A Mindful Return to Work after Baby with attorney and entrepreneur Lori Mihalich-Levin. Ep 76

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome the best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode seventy six, which is first airing on January fifteenth. We are excited to welcome our guest, Laurie Mihelich Levin to talk about returning to work after maternity leave, always a popular topic for this podcast. I'm really excited to talk with her, and so is Sarah. Sarah had a fun last year of sort of life after baby. So are we We're going to do another post? Yeah, this pumping up dates after Life after Baby, Life after Life after Baby. The pumping is done. Yeah, and I'm excited to hear Lori's tips and tricks. But I'm pretty much beyond that, and I got to say, guys, life is really really much easier now, much much like I it. Now, I realize how much stress I was experiencing every day of my job when I go in, and like the actual patient care part is like nothing compared to the the anxiety that I was having surrounding like trying to fit in those pump sessions, and then like my actual feelings about those pump sessions. So like, it's just been really fun. I enjoy work. I enjoy seeing my patients so much more. I don't know if they can tell I'm just much more engaged. I'm not. I don't have my eye on the clock while I'm seeing them. And yeah, it's just been great. So I think it's going to be a wonderful year. And I'm as much as I'm enjoying the sort of end of that nursing relationship, we're still doing it in the morning and at night. I'm looking forward to eventually leaning that as well, because I want to get to the point where I can, you know, schedule a date night without having to think about, Okay, well she's going to bed at this time, so we can't go out till this time, and then by the time we go out, I'm tired, and you get what I'm saying. I think I'm pretty much ready to move on to the next phase of motherhood and it's going to be a fun one. I'm glad I did it, but yeah, it's more pleasant. Note you're glad you did it. I'm glad I did it. I am, even with all the anxiety. I mean, I don't know. I mean, that's a curious point. The good question, you know, I because it's true, like the last three months of it, you know what, if I had to do it again, maybe I maybe the last probably I think I've said this before, like I did it for six months with Annabel, with three months with Cameron, and for nine months with Genevie the pumping, and I think maybe the six months was more the limit and a good sweet spot because with Annabel I could then nurse for a few months after kind of get to that twelve month point, and then it worked out better. Maybe maybe, I mean, who knows. It's just it's very impossible to do your life over and know how I would feel, And I guess I just really wanted that experience of trying to do it in a way but you're right, looking back, it was it was pretty stressful. And it's almost like I see that even more out of it than I did while I was doing it. Yeah, no, I know. I mean it's frustrating to stop what you're doing three times a day and then sit connected to a machine like I mean a milking machine as it were, and the major and have it. So I think with my job, like I have a number of patients to see, I have like a defined start time and end time. That was partially due to the fact that I needed to be feeding her on the way out the door, and then when I got home, like I didn't really have the ability to like stay an extra hour or two if I got behind at night, and I have patients with predetermined appointment times where they might come late or you know, and I'd still have to see So it was like all these moving parts that I was managing every day and the kind of panic that I'd feel if I haven't pumped yet and then I know that three people just came and one person came late. Like it was just it was a big mental load and not a fun one. So yeah, I mean, listening to myself, it kind of seems like maybe I did do it for a little longer than I maybe you should have or could have, but it's over now and I'm just going to enjoy the flow after glow. Yeah. Well, it's just that, you know, breastfeeding and pumping are very different things. And I think that you know, well, while breastfeeding itself can be a pleasant, you know, bonding experience, that the pumping is what for many women it becomes because they are you know, back in the office while still breast fading, and it's just, you know, not fun. And it is very very different things. And so I don't know, it's it's more about saying like that there's something to the breast milk versus the actual feeding that you well, there's actually more scientific studies now looking at those difference. They used to all be lumped into one category, and now they're finding that, like, you know, the marginal benefits the breastfeeding does have, some of them are present in pumped milk, but not all of them. So that's actually kind of interesting. But you're right, it is a different thing. But the thing is, if you don't pump, then you can't really preustfeed when you're not at work. Or maybe you can, but you don't know how long you're going to be able to do that, and it's complicated. But you know what, there's some women I had someone write to me that's like, oh, I'm sixteen months and I'm still pumping. Well, the nice thing I can say is I got to a point that one year mark actually like two weeks shy of it, where like there's no question I have no desire to ever pump again. In fact, I would like the pumps out of my house. I don't even ever want to think about it. So it's nice to just have no debate or internal ambiguity about where I feel like I am done the end. Yeah, yeah, and maybe our guest can talk some about this. But like if the various accommodations you might make, for instance, it might be if you're thinking about negotiats, you have a flexible workplace, and it's a sort of job that some of it could be done from home, possibly you know, coming back to work, but working from home more days than not, for instance, would would allow for less of the pumping and more of the actual feeding. If you had somebody else caring for your baby in your house while you were also doing work like then then it's not so much the length of the maternity leave, it's the access you have to your baby that allows you. But then you could also, you know, do that I with with Jaspers. I all just we put him in daycare at four months, but I would the daycare was you know, a quarter mile from the house, so I just walk over and feed him. Oh yeah, there's even some I mean, big corporate campuses will have an on you know, in house daycare. So think about how convenient that could be. You could like literally like walk from your meeting, maybe go up a couple floors and see your baby and go right back. I mean that's a whole different story. Yeah, so there's lots of different ways to think about that, in ways that you can continue breastfeeding while while working as well. But we'll we'll definitely talk about that. But you know, so what are you what are you doing with the freed up time? Work? Have more work? Okay, no, just more like being able to do my work in less of a rushed manner. I haven't felt like there's all this free time. It's more like, oh, I'm finishing my charts or I'm able to like spend a little bit longer talking to this patient versus giving them nuts and bolts that I need to and running out the door. I think that I'm going to be able to spend more time. Actually, I know I've already started, like on some sort of lingering projects that we're sitting there related to the residency, and just generally feeling more cut up and having lunch with my colleagues sometimes. Yeah, it's been great. Yeah, but you have to find different times to read, right, because true, that was when you were reading. That's true. But since she's sleeping somewhat more at night, I can stay up a little later and maybe I'll just get it in then. Yeah, well that's great. So we'll talk to Laurie about the fun fun fact Laurie and I were actually college classmates. Were She sent me an email about being on this podcast a couple months ago, and I was like, yes, of course I remember you. But the fun thing is she was like the superstar academic person one like every prize and our major for her thesis. So maybe we can kid her a bit about that. What was your major? What was your major? Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton's a public policy so you know, wow, very interesting. Well you both kind of pivoted a little bit, but I say, well, her day talk has slightly more still to do, I guess with it. Maybe, Well we'll talk with Laurie about that. So here we'll go to the main many interview part of this podcast. Well, we're excited to welcome Laurie to the program, So Lauri, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners. Hi, Laurie and Sarah, thanks so much for having me on. The conversations you have on this podcast are so important and relevant to working parents. So thanks for everything that you do. Oh, I got you. I just kick off by saying I wear three main hats in life. One is I'm a partner in the healthcare practice at a large international law firm, and I practice medicare reimforsement law, specifically for teaching hospitals that train residents to become doctors. It's a very niche specialty on a sixty percent schedule in that role. In the other forty percent of my professional week, I run a program called Mindful Return that helps new parents transition back to work after parental leave. And the third hat is that I am mom to two wonderful redheaded boys, one of whom is about to turn eight tomorrow and the other one is turning six in February. Very exciting. So you were going along in your career as a lawyer, you know, building your career in that, and then you have two children, and how did that go? What was sort of did you find it easy to sort of continue your work as a lawyer. Did you immediately go down to sixty percent? I mean, how did that sort of evolve? Yeah, So, I mean easy would not be the word I would use to describe it. So I was in private practic right after law school, and I did you know, the law firm associate thing for a couple of years, and then I actually went in house to be doing Medicare policy work and I was working full time at a trade association when I had my first child, and I came back to work and it was challenging. I think one big challenge was that I had a child who refused to take a bottle. And so, you know, this working mom convinces herself that if she goes back to which her son might actually starve to death. And so there was this time when I had to sort of try and figure out what the heck was wrong. It turned out I had excess light base in my breast milk, and so I had to both pump the milk and then scald it in a little science experiment under my desk every time I pumped. So the return to work was challenging after baby number one, but we got there and I was, you know, rolling along. And then baby number two came about two years later, and as my husband and I like to joke, one plus one felt like eighty five at the time. Nobody was sleeping, one was potty training, the other one was up because you know, he was a newborn, and I was a disaster and the wheels came off, and you know, I was sort of this isolated puddle of tears on my kitchen floor for longer than I'd like to admit. And I found that, you know, in this trade association of five hundred and some employees, where a lot of people had gone out on leave and come back and it was a very family friendly environment, tons of people were struggling with a transition and no mom after mom would knock on my door and shut the door and come in and be like this is so hard, and then burst into tears and we'd be like, this is really hard. We didn't know what was going on. So I was at the Trade Association for a little over six years, had both of my sons there, and then I founded Mindful Return while I was working full time there. And after about a year and a half of both working full time and starting this program, I wanted to spend a little bit more daylight hours working on Mindful Return and then wound up leaving the Trade Association to go back to private practice, something that I admit surprised me. But I transitioned to a law firm directly onto the sixty percent schedule. I really interviewed at places and said, hey, I'm presenting myself as a candidate on a sixty percent schedule. Take me or leave me at that. But more, you know, there were a number of firms that were very receptive to the idea. Well that's fantastic. Well, especially if you have a very particular expertise, there cannot be many focusing on this area. So if a firm was looking to be in this space, you know exactly you've got laur at sixty percent or you have no I guess there are only a small handful of us who do that. And the other thing that I had going for me, quite frankly, was going for me in the sense of trying to get a reduced schedule, was I was coming into the firm without a book of business, right, so I had to grow clients from scratch. And you know, when't a firm prefer to take a gamble on sixty percent of one salary then you know, paying someone full salary and they hope that they would be able to come up with the client lists to fill up a whole book of business. Right, So when sometimes the firm was taking less of a risk on me by coming in at sixty percent as well, good good way to look at it, I guess. So with with mindful return, I mean, I love that you're feeling overwhelmed and so you start another organization. But what gap in the market were you were you looking to solve with with this side hustle? Yeah, so the full time job, the one year old and three year old, it's not enough, right, So yeah, Well I was really feeling isolated, you know, after that second baby, and I was looking around and saying, why are there courses on everything baby related. I can take a class on how to repair a birthplan or pure baby food, or massage my baby, or all the lactation supports are out there, But where's the class that I can go take that tells me how to transition back to work in a way that doesn't make me feel like I've lost my mind or have given up on my career aspirations. And I'm sitting here on the kitchen and floor. So I'm bemoaning the state, saying there should be something out there. And my husband, who's a career coach and an entrepreneur, looks at me and is like, what are you going to do about it? And so I sort of took that as a challenge, and this risk adverse lawyer decided to try and fill that gap because I didn't. I really created what I wish had been out there to support me when I went back. And so, what exactly does Mindful Return do? Yeah, that's what I would toe the support their are their live counselors. Is it more like you know, will you tell us? Yeah? So it's an online, four week cohort based program, meaning you're in the group with other people who are going through the return at the same time you are. And really it's both a coarse curriculum with content about four different themes, a mindful mindset for returning to work, the logistics of return, how to be a leader in the space of return, and building community. So those are the four themes, and you work through lessons on these themes and you're in this community with all these other moms. So you read a lesson and then there's a discussion board and everybody gets to interact with each other on the discussion board. You don't have to be anywhere at any given time of day or night, because I couldn't be anywhere at any given time of day or night. Well, I was a young, new mom, and so really it's an opportunity for people to both learn and connect with each other. There's a version for moms, there's a version for dads, and starting January twenty nineteen, there's a new version for moms of special needs babies as well. Oh that's so cool, thank you. Yeah, we really found that there was a special need out there for a course that wasn't tailored just to mom, like, well that want addressed like nick you parents, and absolutely nick you and extra exactly babies who are medically fragile, folks with autism down syndrome, so that one's really geared toward babies and toddlers, or rather the moms of babies and toddlers. Got it wonderful. Well, I wanted to talk some practicalities because you've got these people going through a four week program and they're learning tips and strategies and things to think about. So what are let's really talk some practicality here there, and what are some big mistakes people make as they approach their return to work. I mean, what advice would you give new mom, Laurie of practical things to try. I made a ton of mistakes, as I'm sure we all do, and learn from them. I'd say one of the number one mistakes I made was when I went back to work the first time, trying to catch up on absolutely every single email and thing that I had missed while I was out. And I think I tried to read all the Federal Register notices that came out and tried to read the thousands of emails, and I found that, you know, maybe two months back, I was still feeling lost and behind, and so with a second return, I corrected that mistake by setting up meetings with my key stakeholders for the first couple of weeks back and asking them two questions, One would I miss too, how can I help? And wow? Was that a lot less stressful? So within two weeks, you know, I was done. I was caught up. I didn't read everything. And if there was something that came up that related to the period when I was gone and I didn't have the answers, I have a whole team, I was like, Okay, well, whoever covered that while I was out, they can answer your question. So I think it was just a lot more forward looking of a strategy. Another mistake that I definitely made was feeling like I had to be the one to do everything. I'm sure this is really common, but you know, I felt like I had to be the one to cook the cast role that was going to last the three days, and to come up with a meal plan and to clean the house and bah blah blah blah. And you know, I think I would have gotten more help sooner had I thought through this better the first time. Yes, Yeah, I think sometimes people actually need a course to sort of give them permission to get that help, whether that's from their partner or outside help. So that's great. Yeah, And I'd say like one of the biggest supports in those first couple of years was parents' helpers. Right, So the thirteen, maybe twelve eleven, ten eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen year old neighbors who would come over and come to the house for a couple of hours on the weekends while we were there, so that we could get stuff done, still be around, play with the kids, not feel like we were leaving, but still managed to squeeze more out of our weekend that way. There's a mistake that I've seen in the Billable our world, or I don't know if it's a mistake so much as something you can do to prepare yourself to return. In the Billblour world, you have to have work, to be busy to create value, right, And so one way that I've seen people sort of struggle when they come back is to not line up projects that they can dig into when they return. And of course it's personal preference how quickly you want to ramp back up, but to the extent you want to be busy when you come back, it can really be helpful to reach out to some of your colleagues a few weeks before the end of leave and remind them that you're coming back, and ask what projects you can start to dig in on whenever you do return, so that you can start to be buildable from the time you come back. I've also talked to some moms who didn't line up work or for whatever reason, were sitting at their office with not a whole lot going on those first few weeks, and they found that more infuriating because they could have been with their baby. Right They're like, I'm sitting here at my dad's not doing anything. I'd prefer to actually be productive. So I think, you know, having that communication plan is really is really helpful. I think another mistake that I made, and I see a lot of the moms in my course make again if it's a mental If it's a mistake so much as sort of a a mental bias. But we assume that our kids are somehow going to forget us or think that we're somehow less of a parent because we're trying to go back to work. And the one thing that I say to the moms and the course is there's no one like mommy. There's never going to be anyone like, Mommy, that kid is going to run screaming into your arms at the end of the day, and that smile is going to make you so happy. And I think a lot of the moms think that somehow, by being gone for however many hours during the day, that their kid just is going to forget them, And I think that's a serious error and when we need to work on correcting just for our own sanity, that's awesome. Yeah. So, I personally found by far the most challenging part of my return to work related to the pumping. Like if that wasn't any I don't even think I'd have any issue. But that was like a huge painful experience for me for nine months, and somehow I did it anyway. So I would love to hear your thoughts on that, the choice to do it versus not any tips any I don't know. You now have a lot of experience talking to many women about this, I'm sure, so i'd love to hear your insights. Yeah, so the pumping thing, I did it until each sun was about thirteen months old, so there were I don't know, one time I sat down and calculated like a thousand pump sessions or something so there was a lot of pumping going on, and planes strains automobile is my desk. I think one thing that was the most helpful to me was to block my pump times on the calendar for a full year in advance. And I know that's not always possible, depending on where, what type of work here in, et cetera. But it was helpful to me during my leave to block those times so that no one else would steal them from me, because it's much easier to block it out than to try to steal it back from someone later. It helped me to realize that each child was really different as well. Like with my first child, I had to pump three times a day. I pumped like nine thirty to ten, twelve thirty to one, three thirty four or something like that to keep my supply up, and I was sort of eking out every ounce. And I know stress reduces your supply and that probably contributed to it. But with maybe number two WHOA, I did not really need a third session. I was producing milk like nobody's business and I had two plump sessions during the day, one in the morning, one the afternoon. But I didn't take that third session off my calendar and I sort of kept that time for me, so that was nice. I had the whole pump and scald thing going on, so I really did need the whole half an hour. That sounds terrible, and yeah, it was the candy thermometer that works. And I definitely had a pump at home and one at my office so I didn't have to carry parts around. I think one thing that I wished I had known was the concept and I know that there's debate about this, but the concept that you can take your pump parts and just stick them the frosty and not so nothing bad ever happened, Yes, exactly so I've heard. So I wish I had known and to be able to delegate and outsource all the parts of pumping, but aren't the actual pumping right, So engage a partner if possible, and washing pump parts and storing milk and preparing bottles and all that sort of stuff. I know that this is a benefit that's available at a lot of places now that I didn't have access to. But milk Stork is quite popular for shipping milk when you're on work travel and a lot of employers will pick up the cost of that. They apparently deliver a refrigerated box to your hotel room and you can pump and then just have the milk shipped home for the next day. That's something that you know, I know exists now that I wish I had known about back then. So cool for people who travel. But what about the weather pump question, like we in the intro to the weather Yeah, to this podcast. I mean, I'm kind of going back and forth like was I insane? I mean, it's like, are we torturing ourselves too much? I don't know. Yes, yes, I think I definitely went sort of certifiably insane over pumping. And I'm sure you know it's a lot of pressures coming from society, medical establishment. I didn't supplement either time, and I think the first time around that had a huge impact on my mood, and had I to do it over again, I think I probably would have said, great, so let's make some formula in here and take a little bit of stress off of me. But I didn't do that. For whatever reason. It sort of was a given that if I could, if I could nurse my baby and lactatee, then I was going to pump, and I sort of set that up pretty rigidly for myself and stuck to it for better or worse. Yeah, I was gonna say, the two of you, maybe you could talk about that. I don't know, I think people get different messages we have with that. Like I sort of didn't feel that way. I mean, maybe it's also that I was in my house anyway, so I wasn't mostly dealing with the pump. I did pump some, but it was mostly just to keep up supply and like have extra bottles so I could, you know, have it for so, you know, because I'm still there, I'm still seeing the baby all the time. So I guess I didn't feel that same thing like the milk was doing it, so I just dumped it. Like if I traveled, i'd pump and dump, like the idea of shipping it back. I guess I just don't see that the milk itself is somehow the like pumping when I was traveling was about just keeping this with you, as opposed to I've done that the baby. The baby desperately means that milk. You know. It's like, well, there's stuff in the freezer, there's formula which I could and for whatever reason, gott it in my head that I just had to do those and that was anyway. And I hope, I hope that part of your mindful Return training is maybe helping women, because I don't know. Sometimes I just it's true. I think there needs to be more support on making us realize that there are choices and there doesn't have to be guilt. Absolutely. Yeah. One day of the Mindful Return courses labeled something like nurturing your baby, and then there's part of the lesson about pumping if you're doing that, And then there's part of the lesson about, yes, you're nurturing your baby even if you're not pumping. Come on, people, and you know the mantra about fed is best and like, let's let's take the stress off of ourselves here. I also, I think I learned a lot about sort of how the whole milk production thing works as I went along over time too, Like for some reason, I was trying to get in extra sessions and like try to pump for that freezer supply at night, like at the end of the day after the babies went to bed. With my first child and then the second baby, I'm like, oh, right, bigger supply in morning, should pump extra in mourning? And then I didn't even pump. I just fed baby on one side, see the other one into a bottle on the other while he was eating. And you know, there I was, I had my extra model of milk or whatever. So that's amazing. But it's so funny because like also, I think it's such an like there's so many individual differences physiologically about how it works for different people, like what you just said, like that would have never worked for me, like I, I can't even imagine like it, nothing would have come out like I. But but then it's just so easy to be like, well obviously, you know, so I just the individuality needs to be emphasized. And yes, and what you talked about that permissiveness of like you can nurture your baby in many different ways exactly there's no one, yeah, and that there can be gradations in this too, like I I believe, I mean, you're still breastfeeding your baby. If you're breastfeeding in the morning at night, maybe you know you're pumping once a day during the work you're not pumping all that you would need to supply the baby, but you're pumping some like I mean that's that can be fine too, Like, I mean, you know, a baby who is getting one formula bottle and for nursing sessions a day is still breastfed baby, you know, like it's and and there's no you don't get a medal. I don't know. I mean maybe somebody else is in some sort of online cragging forum where you can talk about you know, but I would personally stay away from that forum if I were you. I'm just like in general, so there's lots of gradations in this, and you can you can nurse even if you're not nursing exclusively. You can, you know, introduce bottles at some point if it helps. You know that there's lots of ways to think about this, and that can make life a lot less stressful as well. And for the record, sixty six percent of my baby's got multiple yes. Yeah, great, and everyone's okay, everyone is exactly the same. I might, yeah, so anyway away from pumping. You had another question, Laura, I think about, like what about longer maternity leaves? How Yeah, I wondered if anything changed based in your advice based on sort of how how long the person has been out for I mean, I would assume the majority are right around that kind of like twelve week returning that that seems to be pretty US standard. But then there's within i know, the legal world, we're certainly seeing a number of firms sort of expanding that to more like in the six month range, you know, and some tech companies as well. So I wondered if there are differences for different links of time that you've been out, or if somebody maybe took a year off, if there's other things that you have her thinking about. Yeah, that's a great question. And people take the Mind for Return program from all over the world too, So I've had, you know, plenty of people from Australia, in UK, where it's much in Canada where it's really standard to take a much longer period of time off. And I think what surprised me most, or what has surprised me most over the couple of years of teaching those courses universality of the worries, Like you know, it may very well be that your kid can walk and might not need a bottle anymore, but you're still worried about leaving your child with someone you don't necessarily know, even though you've edted them and you're worried about reintegrating into some of your projects. And there was a really interesting Harvard Business Review article about that longer leave a couple I think it's in September, and how you know, a longer leave can be more challenging from a career perspective to come back from, right because you've been gone longer and the world, the work world might have changed a little bit more my course itself. It really doesn't vary depending on your length of leave, and I think, as I said, the concerns seemed to be universal. But one thing that the HBr article mentioned as being a really helpful tool for employers to use for the longer leaves is some sort of a keep in touch program where you know, if you're going to be out for a year or eighteen months, even it makes sense to keep your employees engaged on some level and make sure that they're in the loop generally speaking as to what's going on, even if they're not monitoring things day to day. Eighteen months. Wow, Partly I couldn't imagine. And I think that that's also something that it could be. It's not a bad thing to want to get back to work, absolutely there's well, if I took eighteen months between my two first kids, I think I would have been at work for like three more months before, Like, well, that totally happens. I mean somebody, you know, the places with longer leaves, like you could be pregnant with your next kid when you're coming back from your first maternity event. But there's no way, I mean, your career cannot There are challenges, there are limits to what you can do, and you will lose your contacts, you will lose your clients, you will lose some of your skills, and you may decide that's worth it. Which you know, people in places of shorter leaves, if they take time out of the workforce, like a couple years, they're going to they acknowledge that, yeah, you're going to go away without some of those things that may be totally worth it to you. But you can't, you know, assume everything will be the same coming back from from that long of a timeout. And that's fine. Yeah, And it's also fine. It doesn't make you a bad mother to want to get back. I was just going to say, I hear a lot of guilt around the like I must be awful because I really want to be back in my office. No, you're not awful. You're a normal human being who has aspirations to do things other than hang out with your baby. And that's wonderful too. I think I took twenty weeks with my first child, and then I took sixteen with my second, because I remembered that around the sixteen week mark, I was like, Okay, that's good, I have done. I'm ready to be back at this. Yeah. No, And certainly, if you enjoy your work, you're not going to not enjoy your work after Like, we don't have to pit work and motherhood against each other. Like your a mother who also enjoys her work. That's great, Yes, you can do both. So, and we also have plenty of our listeners in HR and management and so I'm curious, as you've been studying various different companies, what you've seen is some of the corporate best practices. I mean, what would you like to see companies do to ease the transition back into work for people and why they might wish to do those things well, I think believing in working parents for the long haul makes those working parents the most devoted, efficient, and amazing problem solving employees you could possibly have. And so I'm a big advocate for reminding everyone that first of all, you didn't lose any skills by becoming a parent o contrere, You've gained a ton of skills that are in fact useful in your workplace. And so to the extent employers can really acknowledge the new parent employees and say you know, look, I'm investing in you for your career. That's going to make the new parent employees all the more devoted and wanting to come back. So really investing in the new parent employees is a retention tool. A couple of things that I would love to see, and I guess one shout out I want to do is for the Diversity of Flexibility Alliance, which is a great I think tank and benchmarking organization that has really helped me know about and about breadth and best practices and then encourage my firm to adopt them. For example, so one thing is really too degender and deparent your flexibility policies and practices so that it's not stigmatizing for parents to have that sort of flexibility or whatever the flexibility is that you offer, so to really make it acceptable for people to have alternative schedules and reduced hours and remote work options and things like that. And it's twofold benefit because not only does it reduce stigma, but other people, you know, it's it's they're entitled of flexibility too, maybe as other relative that needs help or something else. So I think that's great exactly. Yeah, And along those lines in terms of degendering, degendering parentally, and that includes eliminating the primary caregiver distinction that you know, I can go on a ranch about, but you know, basically the pitch to my firm when I was really trying to work to get rid of the the idea that the primary caregiver quote unquote should have a longer leave them than non primary is. And how exactly are you going to enforce that, right? Are you counting the number of diapers one person changes versus the other? I think just setting up a policy that way implies that there should be or there has to be one person who's primary. I mean, in my household, there's at a primary like we're all on whenever we're on, and so you know, I think there is a trend now to try to get rid of that distinction where possible. I'm also a huge advocate of encouraging employers to support working parent affinity groups. I'm sort of a serial launcher and instigator of these, both at the you know, two last places that I worked, and also the alums of my course often go on to say, Hey, we need one of these at our office as well. And I think it helps parents to you know, connect with one another, to even network and build business relationships among the parents. I think gives tell me tell me more about like that. I don't think we have that where I work, so I'm curious, Like, give me an example. Yeah, it's a trend association where I used to work. I started. We called it the Returning to Work Community, and it was really like a group of new parents. It turned out in that instance to really just be moms, and we got together once a month for a brown bag lunch in the office. And when I came over to the law firm, I really I wanted one here, but I didn't want it to just be moms. I wanted it to be all parents, and so I ended up co launching the Parent Professional Network at our firm with a dad who's a partner in the new York office of our firm, and we launched about a year and a half ago, and we have monthly local brown bag offices in our lunches, and then we have quarterly national calls where we pick a topic that interests everybody. We might bring in a speaker, we might you know, just have a roundtable ourselves. And it's just a way for the parents to connect with one another. The law firms often have these professional network structures already, So we already had the Black Professional Network, the LGBT Professional Network, and so I wanted to slot the parent one in to the same format that already existed. And so we found a way to have the naming convention be the same as the other groups for example. And it's been I think we have over one hundred members in our firms group at this point. It's just been a really great way to bounce ideas off of each other and have an open door, open line of communication with HR as well. Cool. Maybe I'll have to try to copy you at my organization. There you go, absolutely, And then I mean supporting new parents. I would be remiss if I didn't put a pitch in for mindful Return. There are forty three employers that now offer it as a parental leaf benefit to help their employees deal with that transition back. Some places offer one on one coaching as well. Companies offer Milk Store. I can't say enough about backup care benefits. Know if either of you has had experience, Laura, I imagine not you perhaps working for yourself, but benefits are limited. But yeah, you know, I have twenty days of backup care benefits am I firm without any co pay, which is sort of extraordinary. I know a lot of other places have a fair number of days, maybe with a twenty dollars or thirty dollars copay. And we have an option of two things. One either taking our child to one of the centers. Ours happens to be Bright Horizon backup Care, so we can take our child to a Bright Horizon center, or we can have somebody come to our house. And Bright Horizons just organizes it through the local nanny agencies to have someone come to your house whenever you need the backup assistance. And so I was recently talking to a West Coast law firm that decided to offer backup care benefits, and they did the calculation and said, we're comparing the cost of paying a recruiter, if you know, to recruit a new hire with the backup care benefit. And so we're going to choose the backup care benefit because it means that we're going to be able to retain that person and you know, have them actually be productive on days when they might otherwise need to be out because school is closed or daycare is closed, or their child gets sick. So I think there's definitely a business case for that sort of benefit as well of paid backup care benefits. Literally blows my mind. But wow, that's so fascinating to know that such a thing would exist. And it took I mean, it's also like a marketing thing, like you have to tell your employees that it's there. I think it took about eighteen months of my working at this part until I knew that we had that benefit. But once I knew, I started using it right away and now I try to spread the word all all my fellow colleagues. That's so cool. Thank you. Well. We always like to hear a day in the life of our guests, So you know, what, what does a day in the life of LORI look like? Now, I don't know, like every day is completely different. So generally speaking, Monday through Thursday ish, I work at the firm. Fridays I try to do mine for return, but my life is sort of an interwoven tapestry of all of the aspects of my life. Really, but let's see typical day. I'll maybe do Yesterday, so I got up at six. I do about fifteen or twenty minutes of writing in this great book called the Five Minute Journal, which literally is what it says that it is, because I have five minutes for that. And then I do yoga and a little bit of meditation, and then I hear mommy coming from one of my son's rooms, and we get rolling and my husband puts breakfast together while I shower, and then we manage to get out the door somewhere around eight o'clock. My husband and I both take our kids to school, and then I head to the Metro. Yesterday we had the holiday party and my youngest son's kindergarten class room, so we spent a little bit of time doing that. Then I take the Metro down to my office, and I really treasure that commute time one because like I get a little bit of outdoor walking and I usually listen to a podcast or read a book on the metro and then I get to my office around nine fifteen nine thirty, and then you know, health hospitals and health systems get their proper Medicare reimbursements for the day, you know, corresponding with clients, maybe taking a mind for return call if I need to, and then packing it in around four fifth or forty five, and meeting up with my husband at a metro stop close to our kids' school, picking up our kids from aftercare by around five fifteen to five thirty, making it home around five forty five six o'clock. Then we do dinner, bath in bed. We used to use blue apron, now use plated for at least a couple of the meals of our week, and we do all the chopping on the weekends and then actually cook the meals during the week. Fathtime is seven o'clock, bedtime is eight o'clock, and we sort of switch off who puts Foo to bed and then everyone's asleep god willing by eight thirty eight forty five. Presuming that nothing else went awry or someone took a nap during the day that they shouldn't have whatever, and then usually, you know, my husband and I connect for a little bit and then nine thirty to ten thirty, I'll be nine to ten thirty. Nine thirty to ten thirty, I'll be back online, often splitting my split shift between Mind four Return and Dentan's, my law firm. And uh, then eleven o'clock is lights out for me, and then we do it all over again. That's awesome. You sound like an ad for d like walking to the Metro with your husband's situation. Yeah, it's uh, we sort of travel as pack. We've managed to have a one car family this long, which I suspect will and at some point because our kids are starting to go off in separate directions. But I do like how much the four of us are able to do together. That's so cool. That's really cool. Well, Laurie, we always do the our Love of the Week when we have our guests. So something that's really making you excited this week? Sarah and I can go first so that we you know, you don't have to be right on the spot. So, Sarah, what do you have this week? I have a concept which I believe was in your book, Laura. It's vacation anticipation. So I'm in the middle of planning our vacation that's coming next week. And also we just I just paid for our Disney cruise, which means we get to like book all of our stuff. And so I mean I recognize I'm probably like, like half of the joy of the vacations is in the anticipation, but you know what, why not, I might as well just roll in it. It's great. Yeah, I like anticipation. It's always good. So my love of the week is Forever stamps, which you know, young enough people who listen to this are like, well, what do you mean, Like, aren't all the stamps for so back in the day you used to whenever they had a rate change in the postal Service, you had to buy like all these two cent stamps to then supplement your you know, twenty five cent that had just been raised to twenty seven cents, so then you to keep track of that. You're making me feel so old that you have to explain that, but go I had to explain that to our to our younger listeners. But but you know, whatever, it was that at some point in there, the Postal Service decided to switch it to that, you know, Once you sell a stamp, it's good forever, whatever the rate changes. So we actually I think the rate is going up. In January, we bought a bunch of stamps just now and partly for sending out. We did it before the holidays to send out holiday cards, but we wound up with a bunch of extras because there was miscommunication about who was buying the stamps. But it's great because it's like a hedge. Again. It was a write increase, so I'm hedging with stamps now. It's funny though now I don't know what they actually cost anymore versus back in the day you remembered because it was like on the stamp, it was on the stand. That's true. Well, that that probably does. It was a win for everybody. It's like win for people who didn't have to keep sent you know, the two cent stamps going, but then also for the post office because there's so much apparently. Yeah, so funny. I love that, your love. I couldn't tell you what a stamp costs today. Okay, So I have two quick ones, if that's all right. One is, my boys have really been in that sibling rivalry thing lately, and we recently discovered because one I got for his birthday the concept of cooperative games where there isn't a winner and loser, but rather everyone plays together to try to accomplish a common goal. And you know, my son got this great game called five Minute Dragon, which I am totally into because we're all trying to defeat the monsters together and it really reduces the whole in fighting thing. And my second one is that situation of you know, it's winter time, the kids are always, always, always losing their gloves everywhere and leaving them all over the place and we can't find them. So I bought one of those twelve pair so twenty four identical Nick Gloves packs of gloves, and now we just have them all over the house. Wherever you need a glove, you're gonna find a glove and it's gonna match because they're all the same. So those are my two make life for you easier. I love plugs. I love the idea of over buying stuff you use all the time. It's just like, I mean, you couldn't do that with like the fancy like north faced gloves that you'd be I mean, unless you're like in dough and which is God bush you, but like for the little the little cheapo gloves. Yes, I got twenty four black knit gloves from nineteen ninety nine on Amazon, and now we've got some upstairs and some downstairs. And it's like we never have to stop to run out the door and be like, oh I can't leave and they don't have my gloves. No here here are Y's beautiful. I love that, although that probably made stare I just go crazy, just like I don't want gloves all over my house. I do want pacifiers, pasifier, but gloves, especially down here, that'd be silly. Yes, all right, Well, Laurie, thank you so much for coming on. Best in both worlds. We really appreciate you making the time to be here. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to talk with you both. And thanks for continuing this conversation for all working parents. Oh, thank you. Well, that was a great interview. We have a great question for us, submitted I believe via an email and it was on Laura's birthday, so it begins Happy birthday, Laura. We love the podcast. I have a question I'd like you to answer. I'm a mom of three girls. They're all five and under. And I'm an attorney. I'd love to hear about tricks you've discovered making life work with many kids. I can't decide if it works better, for example, to take all the kids to the doctor on the same day, reducing drive time but guaranteeing chaos, or if it makes more sense to schedule their appointments separately. The doctor and I can focus on each one, but have to make three separate trips. I know better than to take them all to the grocery store. But outside of family events, what other areas of life does it make sense to do things with them in numbers versus one on one. Thank you so much. Ah, Yes, the batching it's a good one. I mean, because when you do have multiple kids, I mean, there are certain economies of scale. And you know, I was thinking about this every night so that I'm, for instance, plating dinner for the kids. Like if I'm doing this on the weekend or in the morning with breakfast, I will like put out four plates and then cut up bananas on all four plates and then cut up you know, Karen sticks on all four plates and then put a little bit of this thing on. It's You're just batching all kinds of things. It's a bit like being a short order cook. You know, the shoes are all in one place and everyone it's like you're checking off shoes, coat, backpack. Okay, all three have that out the door to the batching has a lot going for it. We do some of this with doctor appointments, not all four together by any means, but they're spread out enough that you just wouldn't do it. But I take you know, last year, I took the two big boys together, right like that made a lot of sense to do, and they in fact sat out in the hallway during each other's exams. So that was a way that our doctor dealt with this. We've often taken the two littler kids together, so the seven year old and three year old. My husband took them last year, and our nanny went as well, because I think if you're taking smaller kids at the same time, you would definitely want to have another adult presence. So, for instance, this woman who's got five girl or three girls, say five girls under the age of three, that would be a little bit more chaotic than three girls under the age of five, but she could do all the appointments at the same time of her office would let her do that, but have another adult with her, so either her partner or nanny or another relative, and so that way she or the other or her partner, the person was choosing to do it could be with the one child who the doctor was focusing on, and then the other parent or adult could take the other two kids and you switch off that way, So that way you reduce the driving time but also not have as much of the chaos. So that's kind of how we've done. I think that's going to change as the daughter gets a little bit older, because obviously she's not going to be one there with her her little brother for things like this. My husband will take all of them to the dentist at the same time. If he just takes the three big kids, it would be just him and the three kids. And you know, they have a couple dental high genis working at the place, so they can either do two at a time or sometimes all four at a time. When he starts bringing our little guy, I think our nanny will go with him, probably for that. Wait, so your husband goes to the same dentists that your kids, it's like a family dentist. It's a family dunist. Wow, oh, definitely, that's very dentists. And then there's adult dentists combine. I feel like that is needlessly one dentist. We all have teeth. Probably the dentist has seen both baby teeth and adult teeth and could deal with both. So I don't know. Our pediatric dentist is so good with kids that my Cameron will ask every day, like leading up to it is today, the appointment is today? That's awesome. I know. Well, our dentist is a mom who also has kids at the same middle school, for instance, so she's she's said with kids just by nature of like who she is, but then she's fine with adults too. I mean she's the one who when I've had had my broken tooth, when went in there and be like, hey, I can take out that other filling and replace it too, that's right next to it. And so now I have, you know, all white fillings, which is exciting any that was getting away from it. But yeah, no, we have digressed. We have digressed. But sure, yeah, no, why why not like go to the dentists is the same time as like older children who don't need to be like really closely supervised. I think that's a time saver there. I can give you guys the go ahead. Do you have more Yes, you were talking about activities a little bit right, Just that you know, when the kids are little, if they are not expressing too much interest in their own unique things. I mean, some of this is going to be whatever the older girl winds up doing, her sisters are to wind up doing too. I mean, this is just the reality of having lots of kids in close succession, is that those will be the activities you are familiar with, and because your other daughters will see them, that will sort of be what they'll want to do, which is great. Like you can try and get everyone in, you know, lessons at the same time or at the same place. You can also, I mean, they will express their own interests eventually, because they are different people, and that just because their siblings doesn't mean they're the same people. Same thing with twins. If you had twins, you wouldn't you know, they're going to be their own people too. It doesn't mean then y'll do the same thing, but you know, I think you should feel free to set systems for the whole family and then kids can have their own things. But they also need to work within the structures of a bigger family. So like this is homework time, this is everyone is in the room reading time. You know, this is what we have for breakfast. It You can make a lot of these decisions with an eye toward making it work for you, given that. I think there's so many upsides of having lots of sibling I mean, I say this obviously from the perspective of having children. I'd like bigger families, But if you have them, you know, the systems wind up being the thing, and individual people can have their own thing within that, but the systems are very important. All right now, Sarah, you have some no I think we tend to think really alike with a lot of this. And you know, even with activities, you can offer them either to do the same activity or if they don't want that, then you may offer them a list. Hey, these are all the activities at the hy at this hour. You have to pick one that's available at that time because that's when we're going to the y. So you may logistically be able to batch them even if they're not doing exactly the same thing. I just wanted to tell the story that I tried to put my two older. So Annabella is six and a half and Cameron is almost five. Pre K and first grade kind of different developmental stages, but I figured close enough, and the gymnastics class said it was for ages four to seven, so I'm like, great, not great. They were like totally every week. The teacher said, you know, they'd be really good if they weren't in class together, because they just disrupt each other, and then they disrupt everybody else because their brother and really they both have potential on their own. But this is not working. And I was kind of like, well, we'll just have to deal with that next time because the activity schedule is set and it's not going to change. So but for the future, I've learned my lesson and maybe they could take classes at the same time, but not in the actual same class. I was gonna mention, that's fine. I love that you use the word that they were sabotaging each other. I'm trying to think about what it means to sabotage each other in a gymnastic setting, like it's their turn to do it, and so you might trip them on the way up to the bar. I don't even know, just terrible so bedtime is a question. We've gotten a lot. I get it a lot on my blog and Laura's gotten it, and I would say my bedtime routine is all about batching, specifically the older two. I feel like it would be the same amount of work to put like Genevieve and Cameron to bed as it is to put Genevieve and Cameron Annabel to bed, because she goes to bed first, and then they share a room, so they just we just like, okay, now you're both brushing your teeth. Okay, now we're both reading a story. And they can listen to the same books. So I think there's there's a lot you can. You know, economy of scale really really is a thing. So I say, go for it. But I was gonna leave you all also with the doctor's perspective, because I've got plenty of batched siblings which will come in to see me. I do have one family of four kids. I let them book like half my morning, like it'll just be this one family because I know they're going to come. But if you do book, especially like more than two kids, do not know a show because then you have kind of like taken up a lot of spots, yes, the entire The other one is try your best to focus on one kid at a time. So whichever one you want to start with, go for it, but don't be like, oh, and it's not like the doctor probably is like has one note open and really is trying to think about that patient story. So they're not ready to hear things about the other one while you're focused on one. So maybe try if you can kick the other one out of the room and let them hang out in the waiting room or at very you know, they can be on their iPad or reading a book or something, but just really have the mindset that, Okay, we're going to talk about this one and then we'll talk about that one. Because my parents tend to, like, I don't know, they get excited and then they say, oh, I'm more worried about this one, but like what, we already started with that one on this one. So yeah, well that makes that makes a lot of sense, makes a lot of sense. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking with Laura Mihilic Levin about making a mindful return to work. Lots of great maternity leave and post maternity leave tips. There so we'll be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.