I learned I was pregnant the day after I was accepted to Columbia Business School. I was originally supposed to start my MBA program in fall 2014, but as my son, Tyler was born in June, I decided to postpone my enrollment until the January term. Columbia was super accommodating and everything ended up working out logistically.
When I started orientation, Tyler was only 7 months old. At first, balancing the full-time business school experience with being a new mother was just short of impossible. I was running between classes to the pump room and juggling happy hours and with hours spent cuddling with Tyler. My husband, Rodrigo, who also has a very demanding job in financial services, got the shortest end of the stick in all of this. He is incredibly supportive and a great partner, without him none of this would have happened.
My classmates have applauded me for being able to do it all so seamlessly, but behind the scenes it was anything but seamless. First semester, I was as skinny as a stick and super sleep-deprived, but I was nevertheless very fulfilled. My in-laws and parents also helped us a lot by staying with us for several months. I could not have managed without them those early months. Now, we still outsource many of the routine household tasks because we just simply don’t have the time.
Sometime after the initial shock of business school settled down, the entrepreneurship bug set in. I figured there aren’t many women in my situation (which is a problem in itself). It could be my contribution to the business world to innovate in some area relating to babies because people usually innovate in what they know, and not too many founders have experienced parenthood by the time they’re on the start-up path.
After doing an internship at a baby products start-up, I realized that the very reason I was interested in this space was the ultimate desire to incorporate my son into some part of my work life because I realized I would be torn in two different directions for the rest of my life — between my career and my family.
This lead to an epiphany: there are NO resources out there for parents who intend to “have-it-all”. It’s been accepted as a societal norm that people fundamentally have to compromise between work and life. Some parents stay home and give up their careers and others never have children or delay it significantly. Our society’s approach to work/life balance needs to change from a trade-off to an integration (or flow) - that is the only way we will be able to be actualized as whole people. That is why I started CoHatchery.
Now, as a VC investor at Northzone, in many ways it's easier, but also harder. Your work days are pretty flexible to suit your kid's drop-off and pick up schedules, and the workday can be allocated to times of your choosing. However, many more sexist cultural norms exist in this industry of high stakes deal-making, although Northzone as a firm has been extremely accommodating and forward-thinking in that respect (perhaps due to its Swedish roots). There have been countless publications about this, so I won't harp on in this post, as it's not directly related to parenting. For more, I highly recommend Aileen Lee's podcast with Kara Swisher: http://www.recode.net/2016/10/13/13276690/aileen-lee-cowboy-ventures-unicorns-diversity-recode-decode-podcast-transcript. Sarah Lacy is also planning a podcast around motherhood and entrepreneurship which I think will be really interesting: https://www.patreon.com/sarahlacy.
To this day, I would say figuring out my own work-life balance/integration mix has been my biggest challenge to-date (and for my husband too). We are nowhere close to overcoming it, and we work hard at it every day. I am getting better at drawing lines and being more present in each activity. I am also getting better at listening for cues that I need to reassess my mix of work and life. Most importantly, I am getting better at being positive in the face of extreme challenges.
My advice to other parents (especially mothers) in my situation is this: It can be done!!!! It’s not easy, but nothing that is worth doing is ever easy. You will need a strong support system, and you will need to be honest with yourself and others about your own boundaries and limitations, but don’t be afraid to just go for it. You have no idea how much you can do until you sign yourself up for it, and you have no idea how supportive your community is until you rely on them.
We need more people who believe they can have it all to change the world for the rest who have become disillusioned. Outdated perspectives like Barbara Corcoran's (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/272574) are not helpful and only discourage people from trying and to accept the norms like generations before them.
Could I be considered an entitled millennial by some? Certainly, and proudly so.