In my executive coaching business, my clients have included C-suite executives, team leaders, and solopreneurs such as coaches and real estate agents. Many of my clients are also moms, and some are full-time moms (also known as “stay at home moms”).
It’s that last type of client that often draws skepticism from people — including potential clients.
The first part of the skepticism arises because I’m not a mother myself — I don’t have firsthand parenting experience. They wonder how I can offer “parenting coaching” to someone else without having had the personal experience in that role.
This skepticism is based on a misunderstanding of what I do as a coach.
Coaching is about understanding human motivation and behavior, seeing and creating awareness of patterns, holding space, creating awareness, and helping the client find their own wisdom to resolve challenges.
In fact, some of the best coaches and consultants come from outside your “industry,” because they see things in a way that people within the industry can’t see it.
The second aspect of the skepticism comes from a judgment about the nature of full-time moms. Our collective dominant perspective on full-time mothers is that they “don’t work.”
If that’s accurate, why would they need coaching?
I don’t share this view of full-time moms.
Perhaps because I am not a parent myself, I can see more clearly the nature of the role of motherhood. Because I work with a variety of clients, I see the overlapping patterns.
Human beings are human beings, no matter what type of role they are in. They fall into certain patterns of thoughts and behaviors, that result in specific patterns with respect to their work and relationships. I help my clients untangle these patterns to make changes.
The Complex Role of a Mother
A family unit is like a form of enterprise, where the children are both the “product” and the “employees.”
In most family constructs, the mother is the CEO or co-CEO of this enterprise.
She is also the chief strategy officer, the planner-in-chief, the operations specialist, the director of talent development, and logistics coordinator.
Most mothers also serve as a life-coach, therapist, cook, and educator. She creates and implements policies, oversees scheduling, and sets parameters around wellness practices.
In her role as a house manager, she engages in inventory management, budgeting, and hiring and overseeing outside contractors,
The work that mothers do doesn’t just serve their children and their families. They are creating and cultivating the future leaders of our society — assuming their do their job well. Those who don’t end up creating the future criminals of our country.
Unlike executive leadership jobs in the corporate sector, the role of a full-time mother comes without sick days or paid time off.
In fact, this role comes without pay at all — or even the acknowledgement that it’s work.
If the family runs well, it’s taken for granted. If it doesn’t, she is often blamed.
The Tangible Value of Mothering
The skepticism illustrates a confusion between the value of a role and how it is compensated. Just because the role of a full-time mom doesn’t earn a salary doesn’t mean it’s not adding value.
The National Partnership for Women and Families estimates that unpaid family caregiving contributes over $1 Trillion annually to the US economy, with women doing two-thirds of this work.
The Heckman Equation, based on Nobel Laureate James Heckman’s work, shows that investment in early childhood yields a 13% ROI per year, more than later-life interventions.
It’s clear that outsourcing the work that a full-time mother does would cost well into six figures in combined salary of cooks, tutors, coaches, and other professionals — and still fail to replicate the depth of integration of mothering.
The Context Drives the Valuation
We live in a culture with a stark duality around how we value skills.
Consider the core competencies of motherhood: leadership, strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, crisis management, adaptability, presence.
In the corporate setting, these skills are lauded — and highly compensated.
In the home, they’re seen as personality traits. Or worse: duties.
But they are not instinctive or innate. They’re learnable, coachable, and developable.
The Long Game
The corporate setting is often driven by a desire to show quick results. In contrast, the results a mother creates may take years to fully measure.
But they shape everything — from who leads our companies to who builds (or breaks) our communities
It’s time we recognized that motherhood isn’t a break from leadership.
It’s one of the deepest forms of it.
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