Emilie’s Maternity Leave and What That Means for Bossed Up

Lifestyle

Sep 14

Episode 351 | Author: Emilie Aries

I’m on maternity leave

Hello! This is officially my last blog post and podcast for the time being, as I’ll be stepping away for my maternity leave starting September 15 and running through December 15.

Before I head out, I wanted to share what our plans are here at Bossed Up while I’m out, and some thoughts on why I feel so strongly about taking this time away.

How much time am I taking for maternity leave?

I plan to be out of office for 3 months and Brad’s going to be out for 1 month, then start back part-time. He’s agreed to more or less play things by ear with his employer, who runs another small business here in Denver, based on the needs of our family at the time.

Working Parent and better work-life balance

Brad and I are both people managers with clients and staff who rely on us for troubleshooting, support, and decision-making at times. As two people who care deeply about our work, we’ve decided to give ourselves permission to check in with our colleagues and make sure we’re at least peripherally monitoring what’s happening in our absence.

While I’m happy to be of support to my team, I also feel strongly about the importance of taking this precious time at home together to be with our newborn. I’m keenly aware of how fleeting those first days, weeks, and months can be, and I want to relish every moment I can.

Obviously I care a LOT about Bossed Up, our team, our community, and listeners like you. But let me be clear: I’m not one of those business owners who refers to my business or my book as “my baby.” My business is important to me - but not as important as my child. Period. Full stop.

Why I feel so strongly about parental leave

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I feel entitled - and think all new parents have every right to feel entitled - to spending quality, sacred time together with our new baby. I actually feel like it’s wildly offensive that anyone would be expected to go back to work right away after welcoming a new child into this world.

Yet somehow in America, the wealthiest nation in the world, we seem to be the only industrialized nation where this isn’t a given.

In case it needs further explanation, let’s look at the data on why maternity and paternity leave is so important. Taking adequate parental leave has been associated with:

lower infant mortality rates
health benefits for the mother
higher workforce participation among women
increased breastfeeding rates
and fathers’ use of leave is linked with increased earnings for the mother, reduced mother-absenteeism due to sickness and higher female employment.

Despite all these benefits, America still doesn’t make taking leave easy. It’s unfortunately still a privilege for a lucky few in our country, instead of a protected right for all.

I myself share the complete lack of a social safety net that so many of my fellow Americans experience around this time in our lives. No one is paying for my maternity leave. We don’t have any federal or state parental leave insurance program available to us (at least not yet - Colorado is working on setting one up in the coming years!). And while we’re fortunate that Brad was able to negotiate a paid parental leave with his employer - that also wasn’t a given.

The only reason I can afford to take three months off is because I’ve been saving monthly for almost three years to replace my income while I’ll be out - a privilege, I realize, that few others can afford. I wrote in detail about how we’ve been financially preparing for having a baby if you’d like to learn more.

How we’re preparing Bossed Up for my maternity leave

The Bossed Up staff - Ellie, Kirby, and Irene - and I have developed a plan for regularly keeping in communication while I’m out in a way that hopefully won’t be too overwhelming for any of us. And of course, at the end of the day: it’s still on me to make sure to provide financial oversight, keep an eye on the bottom line and our bank accounts, and make sure my hard-working team is getting paid. While I have a plethora of capable help, there are certain elements of running a small business that will still require my input, and I accept that.

We did make the tough decision to pause the podcast while I’m out because we’ve been so focused on our client programs, that I simply haven’t been able to record three month’s worth of interviews before heading out of office. With 350 episodes in our backlog, there are so many great episodes to revisit, we’ll be resharing many of them on social media and via our email newsletter while I’m out. The best place to search the backlog of resources and past episodes is on our website at www.bossedup.org/podcast. And in the meantime, if you have a question for a future episode, we’re always collecting your requests and recommendations via the podcast hotline: 910-668-BOSS (2677), so call and leave a voicemail for me and the team anytime!

It’s my hope that we won’t lose too many podcast subscribers while taking this pause, as opposed to if we pushed out nothing but reruns on your feed for three months. Plus, if I feel up for it, I’m totally planning to record an update or two from maternity leave based on what I’m learning and experiencing throughout the process - so keep your eyes peeled for a surprise new episode dropping over the next few months! If you’re a longtime listener or subscriber, please don’t unsubscribe! We will be back - and I so appreciate your patience in the meantime.

In terms of our programs at Bossed Up, we’ve spent the majority of this year already clarifying our standard operating procedures (SOPs), and empowering our team of full-time staff, as well as part-time coaches and trainers, to have everything they need to keep serving the Bossed Up community in my absence.

Our incredible Level Up trainers will keep our leadership accelerator for new and aspiring managers running this fall. Programs Coordinator, Irene, will be running our next cohort of Speak Up, our assertive communications accelerator, which comes with an 8-week video course that I created and delivered personally. And HIRED, our job search accelerator, has been running for over a year with a combination of video-based curriculum delivered by me and the support of our incredible HIRED Coaches, who run weekly accountability calls with our job seeker clients.

It’s been delegation nation over here for most of 2021, and my maternity leave will be the ultimate entrepreneurial test. I’m confident we’ll see this community continue to show up for Bossed Up even when I step away, and I have no doubt that our incredible team will continue to create powerful spaces for women and marginalized people to come together and get the tools & community they need to advocate for radical career progress.

Embracing the unknown

As for me, the truth is: I have no idea what our first month of parenting will look like. I have one friend with a newborn who told me over lunch last week that she’s genuinely bored at home on maternity leave. I have another family member who called me a week in and said to me and Brad, “However hard you thought this was going to be, multiply that by four.”

Maybe our newborn experience will be a cakewalk. Maybe it’ll be a waking nightmare (emphasis on the being awake part!). Either way, I want to do everything I can to have the time and space to be as present as possible with my family. A right that I truly feel every new parent is entitled to.

After over 8 years of working on Bossed Up, I have faith that this community, our incredibly hard-working staff, and our wonderful supporters and clients will keep the business world turning while I step away for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bond with the new baby and really turn inward.

And if you want to help ensure this happens, I’ve got an ask for YOU!

Help us grow, would you?

If you or a friend you know finds it stressful to speak up and assert herself at work, make sure she knows all about Speak Up, our 8-week assertive communication accelerator that’s kicking off October 1! Or send her some of our related podcasts on speaking up that she can dive into on the topic in the meantime.

If your colleague wants to get promoted into a management role but isn’t sure how to make it happen or doesn’t feel equipped to handle managing others with excellence: tell her about Level Up, our leadership & management accelerator! Or share some of our leadership & management related episodes.

The next time you hear from a friend who’s struggling to find a great job, send them some of our job search podcast episodes and tell them about HIRED, our job search accelerator.

And finally, if you know someone who feels like a bit of a hot mess right now, is struggling with burnout and the basics of just feeling more in control of her life, make sure she knows about our 2022 LifeTracker Planners and our LifeTracker INSIDERS accountability community - both of which are total game-changers for those who want to get more Bossed Up alongside of a community of women who thrive while we strive - together.

And finally, if your organization could use a little bossin’ up, Kirby on our team is actively taking meetings right now with folks who want to learn more about our offerings for teams. From our powerful in-house training, to our leadership accelerator program designed specifically to retain and develop women leaders on the rise, to our diversity, equity, and inclusion programming that helps create more equitable workplaces, we’re here to help your organization in the year ahead!

And thank you in advance for being part of the absolute BEST way this community has grown over the years: through word of mouth, one boss bestie at a time. So many incredible people have joined our little corner of the internet because a friend or colleague told them about what we’re trying to do here, and I want to thank you for that support. It really means the world to me.

Here’s to navigating whatever comes next - together!