There are many paths to parenthood; regardless of how one gets there, bringing kids into our world is life-changing. One path often overlooked in the workplace is becoming a stepparent since it doesn’t involve parental leave.
We interviewed Jen Allen-Knuth, a former sales leader at Gartner and Challenger, newlywed and new stepparent to four kids, about how expanding her family has helped her gain clarity and confidence about her career.
For the first 20 years of her career, Jen tied her personal success to where she was in her career:
“My job was how I assigned my self-worth. My job was how I felt about myself. If I was performing well, I would feel great about myself. If I was performing poorly, I was a mess.”
But a lot changed for Jen when she met her now husband, who has four kids ages 9-15 and she became a stepparent.
It can still be difficult, but she intentionally tries not to fall into the same routine with work because time with her family is important to her. She still wants to set a great example for her children with work; but she no longer lets work be the definition of her self worth.
After decades spent raising the bar for herself and chasing the next thing as a career-obsessed woman, she realized two important things. She learned that continuing with that mindset would leave her unfulfilled and she simply wanted to spend more time with her kids:
“It's 3:30pm, your kids bust through the door, they want to see you, they're excited to tell you about their day…And so as stupid and silly as it sounds, it's like that door kicking open was a really good alert for me,” she said. “Like I've been staring at a computer screen for six hours and haven't left the house.”
As a working stepparent who has given both 100% to her job and 100% to her kids, what has Jen learned about striking the balance? Here are some of the top learnings from our conversation:
On letting work define you: “I try to be intentional about not falling into that same trap now because I have something else that matters to me so much. It's not to say I don't care about working. It's not to say I don't wanna set a great example for my children of working. I just don't want work to be the defining thing of how I assign myself worth.”
On how parenting helped her find career clarity: “Is this me conceding to motherhood and like motherhood takes all the things away that are important to you? And then I realized it really wasn't that. This is really what I want to spend time doing. When you feel two things pulling apart from each other, I think you naturally go where you want to spend more time.”
On raising teenagers: “I think teenagers are really cool because you start to see them showing who their future selves will be…It’s super, super cool - particularly with girls.”
On setting boundaries and taking time for herself: “I would say I'm terrible with boundaries. I tend to have this really critical point of view about myself, like, well, I should be doing this instead of that. That's where I think the partnership has really been helpful between my husband and me; it reminds me of things that I probably should be telling myself to begin with.”
On growing the next generation of female sales experts: “Eventually, I'm gonna get really old and crusty and dusty, and I'm not gonna write on LinkedIn anymore, and I'm not gonna do podcasts. And I want there to be a massive line of people ready to take that over.”
To celebrate all we’ve accomplished, our team shared what they’re most proud of since joining the team:
I'm most proud of how much we have done to improve the single hardest moment for women's careers (going on parental leave) ... one that is often shrouded in insecurity and fear. We've been able to help advocate for so many women (and men!) in a way that is empowering and truly life-changing.
What am I most proud of? Growth! Growing a category of support that didn't exist before Parentaly. Growing from a one-woman bootstrapped operation to a global team of 25+ employees and coaches. Growing our overall impact for working parents, with companies investing in our parental leave programming to support employees all over the world. And growing as humans: new babies, new friends, new life experiences... all while tackling new and exciting work challenges together.
When I reflect on what I am personally most proud of during my time here, it's working alongside a team where we constantly evolve and optimize everything that we do in order to deliver the best possible experience for the folks going through our programs. It sounds cheesy, but there are processes that my team and I used to do 100% manually that are now completely automated and systems in place that have become second nature to how we operate. Working with such thoughtful, smart, and creative people is incredible.
I’m most proud about doing work that makes parents feel confident and empowered about their careers during a time that can be overwhelming and challenging – not only for our clients and users who go through Parentaly’s programs, but also with our advocacy work on LinkedIn, through our podcast and other big campaigns that make a difference. It’s been pretty rewarding to build a brand people know and love because what we’re doing resonates with so many employees’ experiences in the workforce.
I am so proud of the way we've approached growth with such care and intentionality - with every adjustment we've made to our offerings, we've never lost sight of our goal to provide the most supportive and valuable experience for our users. I love looking back on the early stages of conversations and building that have led us to the experience we offer today. Personally, I am extremely proud of the work I've done to scale and automate our backend!
I am most proud of the work we do every single day to make a positive impact on working parents! Everyday I get to work with an amazing group of people…we work hard but we also have fun.
I'm proud of scaling an employee experience that consistently delivers positive outcomes for new parents and their organizations. Our north star has always been the user, and we never sacrifice our high quality bar!
I feel a sense of pride that I get to work behind the scenes supporting everyone. I’m proud to see all of the collaboration between the team and how Parentaly positively impacts employees.
I'm most proud of going through the Parentaly program myself! I'm so proud to work for and promote this company in a time where parental leave and supportive policies are at the forefront of a national conversation. But beyond this, I'm most proud to call myself a participant.
I’m really proud of the work I did to expand our coaching bench globally at Parentaly. It was so rewarding, not to mention insightful, to connect with talented coaches from around the globe. This expansion not only enriched our coaching offerings but also strengthened our commitment to making a meaningful impact on families all over the world.
I have tremendous pride in the knowledge that what I am doing will change the career landscape for new parents, particularly mothers. This will make it more likely that my daughter can have a career AND a family without worrying about the unintentional negative impact of taking parental leave. Nothing makes me prouder than that.
In my short time at Parentaly, I'm proudest of the work we're doing with our clients' ERG groups to elevate the stories and advice of actual working parents. It's such an impactful way to spread the word about Parentaly as an essential resource for all people growing their families, and the managers who support them!
I'm most proud about using LinkedIn to connect with others. I was recently able to share a helpful return to work doc with 50+ new people looking to make a difference at their company. Was pretty cool that people from Chewy, McDonald's, Honda, Cisco, AWS, Walmart and more want to integrate just a piece of what we have to offer. Also...I'm so proud of the way I feel as an employee at Parentaly. For the first time in my career my personal interests align with my professional interests and I've never felt more motivated.
I'm really proud of being able to help the Experience team by handling the supportive functions so they can focus on the bigger picture. It feels great to know that I’m making things easier for them and contributing to the team’s success.
Tune in to the full episode of The False Tradeoff!
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Amanda Goetz is a single mom of three and successful marketing leader, formerly at The Knot. We chatted about her working parent journey.
Blessing Adesiyan, CEO and founder of MH WorkLife, believes that if parents have better support and affordable childcare, they can achieve anything.
Women aren’t always set up to succeed in the workplace - especially once they have children. But looking back on previous generations, we can really take stock of our progress.
Monthly updates on our newest resources, podcast episodes and must-know news and stories related to parental leave.
