S3 E49: Creating social change to prevent burnout
with journalist Katherine Goldstein
Key Takeways
I really felt everyone had the working mom thing figured out except for me. And I was just like personally defective; there was just something specifically wrong with me. And then I started to turn my journalistic curiosity towards the topic of working mothers. There wasn't a lot of mainstream media thinking, exploring complex, social or economic or cultural forces in motherhood, it was really about tips and tricks and, personal essays by like very privileged white ladies. Why wasn't it being covered with like journalistic seriousness and rigor?
Especially in America, like there's a lot of social conditioning that goes into mothers feeling like it's our fault and feeling like this is a personal problem to solve. American culture is a lot about individualism and we promote myths that if you work hard, everything's gonna work out for you. And we don't talk enough about the systemic barriers that people face, whether that's race or class or motherhood.
I think some of us have had the experience of having kids in difficult work environments and looked up and said how come nobody made this easier? Why is this still so hard? Weren't the second wave feminist, weren't they supposed to have taken care of all this for us. And then realizing that's very much not the case. And I think I do feel like there's a lot more of a mindset of this was so hard for me, how do I make it easier for other people? Rather than just saying well I suffered, so you should too.
I feel like that is definitely a lot of the activism that we see in the US around changing workplace policies and also, getting policies like paid family leave at the federal level is much more sort of awareness that like, things are not gonna get better for anyone if we don't make it better for the people who come after us. So I definitely feel a little hopeful that some of that mentality is changing.
I've learned is that a lot of times when we look at all the social problems that we face it's very easy to feel overwhelmed or like, how can I ever make such an important change because there's so many issues? Or, I've already called my Senator. My Senator isn't gonna do anything or my senator's already supporting this and it just can feel overwhelming to make change. And I really believe that small changes are actually really big and that making changes in the local community and the community level are really important.
Groups of women getting together and making a case together, not one individual person on their own following their own path without any support. Getting a community together, to focus on an issue and sticking with it. And, social change takes a long time. And I think sometimes we feel like in our culture, like if you're not seeing results in a few weeks or a few months, it's not worth it. But I've seen groups of women get together and make really effective cases for better paid family leave in their workplaces.
Not being willing to accept no, getting a community together and finding whatever the issue is that is most important to you. It could be related to schools. It could be related to environment. It could be related to universal pre-K or paid family leave. And just sticking with it, cos social change happens on very long timelines and so it's worth sticking with things. Rather than one squeaky wheel of someone complaining, getting critical mass of people saying we want this change, I think is super effective in corporate environments.
we need people with power, AKA business leaders and CEOs to start advocating for us and to make the purely economic case, because the economic case is very much there, both in the short term for the economy and the long term. Again telling Joe Mansion, stories about people suffering, isn't working to make this happen. Just trying to leverage pressuring our own corporate leaders or business organizations to fight for this, I think is just another way to think about it. I'm just so frustrated that we are now, two years into this pandemic and we still don't have some very basic social safety nets in place.
We've also talked about our own mental health journeys. And I think that really resonated with people. I think, vulnerability, honestly, when people feel like there's a vulnerability with our guests that they connect with, even if their life experience is different, that's often what really resonates. One of my favorite pieces of feedback on our show is that it helps people feel less alone.
Change does not happen overnight. Good public policy doesn't just materialize out of the sky or come from a vacuum, like good public policy is also about culture change. And one of the things that does make me optimistic is the role of fathers in caregiving and the transparency about fathers wanting to be caregivers wanting paid family leave has really changed dramatically. There are some culture changes afoot that are important and powerful.
Culture change starts at the top. So prominent leaders taking parental leave is really important. Studies have also found that paternity leave is contagious. It's like the best contagion out there. Once, one person, especially someone in a position authority of power takes leave a lot more people will do it. Being brave to be an early adopter on that is really important.
I think it's hard because I think especially people whose work is mission driven the line and the feelings around burnout are really complicated because I would say I'm very much as dedicated as ever to my mission. We're all burnt out on what's happening in the world. The world is just like such a dumpster fire. We're all burnt out from that. Sometimes when I'm feeling really down, I delete all the social media on my phone and don't look at the news for a whole weekend. And then I'm like, oh things are much better. I have no idea what's going on. And then that helps. So those are some small strategies.
My husband and I both give each other personal retreats twice a year to get away and, do whatever we want during those times. And that has been really crucial for my mental health during the pandemic. And also, gives you a sense of like rejuvenation with work.
I'm really focused on right now is basically in capitalism, our most precious commodity is time. I really think for moms finding their community and investing in a community, whatever it is, if it's reconnecting with college friends or finding some moms in your area that feel like you can really trust, finding help, finding your people and connecting with the community, I think really helps with so many of these domino issues to not feel alone and to have people you can turn to because we can't survive American motherhood alone.
A lot of companies recognize that people are struggling and some have a lot of top down ideas for how to fix it. I think that companies should be doing a lot of listening and I would really challenge companies to reframe who caregivers are. So I think that there's an idea that there's some people who are caregivers that need special accommodations, but I think companies should start thinking of everyone is gonna have caregiving responsibilities at some point in their life. How do we make work environments that support people in all stages of their life as caregivers?
Bio
Katherine Goldstein is a journalist who’s written articles on mothers at work, issues facing caregivers and gender equity for The NYTimes, TIME, WashPost, Vox, The Guardian and more.
She’s a Harvard Nieman Journalism fellow, consultant, and public speaker and the creator of The Double Shift newsletter, podcast and community. Her research and reporting has been supported by The Ford Foundation. She’s been an instructor at The Harvard Extension School and has held leadership positions at HuffPost, Slate and Condé Nast.
She lives in Durham, NC with her husband and three young children, including pandemic twins.
Links to Additional Resources
