Why I Quit My Highly Coveted Job When I Was 8 Months Pregnant

image credit: Rick Rodney Photography

A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology confirms what women have known since the dawn of time—that we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. While this spot-on summary of the female experience could conceivably refer to just about anything (ranging from kegeling wrong to doing kegels), in this scenario, we're talking about taking maternity leave. More specifically, that a look at the attitudes of 200 working men and women in the US and the UK finds that a "woman who took time off was seen as less committed and competent at work" while the woman who didn’t was "judged to be a worse parent, a less desirable partner and a less caring person." SEEMS REASONABLE. 

Speaking of fair—the Pew Research Center reports that of 41 developed nations, the US is the only one doesn't mandate paid maternity leave. To put our antediluvian policies into perspective: Estonia offers more than a year and a half of paid leave to new parents, while 31 of the 41 aforementioned countries have modest plans in place for fathers, with Japan, Korea, Portugal, Norway, Luxembourg and Iceland leading the way, offering a minimum of two months leave for new dads.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the US, where the Department of Labor found that 1 in 4 women return to work within 2 weeks of giving birth. If you’ve yet to firsthand experience the miracle of life and all its glorious indignities (speaking of: see pooping article here), it’s quite common for women to bleed from their vaginas and wear industrial diapers for up to six weeks postpartum. Frankly this is on the lesser end of the symptom spectrum, which includes: leaky breasts, perineum pain, abdominal cramps, difficulty urinating, cracked nipples, postpartum depression, and on. Needless to say, two weeks ain’t gonna cut it.

Amazingly, while the US ranks dead last for parental leave and the majority of mothers return to the office before they’ve even had a change to slather themselves in nipple butter and get a decent night’s sleep, we’re still finding it in our cold, capitalist hearts to judge the fortunate few who’ve received a couple of measly paid weeks leave. Talk about getting the sh*t end of the positive pee stick.

In my personal experience as a woman living, working and expecting in California-—the state considered to be the gold standard of maternity leave for the United States (which, is kind of like saying a Southwest Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Salad is the healthiest thing on the McDonald's menu)—the system is broken. Without a full legal team in your corner, it’s nearly impossible to decode and navigate. Case in point: After two years of running a successful freelance business, I found myself four months pregnant, craving stability (AKA a reason to put on pants in the morning) and accepting a full-time offer as Editorial Director for a popular fashion brand that sells Pantone perfect mules to a customer base that’s probably 17% aspiring mommy blogger. It felt like a perfect match. 

Now, while I didn’t take the job for the promise of paid maternity leave, it was definitely a perk I firmly and directly addressed with Human Resources during the interview process. I was explicitly mislead that I would be getting said perk. Foolish me for not getting this in writing (always get it in writing kids). because as my due date approached and I began coordinating the plan for my departure, it became clear that my employers had no intention of giving me any paid time off. Fine print: I had not been at the company for one year. Under the California Pregnancy Disability Leave Law I was entitled to keep my job with up to four months unpaid leave, however, being a stubborn-ass feminist and not wanting to feel like a disposable resource, I politely gave my two weeks notice.

Women across the United States deal with this every single day, as a vast number of companies remain committed to shelling out the bare minimum. Why wouldn't they? It's what they're legally allowed to get away with. Even those that claim to be feminist. Take for example, recent headlines haunting the fashion world outing female founders whose internal company structures don’t practice the feminist agendas they preach. This fauxminist phenomenon runs so deep that the humorists at McSweeney’s even penned a  “Guide for Brands That Have Recently Discovered Women.” It encourages companies patting themselves on the back for “rah-rah-ing women” on their twitter to ask themselves, “Does our family leave policy reflect the real world or was it drafted with giraffes who give birth standing up and then go about their business in mind?”

Thankfully, there's growing minority of modern thinkers-—including Netflix, Etsy, Spotify, and a slew of tech heavy-hitters-—who are realizing that supporting mothers is not a frivolous expense, but an investment in their future. One such pioneering label is Innerwear brand Richer Poorer. Despite being a startup, the company extends all female employees a full, 12-week paid maternity leave and even offers the dudes a flexible six-week paternity leave policy that is a transition back into full-time.

"Supporting mothers is not a frivolous expense, but an investment in their future."

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“Regardless of our size, we are very much a people and family-first business at Richer Poorer,” says co-founder and CEO Iva Pawling. “My Co-Founder Tim and I are both parents, so we hold a lot of value in supporting the other parents on our team, and especially the new, or soon-to-be-new bunch.” While the logistics of being small and having a valuable team member out on extended leave are certainly complicated, Pawling says it’s a choice to make a long-term investment in the business, and one that’s proven to work. “We really have found that the rest of the team picks up the slack in their absence and carries the projects or responsibilities forward.”

No brainer:

Internal company structures should practice the feminist agendas they preach.

Even if you're lucky enough to work at a company with some kind of paid parental leave, knowing your rights and navigating the loopholes and complexities of the system can feel like it requires PhD. Full disclosure: numerous phone calls and hourlong wait times to determine my own eligibility for government wage replacement since returning to freelance has brought this writer to tears on more than one occasion. (I may have threatened to call the police on one representative. Their crime? Deliberately withholding information). My child is due in a week, and I’m still not totally clear on what, if anything, I’m entitled to, and how exactly to go about claiming it.

That’s where Lauren Wallenstein, Founder of Milk Your Benefits, a consultancy that helps expectant parents maximize their parental leave in the State of California, comes in. Wallenstein explains that expectant mothers often mistakenly believe that they are entitled to at least 12 weeks of leave. This is frequently not the case, due to varying factors including duration of employment, hours worked, employer size, etc. She says that many times confusion around leave is exacerbated because employers are themselves unclear of how to correctly explain and administer benefits due to lack of standardization. I’d venture to say many employers prefer their employees to remain in the dark and disempowered about these decisions.

“Expectant parents need to ask for written policies so that they can interpret the available benefits for themselves,” Wallenstein urges. “Never depend on what a friend or coworker tells you as the information is very often incorrect or is being incorrectly applied to your case. If human resources answers your leave questions, make sure you get them in writing and have HR provide the source documents that formed the basis of those answers. Most importantly, if something doesn't sound right to you, don't settle. Milk Your Benefits can help you sift through the paperwork so nothing is left on the table.”

“Expectant parents need to ask for written policies so that they can interpret the available benefits for themselves." 

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In a Wall Street Journal Op Ed, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki argued that “Paid maternity leave is good for mothers, families and business.” As evidence, she cited that the rate at which new moms left Google fell by 50% in 2007 when the company increased paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 18 weeks. She should know, as she was Google’s first employee to take maternity leave in 1999. This sentiment is echoed by Wallenstein, who says that “forward-thinking employers recognize that paid parental leave benefits act as a retention tool for employees.” Furthermore, she notes, “Parents who receive paid leave and who are physically and emotionally ready to return to work are more likely to feel a sense of loyalty to that employer and are less likely to leave their jobs. When an expectant parent gets the sense that the employer is encouraging a short leave, is being stingy with money, or is being less than helpful explaining benefits, it leaves a powerful and lasting bad taste in their mouth. Because what it suggests is a company ethos that doesn't value work/life balance.”

Until paid leave is mandated for all, the burden will continue to fall on business owners to implement change, start a dialogue, and set precedents. “The responsibility is on all of our shoulders, men and women alike who are in position of power as employers, to make the right decisions and to become more vocal about the subject of both maternity AND paternity leave,” says Richer Poorer’s Iva Pawling.

If doing what’s right for new parents and ultimately for your business isn’t enough to incentivize employers to step up to the plate, perhaps they’ll be motivated by the desire to avoid ending up as the target of a scathing Glassdoor review. When Donald Trump’s approach to maternity leave is a more progressive than yours, it’s perhaps time that you engage in a healthy dose of soul-searching. And while you’re at it, please remind yourself that before you were all up in the boardroom, you too were snuggled up in a cozy womb.

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Jane Helpern is a freelance writer, copywriter, and founder of Jane Says Agency. She enjoys helping brands find their voice, writing about fashion and feminism, and walking-at-an-incline-with-wine™

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The One Thing This CEO Says She Won't Do

photo credit: Richer Poorer 

Top shelf products in your top drawer. That's Innerwear company Richer Poorer, minus the hefty price tag. 

Founded six years ago by Iva Pawling and Tim Morse, Pawling says "Richer Poorer is building a brand that makes you never want to leave your house." (But, you will.)

Richer Poorer started at the bottom, literally, launching with colorfully patterned men’s socks and then expanded into women’s and kids’ socks, and underwear. Last December the company made the decision to add men's tees to the lineup. The tees were, "so passionately loved by our customers and friendlies," says Pawling, "that we fast-tracked our women's tee collection launch, and got them to market last month." That was July of this year. According to Pawling, "Women's tees sold out the first day, and have been making up over 20% of our RP.com sales since." 

This success can be tied to what Pawling believes "is the evolution of the Athleisure movement we’re all pretty tired of seeing. Instead of wearing workout clothes all day when you’re not actually working out just because of comfort, we wear our Innerwear that we’re still comfortable in, and feel presentable outside the house."

It's also a way of dressing that works well for moms, a role Pawling knows herself as mother to son, Ford. It's simple, casual, and perhaps mostly importantly, convertible. She'll wear their tanks to yoga and then wear the same tank with a fancy necklace, skirt and heels to dinner on the weekend. "Our products are blank canvases," she says. 

From scratch beginnings to a Shoes.com acquisition, we caught up with Pawling to talk mom and mogul-hood, the evolution of Richer Poorer, and if it's possible to hustle your way to happy. (She says yes, with one major "duh" caveat.) 

Mom and mogul. These roles are not mutually exclusive these days, but that doesn’t mean they’re simple. How do you do it? 

The only way I do it is with lots of help and planning. My husband and I split parenting duties pretty evenly so that we can seamlessly parent on our own when the other one is traveling or tied up, and Ford has total consistency. We also have a really great nanny as well who we couldn’t function without. She fills in the holes for us when we both have early morning meetings, crazy schedules, etc.  

One of the reasons I wanted to start my own company was because I knew I wanted to be a mom, and wanted to have control over my time out of the house. I stayed home with Ford on Fridays until he started pre-school, which was such a gift. Having one day of the week that was just for him and I to go to music class, go to the park, become besties, was great. The flip side to that coin is that running your own business does not come with a three month maternity leave, so I was back in the office a week after having him. Sacrifice is the name of the game. 

Also, lots of planning and foresight is needed to keep our life organized and running smoothly. I have found that parents with careers get much more efficient with their days almost instantly, so we pre-plan everything we can. A month in advance for travel if possible, and every Sunday go through the coming week’s logistics of meetings, drop offs and pick ups. 

How do you NOT do it?

I do not prescribe to being a martyr for my child by sacrificing myself. I love my child more than anything on earth, but I also love working and my career. Fitness is really important to me so I still squeeze it in as consistently as I can. What I learned early on was that I am not a good mom for Ford if I am not doing what I need, to be happy.

"I do not prescribe to being a martyr for my child by sacrificing myself."

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Taking care of myself mentally and physically allows me to be really present and engaged during the time I have with him, rather than in my own head battling myself. 

What are some parts of modern motherhood that you don’t buy into?

Parenting as a sport and the mommy wars. The judgment in parenting is something I have great disdain for. It’s become very present in the last decade, likely because of social media, but it is one of the most destructive things we do to each other. The topics are endless – epidurals, breastfeeding, sleep training, organic food, co-sleeping, potty training. We are all doing our best, and doing what we believe to be right for our child, so I really wish the divisive speak would come to a stop. 

Similar question, slightly different approach: If there was a part of modern motherhood that would end up on sale… what would it be? 

Unsolicited advice. After I had Ford I was totally blown away with how much direction strangers feel compelled to give when it comes to parenting. There is no other subject matter that this happens with, only parenting. And while I think most people mean well, as a parent with a young child the – shoulda / coulda / wouldas – are exhausting during a fairly confusing time when you are just trying to find your own way. 

photo credit: Richer Poorer 

In what ways did the role of founder help you prepare for your role as mom? 

There is nothing that prepares you more for parenthood, than running your own business. The parallels are endless. I was really prepared for becoming a mom to flip my entire world over, and while it certainly did from a priority perspective, on a day-to-day basis I felt like it was so similar to the early day of Richer Poorer.

In the world of a start up, the business changes all the time. The second you think you have things on lock, everything shifts and you have to dig back in to adjust. Kids are exactly the same. You think you have them figured out, and they do something like START WALKING. 

And the sleep, oh the sleep. My sleepless nights and learning to function on not very much of it began when I started Richer Poorer, so once Ford arrived it felt very similar and like old hat. 

Are there ways your leadership changed postpartum? 

My leadership style definitely changed postpartum. It softens you at the core, so I think I’m a lot more understanding than I was before. I give people a bit more rope when we make mistakes. On the flip side I’ve become a lot more direct and decisive since I can no longer afford to burn the midnight oil at the office. I require efficiency out of our team and they’ve become really good at moving through things quickly.

What are some ways you think Richer Poorer is disrupting the market?

Two ways – by defining a new category for the industry that is focused on how we’re dressing these days, Innerwear – and working really hard to be part of the solution for retailers in this really turbulent and tough market. 

We believe there is a new way of dressing that has taken over most of our wardrobes that is really focused on comfort, utility and simplicity – your Innerwear. We’re determined to be the brand that makes your favorite pieces that live at the top of your drawer, that you can’t wait to put on every day – tees, underwear, socks, sweats, etc.

There is a lot of doom and gloom in our industry right now with the shift in consumers buying habits, and quite a few brands are either launching with the plan to just be direct-to-consumer, or established ones are trying to shift their model to stop doing wholesale and only do direct-to-consumer. We really believe that you need to build both channels to support each other, in order to grow a strong brand. We are focused on working with our retailers to create unique buying experiences in their stores that tell our brand story rather than just product, and give the customer a unique way to shop that they can’t necessarily get online. 

photo credit: Richer Poorer 

When you’re repositioning what are facets you have keep, where do you have some wiggle room?

The defining brand tenets of what Richer Poorer was built on haven’t changed – Elevate Everyday – Honest Hustle – California Born. 

Elevate everyday speaks to not only our why, which is to create great products that make people’s days better in the simplest of ways at an attainable price point, but also our internal culture at Richer Poorer. We are here because we love what we do. We are lucky to be in this passion-driven industry, so I firmly believe it is our obligation to treat each other really well, both internally and all the people we work with outside the walls of our office. 

Honest Hustle is how we do it, we are as scrappy as can be and work our asses off. This was born out of necessity because we had no dollars or budget for anything when we started, and we still instill this in every employee that enters our world. Limited resources force people to think outside the box and work smarter, and we’ve almost always seen better results from that. 

"Honest Hustle is how we do it, we are as scrappy as can be and work our asses off."

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We’re a California Born brand, and it informs our overall aesthetic from product to photography. California is a dream of a place to get to live in, the entire world knows this, so we embrace it and love it. 

So short story long, we religiously adhere to these tenants with everything we do as we’ve repositioned the brand, so it still feels like the same Richer Poorer, but better.

When you shifted from the traditional wholesale model did you learn anything new about the customer?

We shifted our model in December with the launch of our first apparel item, mens tee shirts on our direct-to-consumer site, which helped us understand our customer a lot better. 

The first thing we learned was that our customer wasn’t price sensitive to our brand. They were willing to spend more with us if the product was good. This was a great eye-opener for us as it gave us the confidence to speed up our timelines on the new product categories we wanted to offer. 

The second thing we learned was launching a product direct-to-consumer first, then wholesale channel second is really, really helpful for growth of the wholesale channel. The customer is now walking into the shops asking if they have our tees and wanting to touch and feel it, but buying it right away. Historically if they had seen it there first, it may take a few visits to convince them that they wanted to actually buy the product. Now it’s instant. 

How did this shift change your business? 

It changed our entire business because it was proof that there is in fact a way to run a true hybrid model that supports both the wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels. 

We’ve since spent the last six months strengthening our supply chain, internal processes and adjusting calendars so that we can get items to market on faster timelines that are focused on direct-to-consumer, all while maintaining a consistent solution for the traditional wholesale calendar. 

Running on two paths at once has been really difficult, so we’re lucky that we have an insanely committed team that is excited by these changes and sees that as a team we are committed to being the change in the industry, rather than the dinosaur that gets left behind. Tim and I are always pushing our team to think differently and iterate what we do quickly. We tell everyone that we expect what they are doing today to be different six months from now because they are making our products, processes, just everything we do, better as they learn more and grow.

"We are committed to being the change in the industry, rather than the dinosaur that gets left behind." 

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Simply, what is an honest hustle? 

The Honest Hustle was derived from our original company rally cry, that – Humble beginning make for great stories. Tim and I started Richer Poorer with little more than a few dollars, a mountain of inspiration and the drive to create something we could share with the world. 

Seeing a brand through - from a simple idea to a truly functioning business -required having the perseverance to guide it and us through hundreds of roadblocks. It demanded an unwavering spirit, some serious scrappiness, honesty with ourselves, and a lot (A LOT) of hustle. As our team grew, it was important to us to maintain these values, so we named it the Honest Hustle as an easy way to define it. 

The honest hustle has become a way of life to me. It’s a commitment to being the best, most honest version of yourself in what it is you chose to do with your life. Regardless of whether you are running your own business, in your dream job, or your first job – it’s a belief that working as hard and smart as you can will lead you to the next best step, and so on. Be proud of what you do and how you do it.

Can you hustle your way to happy?

Yes! I entirely believe this if you are doing work that is meaningful to you. As human beings, we derive immense happiness and self-satisfaction out of accomplishing things. I read about how important the feeling of accomplishment is to humans in a really great book called Brain Rules before I had Ford, and it describes this starting in children as early as a few months old through adulthood. I know for myself, when I leave a day at the office and have been able to cross a big thing off my list, I feel great. 

I say this with the caveat that work alone will not make you happy. Human connections and relationships are the most important thing. Duh. 

We can't wait to have Iva Pawling join us #CreateCultivateATL this October on View From the Top: The Do's and Don'ts from the Women Who've Done It. 

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