You'll Never Guess What Demo Is Running the Work Force
Hint: now put your hand up.
Single working women are the backbone for most professional organizations in America.
According to the Women in the Labor Force: 2015 Databook:
- 59% of women (over age 16) are employed
- 54.3% of employed women are unmarried (never married, other marital status, divorced, separated, widowed)
- Of the 67 million women employed in the U.S.— 74%of employed women worked on full-time jobs, while 26% worked on a part-time basis.
And in honor of National Single Working Women's Day, we wanted to dig into this a little bit more.
According to Hanna Rosin's "The End of Men and the Rise of Women," 2009 was the first year where the balance of the workforce "tipped toward women."
The senior editor at The Atlantic writes, "Women worldwide dominate colleges and professional schools on every continent except Africa. In the United States, for every two men who will receive a BA this year, for example, three women will do the same."
"Theoretically," she writes, "a twenty-seven- or twenty-eight-year-old woman with no children is at the top o the game. She is, on average, more educated than the men around her, and making more money." ("No children" is a key piece here and discussed below.)
What do you know about the American Matriarchy? In her book Rosin cites tech as one of the main reasons for the rise of the woman. "At some point in the last forty years," she writes, "the job market became largely indifferent to size and strength. Technology began to work against men, making certain jobs obsolete and making what economists call 'people skills,' ever more valuable. For the first time in history, the global economy is becoming a place where women are finding more success than men."
In Rebecca Traister's NY-Times best-seller, "All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation," she addresses Rosin's findings. "While some women are enjoying more educational, professional, sexual, and social freedom than ever before, many more of them are struggling, living in a world marked by inequity, disadvantage, discrimination, and property. It's crucial to unpack what's true and what's not true about female advancement--and single female advancement-- across classes, rich, poor, and in between."
One of those factors that cannot be ignored is single motherhood. The Times article, the Disestablishment of Marriage, reports that 60 percent of American women who have their first babies before thirty have them out of wedlock. Traister says that, "the economic ramifications of having children are of course felt most keenly by unmarried mothers; a staggering 42 percent of people in families headed by single mothers live below the poverty line."
But single women are upending tradition. And that's power. "Their growing presence has an impact on how economic, political, and sexual power is distributed between the genders." Single women overwhelmingly voted for President Barack Obama. Single women are changing the definition of family, which directly impacts social policy. "Women," writes Traister, "perhaps those who have lived untethered from the energy-sucking and identity-sapping institution of marriage in its older forms, have helped drive social progress of this country since it's founding."
Women living without marriage are more able to be both professionally and economically than ever before.
Cheers to you badasses. Today is your day.
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Wait, What?! How This Founder Is Applying the Tinder Model to Motherhood
Motherhood used to be about wiping, not swiping.
We're not going to mince words. The solo dolo doldrums of new motherhood is real. Too real. We'd say it's almost harder to find your #momsquad than to master breastfeeding (which, power to all breastfeeding mamas and your boobs; it's no walk in the park).
This thinking is exactly what drove Michelle Kennedy, the former deputy CEO of European dating app Badoo, to develop Peanut, a social app aimed at platonically connecting mothers who feel isolated, alone, and often cut off from friends and their old lives. It's a pain point for many women (which means, there's a solve). "When you're up for a 2am feed and your friends are just leaving the club, those feelings can compound and you wonder 'What does Michelle the mommy look like? Do I have to change?'” the founder shares. The answer the mom and business woman arrived at was no. You certainly don't have to change. But that doesn't mean you have to feel alone.
Taking what she learned from the dating app space, Michelle applied to the same thinking to motherhood. As a generation armed with a fleet of apps at our disposal, from transportation to shopping, to dating and streaming music, Michelle, who was the first of her friends to give birth in 2013, decided that moms "should be able to have that too." And it didn't have to be through a patronizing or unsexy product. "I really learned a lot from working in the dating industry," she says. Including, a unique understanding of how, why, and when people use social apps. It's why the app includes a poll feature and a scheduling feature, making it easier for moms to meet up-- which is highly encouraged.
The founder says Peanut is not meant as substitution for grabbing coffee with a mom friend in person, but rather, the point is "break down the barriers to make it easier to have the conversation." For Michelle that means any conversation. "Yes, sometimes it is not all roses when you become a mommy and that is OK. It's safe to say that. It won’t make you a bad mom and no one is going to judge you. And sometimes you drop plates and you feel like the worst mom in the world or employee, or partner. Whatever it is we can keep having those conversations and it is all OK."
Peanut is the barrier to entry for many moms who are too anxious to approach strangers in the park. When she became a new mom, Michelle says, "I could never approach those groups of women who looked like they really have it together and like they were all so close. I couldn't put myself out there in case I got turned down. I used to mentally exhaust myself, as I judged them thinking about them judging me."
She recalls a bad experience in a Starbucks when her own son was tiny. She saw a woman who looked like she had it together and so Michelle gathered her courage and asked if they might want to get together. "She then said to me, 'You know what I’m so busy at the moment I don’t want to take your number incase I never get back to you.' I was so traumatized by this. So I thought is there a way to erase all of this and make it easy?"
"Sometimes you drop plates and you feel like the worst mom in the world...it is all OK."
Tweet this.
It's also why Peanut uses the double opt-in model favored by dating apps. "You have to think about a woman and the position she's in and how rejection would feel-- especially if it's her and her child. It's one thing for you to reject me for a date, but if you reject me and my baby, that's a whole different ballgame." Michelle insists that the way Peanut works protects "your dignity and your pride. You can put yourself out there first and swipe right. The other mom will never know unless they swipe right on you too."
Though meeting a mom through an app might initially feel impersonal, it's the way we operate. And in this case, Michelle insists that a picture is worth a thousand words. "If you see another woman's profile, it is never about her picture. You are looking for the clue in her picture. Like is she wearing hiking boots, is that part of who she is, or is she eating food, where is she eating, what is she eating? You are always looking for those social cues, that look and acknowledgment that says 'let's play next to each and play together.'"
She also insists that, "Anything we do on our phones has to be an extension of what we are doing in our every day lives, otherwise we aren’t going to use it." And using it women are. After all, we all get by with a little help from our tech.
Follow Peanut on IG here. Photo credit: Peanut
Feel like sharing your struggles as a new mom? Comment below. We got you.
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How These 3 Working Moms Are Handling This Crazy Stat
Kids are so dang expensive.
photo by Could I Have That?
In case you haven't heard Beyoncé is pregnant with twins. What you might not know is that in Jay Z's and Beyoncé’s prenup it states that she gets a cool 5 million for every baby she bears that’s his. Do the math babes. That means Queen B is carrying around 10 million dollars in her uterus. Which is, unfortunately, more $$$ than most of us will see in a lifetime.
Also another unfortunate fact: CNN recently revealed that raising a child to age 18 will costs $233,610-- pre-college. So what is a working mom to do? We checked in with three of our favorite working moms to get their life tips and tricks on saving money, even with baby at home.
Angela Sutherland, investment executive and co-founder of the new organic children's food delivery service Yumi, has two kids and three great tips for saving money-- especially as it relates to your TAXES. If you already filed your taxes this year, take her advice and make this a priority in 2018.
First, she says, "Depending on which state you're in you can actually buy pre-paid tuition, locking in the current rate of tuition, which is actual an amazing deal given the rate of inflation. The only downside is you have to decide early (very early!) which college your kid will go to, however, if you have a very strong state school it could be a great way to save." For those legacy families, look into this.
Second, she shares, "Be a lifetime learner! Few people know that you can claim up to $2k in tax credit every year for the classes you take. That's not $2k off of your taxable income like other deductions, that's actually a straight credit off your calculated taxes owed." And finally, says the mom and business owner, "There's a tax credit that's called the Dependent Care Credit- of which few people take advantage. But you can get up to $3k per child of tax deductions when you use a nanny or someone who cares for your children if you work."
Mom-to-be and writer Jane Helpern shared this practical advice: "Drive a Prius. Bring your lunch to work. And swap your Equinox membership for the YMCA which offers free childcare. Don't have a pool because they cost a lot to heat and don't be afraid to send your kids to daycare."
Postpartum doula Stephanie Matthias takes a slightly more holistic approach to the numbers game. "If you count your rent and gas, everything that costs money," the single mom of two explains, "summer camp, classes, buying birthday presents for kids in the class, or the fact that they want to go a vending machine at school because their friends do, it adds up." But she has some positive ideas on how to flip the script.
For one, "Enlisting family to help with childcare is huge, if it's possible," she shares. "I've chosen to have the kind of career where I work freelance, where I make my own hours. I'm not only doing what I want to be doing, but it's also really conducive to motherhood. I've made very strategic career decisions in order to accommodate being a mother."
She also shares, "I've never been a good budgeter. I'm not a frugal person. Even when I was working four jobs living in a $1000 dollar one-room apartment on the East Side (of Los Angeles), I would still go to Whole Foods and buy water. I used to think of money in terms of scarcity, in terms of what I could and couldn't afford. Now I think about money in terms of what kind of life I want to have. Do I want a life of experiences? What kind of life do I want for my kids? And what do I want to teach them about money? This approach has helped me spend less. It's almost like eliminating sugar. How I want to feel longterm is analogous to what I want my life to look like longterm. This reworking has completely changed the way I think about money. The money that I make during the time that I'm working, that's time that I'm spending away from of my kids. That makes the money more valuable to me and makes me more mindful of what I'm spending on. That money better be going toward stuff that makes our lives great. I'm not gonna work all these hours and spend money on shoes." Half of the time she says she doesn't get home until after her youngest in already in bed and there's an element of mom guilt that kicks in. The voice that says, "I didn't spend the day with you, I'm gonna get you something."
Matthias continues, "It's easy for working moms to feel like, 'I'm gone and I'm making x amount of money, so I can afford these really cute toys and it will make them happy.'" Not true she insists. "All your kids want is quality time with you. The more hours I work, the more money I make, the more that voice kicks in. That's when we do things to placate our kids. That's a massive waste of money. Every fifteen dollar tiara and thirty dollar ballet skirt, that all adds up. That's money you could put into their college fund."
She adds, "From a super practical standpoint, I am super strategic about where I do my food shopping. I want everything to be super high quality, but it's not always practical to only shop at Erewhon. I joined Thrive online. It's an online grocery store that doesn't sell produce. But instead has all of the snacks that go in lunches, etc. Everything is super discounted."
Extra credit pro tip: Babies grow and they grow fast. You're replacing their clothes every couple of months and many of them are barley worn. If you plan on having more than one, buy gender-neutral items so the next child can wear the hand-me-downs. And for new moms who are nesting (that innate desire to get ready for baby) don't be fooled by the marketing world. Babies don't need their own everrrrything-- from body wash to detergent to hair brushes. Don't nest yourself out of a nest egg.
Have more money saving tips? Share below!
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