husband stay at home even increased her salary at her corporate job. You wanna talk a little bit more about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. So this is something that I don't think happens for a lot of women. You know I went on maternity leave. I came back from maternity leave and shortly after applied for a new role within my company which was like that one, I think was like a $10,000 like salary increase. So within less than a year of being back at my job I got a promotion to like a higher level leadership role, which a lot of times doesn't like.
Speaker 2:Like when you look at stats about income in women, it's really at the age of motherhood where the pay gap changes. So like typically early career, as a woman you're gonna be making the same as your male counterparts. But when you get to that like early 30s kind of timeframe that's when men start making more and women kind of plateau this is like very normal. So I was at that moment in my career and between when I went back to work with a stay at home parent and when I left the corporate workforce, my salary more than doubled.
Speaker 2:In those what was it five years? Like in five years I doubled literally doubled my salary and I know that was because I had that support at home, because, like it or not, now we can talk about corporate culture and how corporate culture should support parenting and all of those things. That's a different question, that's a whole different conversation. The reality is that's a wilder episode, whole episode. The reality is the corporate world values you, being flexible, you being available, you not leaving at three every day Like it really values those things. And if I was in and out of school, if I was in and out of work to pick up a daughter who is sick, if I was leaving early for everything, if I was doing all of those things, I would have not gotten the promotions and the work that I did.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't have. It also allowed me to continue to hone my skills. So I had time to read and research and learn and grow on top of my work schedule to get better at what I did. And I, even towards the end of my corporate career, started a business while I had a full-time job and was able to flip into being an entrepreneur. And there's no way like I would have been able to do that without, like, an amazing support system making sure things were done. And as my life got crazier and crazier, he took on more and more of the housework. He does all of the laundry and puts it all away, which is huge. I mean, that's like if you are responsible for the laundry of a family, that's a lot. It is. It is a lot. If I really need something done. He's able to be that support person for me. So I do think for us and I know everybody's different, but for us I think our household income is overall higher than it would be if we were both trying to work full-time.
Speaker 2:I just think that that's the case because of the attention that I had and I'm very ambitious, Like I wouldn't be happy if I was doing this and I think he knew that and was like, if that's what you want, I'm here to support that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. And what was so pointing to those statistics? Yes, that's true, and one thing I also wanted to note in that specific context of the statistics is there's it even shows the research even shows that corporate jobs. So there is heavy women in like lower or entry level, middle management, but once you get to those higher, supervisory or CEO type, those type of roles, it's male dominated, and part of that is because those roles require those people to have partners that are doing everything else, because even for a man to climb up that ladder, they have to be fully devoted to work. Their time has to be fully devoted, fully focused on work and no presence at home because their partner is taking care of all of that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's hard, especially hard for women. It's still hard for men in terms of them balancing their family life and work, because it doesn't allow for the balance. It's just your work. If you want this position, work, work, work all the time. And so one thing that I had wanted to know was how did the people around you respond or react to this non-traditional way of living?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it was weird at first. Especially A lot of people were very uncomfortable with it. I actually just posted a I think I shared this story in the podcast and I just posted it like a TikTok of this story. But one thing that was really interesting was we had a friend who was who just made a decision to be a stay-at-home mom. So both her and her husband were working. We had a child really close together and she decided to be a stay-at-home mom. And when we told them my husband was doing this, she said to us she said, well, what are you going to do all day to my husband, like someone who's? And I was like, well, exactly what you're doing all day.
Speaker 2:And I think early on I think now, especially the people who are closest in our life, they get it. Do you know what I mean? Like they see how hard he works, they see how hard I work. They're like you guys are an amazing team and amazing pair, great. But early on, I think there was this underlying tone when people found out that they thought he was lazy oh my gosh. Like they thought that he was just not working and just being supported by me. Like get in, the, just sit around playing video games all day. Do you know what I mean? I think that was the like, the thought in people's heads and that really tells you like a lot of things. Like it just shows you how little people value the work of moms and stay-at-home moms, right, because if they're like of a man's doing it, it's like lazy, like, come on, like you don't value that Like and it's so valuable Like we're raising our next generation of humans right.
Speaker 2:Like this is so valuable right, the world doesn't pay you for it but like it's incredibly valuable. Our economy doesn't work if we don't have new people to come in and contribute when they're grownups, in a valuable way. So you know, people were pretty, pretty confused about it. You know my mom's gotten over it now but like she used to always say to me like does it ever bother you that you're the only one making money? Like does that ever bother you? And I'm like that's a leading question. Like what? Like, no, it doesn't bother me. Like I'm like do you ever want to be the one that sees a hole? I'm like no, that job sounds harder.
Speaker 2:Like I'd rather build a business Like that sounds easier to me than than running a whole household. And I think that people really did initially think that he was just lazy and I think that that was hard for him. It made me really angry and like want to like murder everybody. But it was hard for him because he kind of felt like, is that what this is? And I would kind of just honestly reassure him that this was the right choice for us.
Speaker 2:And I think when people started turning a corner is when they saw my personal success. You know what I mean Like when they're like oh, oh, this is a good thing, right, because because of your personal success. But what's funny is when you see it the opposite way. Right, when a woman decides to stay home, take care of her family, and then that man sees success. I don't feel, like the world looks at, is that woman played a huge role in husband seeing that success. But she, like from my experience and I'm sure from theirs, totally does Right, like her work at home. If she's doing that is the thing that's helping him reach that level of success.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's so interesting in terms of like people will view a man as lazy, because we had a very similar experience in that. Now that I'm thinking about this is my husband works seven to three at his job and there are often opportunities to work overtime. So that means he'd be working from like six to four, but he doesn't. We don't need that for our family to work. We actually just need him to work his regular job, because if he works overtime that throws off my schedule completely, because then that means I can't go to the gym after work. I have to go in the morning, which I hate to do. I would rather go when I'm done with what I'm doing and do that in the evening. Then do that first thing.
Speaker 1:And so when his coworkers because it's basically all males when that his coworkers saw him leaving whenever they had their overtime, they were like oh, you're going home. Oh, look at you going home. Like you, you don't want to work. You don't want to work. It's like no, I don't, I don't need to stay. Why am I going to stay if I don't need to stay? But people will stay even if they don't need to stay, because that is, I guess, more productive Like you. You should be working if you're a man, and so even that is just problematic, and so, yeah, they would basically make fun of him for leaving, for being able to have this extra time, which is crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the thing. Families, whatever they look like Everyone, right, this is coming back to that balance Everyone's needs matter, right. So if you, if, if him, working his seven to three is enough financially, great work. Seven to three, because your time To be able to work out is important, right, and and right like those like your needs are important and so are his needs. And then working as a family to Right. You know it's everyone's needs won't always constantly be met, right, like that's a reality. But, yeah, to make decisions in a way that Keep everybody's, everybody's needs in mind is really important, right, and and every family is gonna look different and every family is going to. You know, I have a have a reason to look that way.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was younger and me and my friends all start, you know, sort of having kids, we were like doing something and the mom was like, well, we can't meet that late because we have to be at home in bed at eight. And I remember in the back of my head, sort of like being judgmental of that. I'm like, come on, it's not that big of a deal. Just like stay out late one night, right, I didn't say that out loud, but I thought that in my head and then I remember, like later on in my life, thinking back to that thought that I had I'm like that was so unfair of me to To have a judgment on the boundary that they had, the need that they had for their family.
Speaker 2:If, if they need to get their kid in bed by eight, that is their decision and I should 100% Respect that because I don't know their family situation they might. If they don't get that kid to bed at eight, they might have a horrible morning, or maybe they do something together at night there's a million things and if they want that boundary, they should be able to have that without any judgment from anyone, because you don't know your family situation. And I think too much of the time we get out of balance, we get stressed because we don't make the right decisions for us that are intention, yeah, about how we want to spend our time in our days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or we're worried about what other people will think of our boundaries or choices. Yeah, yeah, yeah, gosh. Well, I think this is a really great spot to end this episode. There's so many fabulous nuggets in here From all different little topics, but if you want to plug something in here, if someone wants to, you know, work with you in some way, because they were like oh, I need a marketer and I'm really loving her story and I resonate with her. How can they reach out to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the first thing that I'll say is, if you want to hear more about Topics like women in the workplace, female entrepreneurs, all of those sorts of issues, then definitely check out my podcast. It's called her first and I I have a co-host. We we interview people, we talk about all kinds of things related to being an ambitious woman and how to balance your life and all of that. I'd love to have you as a listener. If you are looking for help, I focus on horse creation, marketing and my day-to-day job, so helping people create courses, package their knowledge and Be able to monetize that. You can just reach out to me via email at Joanna at millennial marketer. Calm Is the best way to do that and I'd be happy to chat about your course ideas.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and thank you so much again, joanna, for giving us your time today awesome. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and have a great week. Thank you, bye.