Work, Parent, Thrive

September 5, 2022
Psychologist Schonbrun debuts with a helpful look at how to achieve satisfaction as a working parent. Citing data from 2020 that 60% of married couples with children were both employed, Schonbrun writes that having two demanding roles—at work and as a parent—can leave caretakers overwhelmed. But parents have a “vast and often untapped power” within their grasp, and to help them access it, the author offers advice for establishing a “work-family enrichment mindset” (by, for example, asking oneself “How does each role strengthen skills in the other?”), taking notice of words that frame working parenthood negatively (describing it with terms such as “conflict,” “unfair,” or “impossible”), and finding meaning in mundane tasks (“Locating some pleasure in vacuuming has noticeably shifted my obstacles to vacuuming”). By weaving together examples from her own and other parents’ lives, Schonbrun creates an effective guide to viewing both working and parental roles as symbiotic and mutually strengthening: “Acknowledging that we simply cannot be all in to either parenthood or work when we are actively engaged in both can help us set (and then regularly reset) realistic expectations,” she writes. This will be a balm for overwhelmed working parents.