Q: What specific preparations have you made to enable you to give the best to your kid?

Its still a work in progress. In India, all of it is very simple. You have a lot of wanted (and unwanted) advice pouring in. In US its very systematic. We still don’t know what to buy for the kid. We are still figuring it out. When you have a budget, but want to make sure that you are buying the best, it gets really difficult. I get drained and exhausted searching through the online stores, then you have to check it out in the store (just to be sure). There is house work and office work. For instance, we need to buy a crib/car seat. We may need a nanny or my parents (so we need to plan their travel) to help me out. Also, I am moving into a new role in January so things will change.

Q: What motivates you to come to work and do you plan to continue to work?

I enjoy my work. What I do and not the same work but new challenges and new environment. It has its fun — getting to learn something new, meeting new people. I believe everyone needs something in their lives which makes living meaningful. Sometimes, when I see my mother, it quite disappointing. After the marriage of her daughters, her life seems to have lost the purpose. We try to motivate her to pick up a new skill or learn something new. Since she has learnt about the baby, she has picked up knitting as a hobby, it makes me feel happy about her, in a way. So, yeah, I plan to continue to work! I may change the working style a bit. Since my company has a remote work policy, I may work remotely for next 2 years.

Q: What is the maternity leave policy at your workplace?

California’s Paid Family Leave (PFL) allows upto 6 weeks of paid leave. The law mandates a minimum pay of 55%. My company actually pays 65% of the total earning. If the delivery is C-section you can take upto 2 months PFL. but there is a remote employee option.

Q: Did you consider changing job? Do you regret your decision to stick around?

Actually I did and I had an offer from a new company which I was about to consider, when I found out about the pregnancy. The main reason I wanted to change was salary. Also, new projects that were coming in were not challenging. But I found out that I was expecting, I chose to not take the offer. Its difficult to stay onsite for the whole day when one is pregnant. Its like you are not at your highest productivity and in the new company there are new challenges, you need to prove yourself. In my present job, people know me and they have seen me work at the best of my potential. They would back me up in times, also with changes in the management, I started getting new projects. So, no regrets!

Q: What is a typical day for you look like for you now and how do you expect it to change?

These days because of the health I am not 100% productive all the time. Sometimes I rest in the day so I work late to compensate. Somedays I am very active and other days I am not. The feeling is different for every women. Generally, farther you are in pregnancy, the more you are tired.

Q: How do you expect to keep up with your peers after you’ve been on a leave?

I am on probationary Technical Lead position, it was already in process before I declared I was pregnant. I was expecting promotion in October, since I am going for vacation in October now, I hope I will be promoted in December. I am knowingly choosing a slow career. I am not trying to take any additional responsibility. I don’t have the time or energy. Completing even forty hours a week is a challenge. I am aware that it affects my career but its worth it. After my daughter is 1 year, I will work towards getting back on track.

Q: What advice do you have other women in the Tech field, how can they prepare themselves?

Well, for the first five months don’t worry, just hang in there, it is quite early for anything. Actually, I didn’t feel a single thing after I found a positive pregnancy test. Mentally nothing had changed, physically yes changes were happening. But I didn’t feel the baby bonding at that time. I feel a lot good now. Yesterday, when I had beard papa and she started moving inside, it was a great feeling. She got the sugar high! Make sure you understand the challenges that are going to come up. Plan your day around the baby. I have another colleague, she doesn’t work for 8 hours straight. She works for two or three hours and takes a break, then another two hours. She works for a total of eight hours.

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

To-be-Techmom: Rashmi was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

She is really passionate about her job. As you would gather from her LinkedIn profile, she has over a decade of experience as a DBA, but she just recently became a mother. I had an opportunity to talk to her about experiences as a professional mother.

I have broken this post into two pieces. In this one we talk how she prepared herself for this responsibility without letting her career fall behind. In the follow up post we talk about how she manages her work responsibility with a child at home.

Q: How did you prepare yourself for the change? What books/blogs/advice/quotes do you remember that motivated you during the time?

• Networking can be really helpful. Most of my friends are in the education and healthcare industry. I didn’t have (at that time) a lot of women in technology in my circle.
• I found the Motherboard podcast, and it was really helpful. Kathryn Rotondo interviews moms at startups about their experiences while pregnant, on leave, returning, and once settled in, and it helped give me a lot of perspective.
• Also I had a valuable experience at Yelp years before I became pregnant. Our CEO, Jeremy, had presented for our company a fireside chat with Mariam Naficy, founder of Minted.com and one of our board members. He asked her questions about the maternity leaves she took, and how she returned to work. It was the first time I had gotten to hear a woman’s experience around taking leave from and returning to a startup, and it was incredibly valuable.
• I have learned a ton from the Yelp Moms group, and encourage any woman to reach out to those around her and build a network for learning from each other and support.

Q: Do you have some advice on how to choose a daycare/pre-school/baby sitter? When to choose a nanny or daycare?

• It is a very personal choice. After taking a “Choosing Infant Care” class at Bananas in Oakland, I found my baby sitter through Care.com. I feel so fortunate to have her. She takes my daughter to the Library, Parks, various activities, and texts me with updates and pictures through the day.
• Fortunately, I’ve had the experience of interviewing and hiring before. That experience helped me a lot when I was interviewing nannies. I think I did 15 phone interviews, had 4 people over to meet me in person, and shortlisted two. My husband met with the last two candidates, and our nanny was the obvious choice at the end.
• I highly recommend Children’s Council in SF, or Bananas in the East Bay as resources for choosing childcare. They both have classes and offer childcare referral services.
• In general, a nanny is an employee you manage. They’re in your home, and it’s worth it for everyone to think about how you want to handle it.

Q: How did you find out about the various benefits that you were entitled to as an expecting mother? How was that experience?

• Yelp has an HR team. At the time of my pregnancy, there was a maternity leave policy and process all women taking leave went through. It was very smooth.
• There are a lot of parents at Yelp, but I was the first woman in the San Francisco Engineering team who was embarking on this journey. Yelp as an organization has been very supportive. Based on the feedback I had for Mother’s room, changes were made almost immediately!
• When I joined after the leave, I was feeling isolated. My manager suggested to start a Yelp Moms group. I co-founded the group, and I feel so happy about it. I have gotten to know so many mothers in our organization through this group.
• This is the amazing things about our Yelp culture, it’s collaborative and friendly.

Q: What advice do you have other women, how to create a healthy environment at home for both your kid and spouse, your relationship and yourself?

Professional moms coming back from leave: Don’t be hard on yourself. It takes time to be an expert. Trying something new is hard. Your code doesn’t compile the first time, it’s ok for there to be some mistakes along the way. At a couple of my new parents classes, I was always told: When you are on an airplane, attendants tell you that oxygen masks will come down on their own if the plane loses cabin pressure. There is the clear instruction: “Please put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.” You can’t be too self-sacrificing. If you don’t take care yourself then you can’t take care of your child. Through the Yelp moms group, I have found so many moms in different verticals within Yelp. I’ve gotten a lot of great insight and advice from them, and have hopefully helped others.

Read on to find out how she juggles between her work and family responsibility and maintains the work-life balance.

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

Jenni on Preparing to be a Mother was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I had an opportunity to talk to her about experiences as a professional mother.

In the previous post, we talked how she prepared herself for this responsibility without letting her career fall behind. In this post we talk about how she manages her work responsibility with a child at home.

Q: What was your role in the company when you discovered you were expecting? Did it affect your current work or future assignments?

• Yelp is a pretty flat engineering organization,and my title has been MySQL DBA the whole time I’ve been here, and I love my work.
• I was the first DBA, but the team has grown; we even hired a new team member while I was out on leave!
• When I found out that I was expecting and I told my manager, he was incredibly supportive. We kept the lines of communication open. We planned for me to write up documentation and pass off projects before I went on leave..
• Since we had great team, I was quite confident, and knew that critical work would be taken care of. I knew that everything would be taken care of, and took my maternity leave in peace.

Q:How did you prevent yourself from lagging behind your peers during this time?

• I did know that some things would certainly change while I was on leave. There was a large puppet refactor while I was away that I had to familiarize myself with, but it was a good learning experience, and I’m glad it was done.
• In the grand scheme of things, three months is a very small period of time. We don’t work at a breakneck pace. There isn’t competition between colleagues, and we have reasonable expectations that re-boarding from maternity leave takes a little time.
• As long as communication is clear, everything works out. All of my team knew that I am definitely coming back, they know that I love my job and I wouldn’t be gone for long.

Q: What is your typical workday and weekend like? I bet it would have changed drastically since you have become a parent.

• Engineers typically tend to stay for later hours in the day and come in late in the morning. My standard hours are 8–4. This enables my husband to do morning handoff to our nanny and in the evening I can take over from her.
• I try to manage my inbox and list out the important things for the day. This allows me really focus on 2–3 things and leaves time for interruptions.
• As my daughter is only 15 months old, feeding her is really important. So, I cook something for her around 6 in the evening. In morning we breakfast together, she loves green smoothies.
• Sometimes, I do come in online later. As she gets to bed around 7 PM and gets up around 6:30. I have around 12 hours to myself and my partner.

Q: On a related note, given that you’re a DBA, there would be on call duties associated with it.. Do you find time to get back to work from home?

Actually I am on call today!

But yeah, we are first responders to alerts during the day, and the European operations team takes over at night. So, the shifts are broken up, and that makes it easier. Also, our team follows good devops practices. For the DBA monitors, we have lots of automated responses, and Runbooks for operators to follow when someone does get paged. And, when I do get paged, my my husband is happy to take my daughter out for a walk. He’s in software engineering too, and knows that’s how it goes.

Q: When you have to stay for longer duration in office or have offsites, how do you manage with your family waiting at home for you?

• I try to limit my after hours work activities to one night every two weeks or so. My daughter is a ton of fun, and I want to balance being home with her, special alone nights with my husband, and work activities as much as possible.
• We have one regular baby-sitter, but we maintain relationship with others as well. In reality, sometimes even the regular childcare falls through, and we’re lucky to have my parents and mother-in-law nearby if we need extra help.
• We had a Yelp Moms group lunch at the office once, and my colleague had great advice. She said: “Don’t have one baby sitter, have five”. I’m working on building up that network now.

Q: Do you approve of this divide that we have as a society for working/stay-at-home moms? We don’t see this being a question for dads. What according to you can help us rise over this deep-rooted ideology?

Society does unfairly judge women, even by asking this question. Traditionally, the perception was that child suffers when mom works, but recent studies have shown that children raised in the household with working moms grow up to respectful for women and are more independent.

The intellectual stimulation I get from my work is very fulfilling. I didn’t particularly feel successful when I was home alone with my newborn all day; I was still adapting. The kind of satisfaction I get from having solved a difficult problem is hard to come by from changing diapers, but this is my experience, and it’s different for everyone.

We need to let women decide for themselves whether to work or stay at home, but today there is a lot of imbalance that doesn’t always make it a fair choice.

Q: Given an option to stay-at-home and enjoy being a mom for your kids, would you leave your job?

As I said, I really enjoy my job here — the problem solving, feeling successful, working with others, and growing. Perhaps, when my daughter is older and my time with her is more valuable, I will look for greater flexibility, but it’s fine now.

Read Jenni’s advice on how to prepare yourself to be a good mother.

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

Jenni on Work-Life Balance was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Q: What is your take on the stay-at-home vs working-mom debate?

I have several friends who are stay-at-home moms and I have a lot of respect for them. These women have chosen to stay back home, prioritize their family and children and really pour their all into it. In some cases they grew up dreaming of being a mom, they are living their dreams- and they are doing an amazing job.

For me, being a mom is one of the most important pieces of my personal identity, but so is my role as a PR professional. I cherish family time, but in a way, work also provides me with a break from the daily home life and an opportunity to stimulate another side of my personality.

Obviously, it doesn’t always come down to what one has aspired to though. Sometimes, the cost of childcare exceeds one spouse’s income. In that case, many couples may decide it makes financial sense for one parent to stay-at-home. Which parent chooses to stay, in my opinion is something spouses need to talk about and should not be tied to gender. It depends on the personality type too. It is a personal choice. My career is very fulfilling and satisfying for me. I love being a mother, but I also love being a PR professional. I’m fortunate that financial circumstances enable me to be both.

Q: When you have had a really bad day at work, how do you deal with the stress?

I try to remind myself to pause and, instead of focusing on the elements that are causing me stress, choose to look for the little things that inspire me or bring a smile to my face. My son is an incredible source of joy for me. He’s at an age where his personality is in full-bloom, and his world, while sometimes frustrating, isn’t as complicated as we adults see it. Wherever I can, I try to involve him in the things I “have” to do at home. We turn trips to the grocery store into a learning experience — picking out new fruits and veggies together that we can then come home and cook. When I’m cooking, I give him a stool, a mini cutting board and some toddler friendly kitchen utensils so he can “help.” It turns mundane household chores into quality, fun time with him and makes him feel like he’s an important, contributing member of the household.

That said, we all have those days where you come home completely depleted, frustrated, in a bad mood — and it takes focus to not let that seep out and impact the family. On those days my husband is great about pouring a glass of wine and letting me talk it out, or taking over at home so I can go run it out.

When all else fails, we’ll eat dinner, then pile into bed to watch a cartoon before my son goes to bed. It’s hard to still feel grumpy after an episode of Curious George with my family.

These activities are big stress busters for me!

Q: So how old is your son? Does it get easier when children get older?

He’s three years old now, and what I’ve learned is each stage is both more difficult and more rewarding than the last. He’s starting to explore and test his independance. Some days I’m blown away by how much he now understands and retains, other days I’m reminded his emotional development is just beginning, and trying to explore that independence when his verbal and fine-motor skills are still developing and adults are frequently redirecting him, can be frustrating. But seriously, whoever decided to nickname age two “The Terrible Two’s” clearly hadn’t had a three-year-old yet.

In terms of being a working mom. I always thought my hardest day would be the first day I dropped him off at daycare, but my hardest moment to-date came years later once he started to understand where I was during the day. The morning he looked at me and said “Mommy please don’t go to work, I want you to stay with me.” was tough. But I’m also simultaneously reminded that this is the right decision for me and my family when my son looks at me and says “Mommy, you’re my superhero.” He’ll grow up understanding that it’s important in a family and relationship, to know who you are and stay true to that. My hope is that understanding will help prepare him to be a supportive spouse and successful professional and father (should he choose that path). When my daughter gets here, I hope to provide an example for both of them that they can be whoever, and whatever they aspire to.

Q: So, daycare/preschool/babysitter is the most important decision. How do you choose one or the other?

I would start by saying that this is a very personal decision and depends on your preferences. Some people love nannies, others prefer in home daycares, while others feel more comfortable with larger, more regulated centers. The most important consideration first and foremost is the staff. If you aren’t comfortable with the person or team, leaving your little one will be nearly impossible.

For us, we wanted something that offered some structure, where there is a schedule and routine for our son, but where children are still encouraged to learn and explore through play. Because we’re both full-time professionals, we also needed a facility with dependable schedules and hours. We found one that provides that, with a team of teachers that my son, my husband and I truly love and appreciate.

Q: What is your advice for your fellow women — who are parents or soon-to-be parents?

Don’t be too hard on yourself. It is difficult at the start, but you will adjust to the new normal and rise to the occasion. You would be surprised by how you adapt, and how much you can actually accomplish in any given day.

Be strategic with your time. Be selective with how you spend your free time. Find people who you can relate to or who relate to you — other parents in your company (mentor-rings or lean-in circles) or local parents groups can be great resources. Remember through all of this, it’s not just about working mothers — we need to support working fathers as well. Balancing work and family-life is challenging, and in my experience, those challenges are not always gender specific.

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

Perspective of a Working Mom: Crystal was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Simla Ceyhan, is a Senior Manager of Data Science for Content at LinkedIn. She has nine years of experience in Data Science as a researcher, graduate student and then in the industry as an individual contributor and as a manager. She is a mother to a one and half year old son and is expecting another baby in three months.

Q: You have an extensive experience as an academic. What made you come to the industry?

When I did an Internship at LinkedIn in 2010, I realized that I actually enjoyed being in the industry.

Working in teams of people from diverse background. I enjoyed working with people from different teams and owning a piece of a bigger project.

I felt academia gets a little slow paced and lonely. As a doctoral student, I was working on a project with one other student and a project advisor. We had one weekly meeting.

I felt I would be happier with more interaction in a fast paced, dynamic environment.

Q: How do you compare industry with academics in terms of parent-friendliness?

I can’t comment on that conclusively, as I don’t have the experience as a mother in academia. From what I have understood after talking to some of my friends:

• Academia offers more flexibility in terms of working hours.
• You are not required to work from nine to six and can manage your time around more productive hours. However lucrative it is, it can get just as distractive.
• You think you can push back work, which in turn means you don’t get the right amount of time for research.

Sometimes, fixed work hours are an advantage as I focus on work during the limited work hours and after that I only focus on my family and my son.

Q: What is your typical day like? Do you find time for yourself?

My day starts around 6:30 in the morning, when my son wakes up. We read books and play a little bit and then eat breakfast all together. I deeply care about family having meals together. I get that from my mom, I was not that particular about it before my son was born.

We usually leave home by 8. After dropping my son at the daycare, I reach office by 9.

One thing that has changed in my day is that I generally grab lunch and eat in a meeting or while checking emails to take advantage of the full day.

I leave the office by 5 as I have to pick up my son from the daycare. We come home, play with my son and prepare dinner by seven.

He sleeps early around 8:30 after the dinner. So, I have the time after he goes to bed for my husband and myself. We sometimes watch a movie or read our books.

The time I have just for myself is definitely limited compared to before I was pregnant. My husband helps me out a lot with the daily chores and getting work done. We are a great team.

Q: Are there times when you are solving a difficult problem and it goes home with you? Do you get time to ponder on the challenge at home?

It sure happens. When it does, I get support from my husband. Since he is a Software Engineer too, he understands. There have been cases when there is some emergency related to work. Then, my husband takes care of our son so that I can focus on work.

In these situations, I always think how single moms handle it. My main support and help is from my husband and I feel very lucky about it.

Q: Data Science is a fast moving field, how do you keep up with new technologies and changes in the field?

I mostly use the time in the nights or the nap times on weekends to learn something new. If I feel learning something new is crucial for my career, I block time on my calendar during work to focus on it.

We have the concept of Indays at LinkedIn, where we get a day every month to work on something apart from work. I try to take advantage of Indays as well.

We get better at time management, when we know that the time we have is limited. Being a mom has made me so much better with time management and multitasking.

I personally like it, especially when I sit down with my young one, after a long tiring day, I am excited to see how he develops and changes everyday. I look forward to that part of my day. Also, you realize that problems at work get solved eventually.

Q: How do you think being a mother has affected your career? Do you think you are consciously taking less challenging projects because you know you are a mom?

Umm.. that’s an interesting question. I’ll need to think about that one…

You know, when I think about it, I don’t think I am consciously taking lesser challenging projects. Actually, I was asked to lead the data science team for content in San Francisco, while I was out on maternity leave.

The new office was coming up in San Francisco, and there was an opportunity to lead the data science team. I was not sure if I was ready to take this role, given that I would be joining office after three months, I would have a lot to catch up with already, then the responsibility of the new role, I was a bit scared.

My husband and I talked about it and with encouragement and support I decided to take this opportunity on an exploratory basis. I thought that this could be a good learning opportunity and if it doesn’t work, I can go back to being an IC. So I took the offer and I am glad I did.

First couple months were definitely challenging. But once you put everything together it has been a great journey thus far.

Q: You are expecting another child soon. How have you prepared yourself for the change? What are the changes you are making in your work and home schedule to keep up with the responsibility? How do you feel about it?

I am very excited, at the same time I feel a bit nervous.

I am trying to figure out what is the best way that my work continues to be done when I am gone, I am ironing out the details for that. At home there is additional work. We need to prepare the room for the baby.

I have been reading some books to prepare my son for his sibling. Making him understand that the attention of parents is going to be divided.

At LinkedIn we can take a total of four and half months. First six weeks are company paid leaves another six weeks from California disability leave. We can take another six weeks of unpaid leave.

Also, you can divide the leave in the first year. For example, I will be taking leave from two weeks before the due date and then another three months. Later when the baby is old enough to travel, I plan to take the leave for traveling to our home countries — Turkey and Greece — to introduce our baby to the extended family.

Q: If you are comfortable talking about breastfeeding and how you manage it while working?

Yes, I can talk about it. I was breastfeeding my son for the first year, for six months he was completely dependent on me.

The nurse told us that the first month is difficult for both mother and the son. Once you get used to it, I found it quite convenient. Since I started working after three months, it was another challenge. The lactation consultant advised us to start feeding breast milk to our baby through bottle, two weeks before I actually start work, so that he and I get used to it.

Pumping is not easy. It is time-consuming and I found it difficult when I had back-to-back meetings. I worked around it by blocking time on my calendar, so that I am not late for any meetings. These days there are a lot of tools that make your life easier, for example, you can respond to urgent emails from the mother’s room.

Q: What are the resources that you find helpful as a mother and mother-to-be?

My initial resource if I have a question is Babycenter. I highly recommend it! I started using it during pregnancy since it has weekly updates on the baby’s development and how your body changes during pregnancy. It also has a lot of great information about infants and toddlers and possible challenges you can face and solutions from teething to sleep training.

Another resource I really like is Penelope Leach’s book ‘Your baby and child, from birth to age five’. I definitely find myself going back to that book every now and then when I have questions in mind.

Q: How do you handle situations when you have a demanding day at work and suddenly your child gets sick? What would you want to have in this situation?

It definitely happens in the first year, especially when kids start the day care. There is a change in environment, they have company of other kids and so much to get adjusted to.

It is definitely difficult. When your kid is sick and you come to work, you can’t really focus on work. Therefore, I think of it as myself being sick.

At LinkedIn, we have ten days sick leave and I make use of it. I have to reschedule the meetings and send out a note to my team.

Thinking about it, there are other professions like teaching, where it would be much more challenging. You need to find substitutes. For us, as we work in a team, the work mostly gets taken care of. If you have a nanny at home, this is less of an issue.

I have friends who have nannies, when their child gets sick, they take good care of the kids. But you know, nannies get sick too, that is when it gets difficult for them.

Q: How did you find out a daycare and how is your experience?

I registered for the daycare when I was pregnant. Yes, there is a waitlist for daycares in San Francisco. You know high housing costs make it difficult for the daycare teachers to live in the city and for daycares to cover their costs as well. We decided on a daycare right across the street from my husband’s office, as we wanted him to be close to at least one of us.

I came to work when he was 3 months old. But he started daycare only in another three months. We were lucky as our parents could help us out for those three months.

Q: What is your advice to the fellow women in industry and academia?

Every mom, every person, every family is different. I think you should listen to your instincts.

Once you become a mom, the first couple of months are busy adjusting to all the changes. When you get back to work, again you need a little time to find the right balance.

When I was deciding to come back to work after the maternity leave, I had the dilemma. But I decided to give it a try for a couple of months as I wanted to explore and see for myself if it would work for me.

So, I think you should wait it out, at least for the first couple months before making any decision.

I think that the moms who are the happiest are the ones who have flexible working hours.

As a company, LinkedIn is very supportive of family. As long as you get your work done, how much time you sit in the office is immaterial. The company doesn’t care about the number of hours you stay in the office. Some days, you get to leave at early hours. I changed my working hours after I became a mom. I actually like this balance between being a mom and being in the workforce.

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

Data Scientist and Mother — Simla was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Seow Lim, creator of Povi

This is a story transformation. It’s a story about real life and how a crisis changed my life and inspired me on creating something out of it. Because of it, we are developing a solution to help to connect families that we will soon be sharing with lots of parents around the world.

But before that, here’s a bit of my background. I have been a high tech Silicon Valley executive for over 15 years. I am also a mom of two boys. Born in a middle income family in Malaysia, my parents always instilled the importance of academics in me. My life from 10 years old had been school, tutoring classes and extra-curricular activities. Excelling in academics had been the primary goals imposed for over first half of my life. And yes, I met my parent’s expectations: I have engineering degrees from Imperial College of London (UK) and Stanford University in California(USA).

I met my husband in Engineering school in London. He was my assigned lab partner the first day. Frankly, I hated him in the first year. I couldn’t tolerate this guy who is smarter than me academically, finished all his work earlier than me. In the second year, on the day of my birthday, I was miserably ill in bed. He knocked my dorm room door, walked in, sat beside my bed, handed me a red (yes believe me it was red) frog stuffed animal and said: “Happy birthday, hope this frog could one day turn into your prince.” … And that was the beginning of our love story.

We both were fortunate to be admitted by Stanford and arrived in the US for graduate school together. We met many great people, who are our best friends. We are happily married, have two beautiful boys 13 and 7. I have a very supportive husband who constantly encourage me to pursue successes in my career while juggling to be a ‘tiger’ mom.

During the first 10 years of my life as a mom, I had attempted to bring up my first child like how my parents had brought me up. I was very focused with making sure he learnt ABC and 123 as early as possible. I filled a whole room stuffed with educational toys, motor skills toys, puzzles etc. My older son lived up to my expectations. He won all Math competitions I entered him into. He designed games himself starting from 2nd grade.

However, when my son was in his 6th grade, my perfect life fell apart.

I was called in to meet with his school counselor. She looked into my eyes and said: “Your child is very smart but he is not happy”. How painful could that be? I couldn’t stop asking myself why I failed. I worked so hard to be the best mom ever. What mistakes had I made in the process?

The day after, I walked into my Senior VP office telling him that I need to leave my job. I just completed 2013 finalizing 5 acquisitions that grew the business from 200 people to 800, growing the business 6 times, I walked out from the promotion that I was waiting for, that I worked so hard for 1 ½ year for.

But, what’s more important in my life than ensuring that I can help my son to be happy? And if I had not done enough for him, I have to do more.

I bought all the best selling parenting books such as the The Whole-Brain Child(Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson) and Nurture Shock (Po Bronson). I read about the work that Professor John Heckmann had done with the Heckmann Equation, and Professor Angela Duckworth with Character Lab and the definition of character skills. I began to subscribe to all the well known parenting blogs like Aha Parenting, Huff Parents and ……. I am so grateful to these bloggers for sharing their experience and aggregating everyone else’s experience. I started to join Facebook mom groups to learn from other moms their experiences every day.

I also went to mom’s group meetings that I never had time to go when I was working full time. That’s when I began to realize that there is a lot more I can do as a parent than just focusing purely on academic success. I need to help him find more balance in his life. He needs to learn Emotional Intelligence, executive functions, self regulation and so on– to be able to recognize emotions, share emotions, more interactions. I need to help him manage his time better, balancing between academic, screen time, and interactions time. With all these learnings, and the fact that I am home at 3 PM to be with him every day, spending time having deeper conversations with him beyond how’s school, what’s homework, I am reaching out a lot more to his thoughts and feelings.

I listen to his likes and dislikes, his dreams; and start thinking about how to optimize for his dreams, versus trying to get him to walk my footsteps.With lots of help from the great teachers my child has in his school, I started adjusting his schedules, encouraging him into track and field; he is starting to realize his other talents beyond Math. He is actually a great sprinter. He is fast! Just within the last 1 ½ year, my son has improved. He is very self-motivated to do well academically, but at the same time, he is much more approachable socially and much more well-balanced. Most importantly, he is a lot happier!!

Throughout the whole time, I have also been looking for products like toys or software like the ones that I stuffed in my toy room, but focusing on Emotional Intelligence (EQ) development, helping kids learn emotions, learn executive functions, learn self control, develop more well-balanced lifestyle etc, but I couldn’t find any. I found the products in the market to be very focused on academic, motor skills development or pure fun and entertainment. Maybe other parents want and need these products too? I started online surveys of moms on the moms groups that I joined. I was pleasantly surprised that over 700 moms from all over the world had responded to my surveys.

I asked the questions like “Which developmental areas do you think you want to see better solutions in? Rank them”. Over 70% moms chose EQ and social skills, 60% chose good habits, only 7% chose academic, 7% chose motor skills. Yes, parents see the same issues too, and they want better products to help with EQ, social skills and good habits development!

I started a company. I know I wanted to do something that’s good for others. I had named the company AntWish. Ants are social animals and they work together closely to build stronger communities. I wish that whatever I make could help build stronger communities, hence the name.

We started with a mission: to help parents cultivate wholesome, well-balanced, happy and healthy children. We eventually brand our products Povi.

Povi didn’t start out like how it is today. Like every start up we had idea-ted, iterated multiple times and continued to refine our product market fit based on what parents and children tell us.

It’s a product that applies technology — so often a cause of disconnection in parents and kids’ lives — to facilitate stronger connection between them. More specifically, it is a plush toy powered by a crowd-sourced EQ content platform: it tells stories, written and curated by parents, teachers and psychologists online. The stories prompt conversations between parents and children that develop children’s social-emotional skills.

One might think that Povi is the latest in a long line of technological tools that take the place of human interaction, in this case for children. Yet instead of diminishing conversation and connection in a child’s life, it helps them flourish. It applies the Internet of things to become a conduit between a family and an ever-growing network of experts in children’s development. It enhances, but does not take over, conversation between kids and parents. And it gives children invaluable social-emotional tools with which to engage with the world as they grow up.

• To find out more about the Road to Povi, read my next blog. Before you go, LIKE us on Facebook!

I would love to give you a heads-up that we will be running a Kickstarter campaign on Tue, May 24, 2016. We would greatly appreciate your help to be one of our early backers to make Povi a reality.

You can choose to back our project for your family, a school, your team members at work or even non-profits.

We would greatly appreciate you also sharing this important message with whom you know will benefit from joining our community!

Thank you very much! Do email me at seowlim@povi.me to catch up anytime!

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

From a Tiger Mom to a Startup Founder Advocating Emotional Intelligence was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Disclaimer: These are just things that worked for Barbara. These are not intended to make any statement on this topic. She strongly feels this is a very personal matter and works out differently for everyone.

Rapid Fire

• Typical go to meal — I love to cook and buy things that are seasonal and market fresh. We go to Farmers Markets a lot.
• Your best friend when it comes to handling tantrums — My child is too grown up to throw tantrums now, but there are a few approaches from being firm to handling it through compassion depending on the situation. Trying to distract them, “Hey! what’s that in your hand?” is another solution.
• Biggest stress buster — Depends on the kind of stress. I like to run. Exercise is a good stress release. I mentioned it before but I love to cook too.

Excerpt of our chat

Q. How did being a mother affect your career? Do you think you are consciously taking less challenging projects because you know you are a mom?

No, I never held myself back because of being a mother. All of us have different capacities, unique work environments, positions, roles and responsibilities. However, you’ll be surprised, by the stamina you discover after you have a child. You can stay organized, efficient at time management and productive.

Q. What was your support structure like during and after your pregnancy?

It’s an individual choice and depends on your situation and finances. Try to get help when you can. Having a support network of friends and family helps a lot.

Q. What is that one thing that bothers you the most and you would want to fix in the system?

There are still biases in society, the workplace and in people’s minds. I think understanding the needs of not just mothers but parents in general would definitely help us.

Q. Do you face decision fatigue? Calling the shots at work and making decisions about the day-to-day trivial things like food, dress to non-trivial ones like kids school…

I don’t think I faced decision fatigue. But it’s important to take your time, get the right inputs and information. Also, it is good to surround yourself with the right people whom you can reach out to and whose advice can help make the right decision. You have to remember that decisions are not made in vacuum. Sometimes they are easy and sometimes they are not, but you make decisions all the day

Q. What drives to you be a working mom?

I never felt that my being a mother and my working were incompatible. I find it fulfilling. Usually the things I work on are things that I enjoy and am passionate about. And I love my child and being a mother. The key is to feel fulfilled. If you feel fulfilled, you will feel happy, and you will transfer that happiness to your relationships. And I think my working has provided positive experiences for my child too.

Q. What advice do you have other women, how to create a healthy environment at home for both your kid and spouse, your relationship and yourself?

If you can develop a good support network, it really helps. Especially as first time mothers, if possible, try and delegate. Make sure to create time and space for yourself too. And follow your intuition.

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

Meet Barbara, Technologist & Entrepreneur cum Mom was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Q: Let’s start with a personal question. Why and how did you decide to become a mother?

For majority of my adulthood I didn’t want to be a mother. Having a child was not super appealing to me as I wanted to travel and focus on career growth.

I’ve realized that having a kid is a miracle and meeting the right person makes a big difference…

If you never do it you would regret it. Also, it’s my way of contributing back to continuation of next generation and to humankind.

Q: How did you prepare yourself for this change? Any words of advice, books, blogs that you would recommend.

It’s a lot of fear and excitement, OMG and O’Shit! Sometimes, in the morning I forget that I am pregnant and I am shocked when I realize (in the mirror ;)

Coming to this decision was a lot of soul searching.

At work, I wrote up a plan for the time I am away, had a discussion with my leads a month back. We reviewed this plan. I also ensured direct leadership is there for day to day responsibility, quarterly planning and most of all, one-on-ones.

As a company, Linkedin is super supportive for having a family and maintaining healthy work-life balance. Most tech companies are. If you are at a company that isn’t, then you need to look elsewhere.

At home, we do quite a lot on weekend — setting up a crib, preparing the house etc. Part of the preparation is paying for help, for instance, birthing class and breastfeeding class. Doula guides you through birth, for example.

Q: What changes do you expect in your daily routine now vs in coming months?

I assume my schedule would be more rigid. I need to be more efficient. I can’t leave at 8 PM. I can be more efficient later at night when the kid is asleep.

Q: Have you decided between daycare or babysitter? Would you like to share how you chose one?

We haven’t made a decision on any one yet. Nanny share is a good option in the bay area for hiring a nanny. First six to eight months daycare is probably not a good idea.

Q: How do you achieve a balance between career and family?

There will almost definitely be an impact on your career. There are ways you can minimize that and also you can prepare to get the best of both. You can learn from examples.

Some of it is talking to people. I’ve spoken to a few female leaders at the company. It’s just like it comes up, I am not actively scheduling any time with them.

Q: Do you have any advice for women who are pondering to-be or not-to-be?

You can do both, don’t let one compromise the other. There are ways to make it both work. Asking for help is very important. People are very accommodating and understanding to new parents.

Making sure you have a plan before going on leave, so team is set up for success. Having discussion with leads early to review the course of action will set the ground for success of the team in your absence and for your return.

Getting back in the industry three or four years after staying at home is even more difficult. Even if your nanny cost takes up your entire salary. Even if you are net zero for some time, upwards trajectory in your career is quite definite. So stick around and don’t be afraid. Make sure you get what you want out of life.

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

Meet Jenie, Mom-to-be & Senior Engineering Manager was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Q: What was your role and responsibility in the company when you found out you were expecting?

I was Test Engineering Manager in Mobile team at LinkedIn. My team was responsible for the quality of LinkedIn’s Native app and Connected App.

Q: Looking back do you think you planned well for the time away? If you had the option to do it all over again — what would you do differently?

Yeah I think so. I took all days I possibly could to spend time with my daughter Anya. I was fortunate enough to be able to take unpaid time off for a month. It’s tough for people who are not able to do so due to financial constraints. My suggestion and advice to anyone who is planning to take maternity leave is to take all days possible. I have seen many women not taking off the last week of pregnancy. I think they really should because it gives them time to prepare their mind and home for the new member and if they don’t they lose it and its company paid, so why not?

Q: Given an option to stay-at-home and enjoy being a mom for your kids, would you leave your job?

Its funny that you bring this up. It was extremely difficult for me to return to the workforce soon after maternity leave. I thought of quitting my job every single day. One reason may very well be that I got Anya (my daughter’s name) after a lot of struggle. She was my 3rd IVF try. I would question my priorities in life every single day. My husband and my parents knew it was an emotional decision. They didn’t want me to leave everything I worked so hard for over the years and regret later. All my husband asked of me was to give myself 3 months and if after that I still feel I should stay at home, then he would fully support me in my decision. That was the best advice ever! I stuck for 3 months and it helped me overcome my guilt and changed my perspective. Now I wanted to be a role model and inspirational mother to Anya and not be someone who quits. Not saying that staying at home decision would have been a bad idea. Just saying it worked out well for me at the end. But I would not think twice leaving my job if my Anya ever needs me. For me family is my number one priority.

Q: What was your support structure like during and after your pregnancy?

I have been extremely lucky to have an amazing family support both during and after pregnancy. Both our parents were willing to stay with us alternating for few months which helped me tremendously with the ultimate ‘Mom’s guilt’ which is constant for any mom :) We also hired a nanny. With nanny and our parents I was not worried about Anya. All I was worried about was not getting enough time with her. Also in my professional arena at my previous company LinkedIn , everyone in my team was super supportive which made it easier for me.

Q: Do you have some advice on how to choose a daycare/pre-school/baby sitter? When to choose a nanny or daycare?

I think if there is a way you can have your family over and get help in form of a nanny, that would be perfect. This is the time when the child bonds with grandparents. We hired a nanny so we don’t over burden our parents with baby duties. They have raised their kids and now it was our turn. My suggestion for anyone going through this phase is if you can financially support hiring a nanny then do so even when your family is around to help out. It helps keep theirs and your sanity during this transition time.

As far as daycare is concerned, I would say at around 1.5 years age the child wants company of other kids. That is the correct time to put him/her in daycare.

Daycare selection was a process on its own. My suggestion would be to start the research at least 8–12 months in advance and visit multiple places and make sure your child is enrolled for at least 2–3 daycares just so you have backups. I have seen my friends getting rejected in one daycare which they had high hopes on and then they had to compromise. So be proactive.

On how to choose a nanny — we went through referrals and care.com but I always preferred referrals over the online site. Also enroll yourself to mailing lists and facebook parent groups for your areas where people generally post ads for their nanny when they no longer need the service. Another suggestion from my personal experience is to make sure you write down your expectations of the duties while you are hiring a nanny. You both need to be on the same page about what is and what is not a part of her duty. It was a struggle for me for some time.

Q: What was your maternity leave plan? Were you working full time when your kids were born?

I had 3 months of paid maternity leave and 1 month of bonding leave from state government. Yes, I was working full time.

Q: What is that one thing that bothers you the most and you would want to fix in the system?

I love the idea of 6 months maternity leave or the option of work from home for new moms. I hated filling all the insurance paper work while I had 20 other things on my plate (Not sure if that can be improved).

Q: How has being a mother affected your career?

A lot and It’s a constant learning and if you look closely your baby teaches you so many things which you can apply in your career. Being a parent helped me:

• Realize of my inner strength and ability to do seemingly impossible.
• Realize how important having fun is in life to de-stress yourself.
• How to lead by compassion and being self-aware.
• With the ability to do decision making in difficult situations.
• Learn something new every day
• Realize that appreciation is motivating

If you have interest in how I connect parenting with professional world and the lessons learnt, you can check my blogpost on LinkedIn.

Q: How did you prepare yourself for the change? What books/blogs/advice/quotes do you remember that motivated you during the time?

I think in my case I was fully prepared mentally. I was so looking forward to being a mom that I never felt overwhelmed with the changes that came in. I think having a baby brings change in your life but only for good. As far as books and advices are concerned, I was a constant visitor to Babycenter. They have some pretty good articles. I don’t think anything specific motivated me but for sure looking at all my friends’ beautiful little kids and seeing my husband play with them is what truly motivated me. He is a fun dad!

Q: What advice do you have other women, how to create a healthy environment at home for both your kid and spouse, your relationship and yourself?

After having Anya I have become very health conscious. I am very careful in what we are eating or using as products for our day to day routine. I have tried to completely get rid of anything which has chemicals and is harmful in any way. Most of the stuff I try to make at home or look for healthier and chemical free options in store or online. Regarding relationships, that’s one thing I was not mentally prepared for. Having a kid changes your relationship with your spouse in many ways. There are days you would just not have time for talking to each other even for 5 minutes and there may be fights. It’s as tough for the dad as it’s for you. Give your relationship some time. Ours took almost one year to get back to normal.

Having a baby is emotionally as draining as it’s physically specially with all the hormones flowing around. My suggestion — just give yourself a break! Things might go up and down but both of you need adjustment time for the new life. Just hang in there and I am positive everything will be back to normal.

Rapid Fire

• Your best friend when it comes to handling tantrums: Ask your kid to do the opposite of what you want them to do. During tantrums phase they are in rebellious mode so make use of it ;) Works for me (fingers crossed).
• Biggest stress buster: Anya’s kiss
• Typical goto meal: Simple Indian cuisine
• Favourite game you play: Just running around with Anya and my dog. He will jump in every time I play with Anya which cracks me up. He will make sure he is not neglected in any way.
• Favourite lullaby: It’s in hindi from a movie called ‘Mission Kashmir’. Wordings are ‘So ja chanda raja so ja chal sapno mein chal’. Now my daughter sings it for her doll in her broken language which brings a smile to my face.
• Favourite book: I love reading any inspirational, motivational and leadership books. Recently I am reading a book called ‘Multipliers’.
• Favourite hobby: Home decor, DIYing, cooking , writing poems , reading inspirational articles or books. You can find my personal blog where I list all my hobbies and what I do here.

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

Meet Swasti — Mother & Senior Engineering Manager was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Q: After I shared how I founded PiMothers out of my own selfish interest, to learn the secret of balancing life and career as a mother. Shweta and Shuchi started sharing their story.

Eight years ago we too used wonder — how women do it? Both of us had a long commute. We could barely stand after getting home and then cook for our husbands. We used to think that when we become a mother we would also have become older than we are now, so logically we would have less energy and would have difficulty to take on more responsibility. But you know, when you are a mother you can function very effectively. When you see this cute, innocent person who is so helpless without you, you somehow get all the energy.

Q: So tell me more about your journey — when did you start, what were some challenges?

We started in 2014. And these two years have been like a roller coaster ride. The original vision of the company was to create tech products. We used to call it digital toys. In nine months we delivered an app and a book. We had twins…

We launched Indian Dress Up Party app. It features 8 traditional weaves of sarees. It’s our way of supporting the diversity in India. If the next generation isn’t exposed to it, they wouldn’t know it.

Diwali Gift book was our first book. We had never started a company before. So everything was new. We picked a distributor who we thought was the best. As soon as our book launched, we were covered in NPR, HuffPost etc. Our book was a best-seller in one week. All the published books were sold out and we had pending orders for next 3 weeks, but our distributor wasn’t able to fulfill the demand. Because of the distributor, we had a lot of customer’s waiting! Like an entrepreneur, we learned our lessons the hard way. Our next book we are launching via KickStarter. This time the “3 Curious Monkeys” are going on an adventure involving Indian Food.

We carefully develop our books and apps. Our stories are original. After reading these stories children come and ask questions about the culture. Instead of the other way round, where parents impose the culture on them. Our goal is to intrigue the children’s imagination. We are constantly testing it with our kids. We know if they don’t like it, others wouldn’t as well. This way we are making Indian culture and festivals fun and engaging for our kids as well as for their friends. These are the same reasons that they are attracted to Halloween and Christmas, now they are equally interested in Diwali. If you read our stories, they appear to be American, with Indian authenticity to it. Our stories and characters are universally appealing. Teachers are enjoying it. And they experience it together with students in their classrooms. You know a culture is about sharing.

Q: How did you two meet? What inspired you to start a company?

We met 10–11 years ago. We were invited to a child’s birthday party. We were only ones at the party who had no children then. We instantly clicked.

We grew up outside of India and we didn’t realize until we became mothers that we had the onus to transfer Indian culture to our children. You won’t believe me, my daughter was the single Indian in her class. One day she came home and was like why I am not blonde. She never saw herself in a cartoon, in a movie. You know it would be nice for her to see someone in a movie and relate to that and feel confident that to see that she wears a lehenga like her, she is dark-haired. We faced these problems at the same time, as our children are of the same age.

Through personal experiences, survey and talking to industry experts we have discovered that unfortunately there aren’t a lot of cartoons or books in India either that appeals to 2 to 7-years-old as they no longer relate to the language and the situations described. Our mythological stories are awesome however they need to be adaptable to current age! Speaking with Industry leads we have learned current Indian media for kids are not developed for age and mentally appropriate audiences or even for urban viewers. So we realize that there is a huge void when it comes to validation for Indian kids — they have no idols in the media.

As soon as we had kids we thought “Why is there a lack of products for our kids?”. The further you are from the center of gravity (in this case, Indian culture), you feel like you are losing your roots. If you are an Indian who keeps going back to India, you may not feel it with the same intensity as someone who has been away from India for a long time. We asked a lot of moms out there and we realized there is a need for mainstream stories that our children can relate to. This gave us the confidence to continue on the path!

Q: What is a typical day like for you?

We work from our home offices from 8:30–5:30. Sometimes when we tell people that — they are like you write a book daily for those hours?! Then we have to explain that we are founders of the company but we are also the peons. We do everything — soups to nuts from conceptualizing the book to writing the book and work with the team of illustrators to design the book and accounting, marketing and business development.

Q: What is your advice for other founders?

We learned that how much ever you plan, something always comes up. Always be ready to face the challenge. How you work around it that matters. Make sure you have good partners, good distributors, good illustrators. A good team ensures that you don’t face any problems again (at least because of the team).

Excerpt from my conversation with Shweta and Shuchi in their home office via Facebook Live.

Originally published at www.pimothers.com.

Meet Shweta and Shuchi — Founders of 3 Curious Monkeys was originally published in PiMothers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.