I’m the Working Daughter of a Working Mother

On International Women’s Day this year, Egon Zehnder hosted a series of truly inspiring panels entitled Leaders & Daughters. These panels took place in fifteen global cities and brought together 1200 women leaders and their daughters. These events went beyond simply underscoring the role that professional mothers play in the lives of the next generation of women leaders, going on to decipher for all of us these mothers’ deep wisdom. My friends with daughters attended the Leaders & Daughters meeting in Istanbul together. Though I do not have a daughter, the sincere discussions and emotional environment took me back to my past, as well.

Imagine for a moment a society in which daughters are raised solely to get married and become mothers; in which women’s working and earning income are “tolerated” so long as there is financial need for it (because it can only be rationalized as an option in such circumstances). Despite the fact that my mother belonged to a generation that believed exactly this, she managed to become a professional woman who benefited both materially and emotionally from her work. Throughout my years as a student, I was always one of only a handful of people whose mothers and fathers both worked. I think this was a wonderful thing; to me, as my “mother’s daughter,” this situation seemed entirely normal and natural.

The fact that my mother was a working woman was without a doubt one of the most influential factors in my life. Another was the fact that my father always made me and my sister feel like smart, valuable and equal individuals. These Leaders & Daughters meetings gave many women like me an opportunity to emotionally connect with their relationships to their parents, their children and especially their daughters.

Like it or not, our parents color and shape our world views, our relationships, our marriages, our relationships with our own children, our profession—in fact, our entire lives.

Mother-daughter relationships are even more important, as those daughters will grow up to become the mothers of the next generation. This is the reason the theme of Leaders & Daughters is so powerful. Just as sons connect what it means to be a man with their fathers, daughters learn to become women by looking at their mothers. As I listened to women in these meetings, it occurred to me that daughters spend their lives going back and forth between wanting to be anything but their mothers and wanting to be their mother’s daughters. In the end, though, we become the women we are through their example. Even if some of us talk about how much we fight with our mothers at times, we all end up resembling our mothers in one way or another. We give shape to our lives, our families and our children’s lives with the seeds they planted in us. This continues from generation to generation.

Deep down, women are aware of this power.

Of course, each working mother is different, just as each homemaker is different. However, there is ample research showing that a mother’s working increases the sense of identity and respect in her children. In particular, research shows us that daughters of working mothers display increased academic success, increased desire to have careers themselves, and increased respect for the role of women in societal life.

Lois Hoffman’s research additionally shows that working mothers encourage their children to be more independent, which has a positive impact on the children’s self-esteem.

As another example, Professor Adrianne Frech shows that mothers who continue working outside the home after giving birth report higher levels of happiness. Financial independence and social interactions in the workplace can reduce the potential stress experienced by young mothers. Thus, every strong women discovers her own core values and decides for herself what type of mother she will be. (I have written about this before—why should we feel guilty?)

When it comes to women entering the workplace and excelling, the messages they receive from their mothers while growing up play an instrumental role. (This is true for fathers, too, of course, but mothers have more influence as their daughters’ direct role models.) The conditioning we receive as children is a crucial determinant in how well we are prepared for adult life, how much we excel in our professional lives from which we receive both material and physical support, and how well we are able to create a work-life balance for ourselves.

The wisdom that emerged from Egon Zehnder’s global panels is quite clear.

The panels showed once more that women are forced to make difficult choices between their careers and their families, but they emphasized that this is not the result of women’s confusion. It is instead the result of insufficient physical support for women’s many responsibilities related to their children and homes. When women begin their careers, they are sufficiently enthusiastic, ambitious and disciplined. When proper conditions exist, women desire a career and a family and a personal life, and they manage to achieve this. All they need is the opportunity.

Because women are programmed to be more accommodating, they are positioned at home and at work to ask not what they will be able to do, but rather what can be reasonably and plausibly accomplished. These limitations affect their visions and illustrate what they have been taught in life, especially at home. When mothers tell their daughters how high they can fly, their daughters soar. Later in life, the limitations set by women’s spouses affect the choices they make and the tone of the music they add to life. (You can access the Egon Zehnder report here and read the inspirational tweets from the initiative here.)

This is the message from professional women and their daughters from all over the world, which we are able to hear thanks to Egon Zehnder: Work that gives us joy and satisfaction means a happy life. Career satisfaction comes when we find “that job” that inspires us and lets us devote ourselves in pursuit of a goal, work passionately and succeed. This is true for men and women alike. When people can maintain their curiosity, their motivation to learn, their flexibility, their ability to act and their entrepreneurial spirit, nothing can hold them back.

On the other hand, no one can accomplish this by themselves. This is why people should reach out to help others overcome challenges, succeed and realize their dreams—mother to daughter, spouse to spouse, person to person. As we succeed and advance, we should feel this responsibility even more and pass it on to those coming after us. This is the only way we can achieve positive development.

I agree with this fully and whole-heartedly.

Motherhood is a great joy. Ignore what you might hear; you can absolutely have a career and be a fabulous mother. On that note, happy belated mother’s day to all the women (mothers or not) who carry the love, affection and creativity of motherhood within them, as well as to all the men who have been mothers as well as fathers to their children and siblings.