Overcoming Working Mom Burnout

This season featured 16 conversations with dads, which may seem odd for a podcast on overcoming working mom burnout. But I truly believe that if dads who have experienced full time caregiving are in leadership positions, they will help create the workplace systems change that will benefit moms and prevent burnout. I learned a lot about the barriers dads face and what we can do at home, at work and in society to support dads to be a...

Michael Ray is a solo dad to daughter Charlie. He is an author, speaker, coach and activist with endless analogies to make sense of the challenges dads are facing in being active parents. He describes all the barriers that dads face in stepping into fatherhood and concludes that the only way to change that dynamic would be to incentivize dads to take leave. Michael’s approach to parenting is to ask questions so that his daughter ca...

Aaron Coleman is the founder and CEO of Fitabase, a 10 year old technology company processing sensor data for scientists. He has two daughters who have made him more aware of the need for paid parental leave and flexible schedules, even in the confines of a small business. Aaron took a 3 month sabbatical this year to reset from surviving as a business during Covid and in the process took time to reflect on what he had achieved. You...

Nihal Mehta is a dad to two boys and husband to change maker Reshma Saujani. He talks about giving each other time to focus and making time for exercise, especially with others. Using a stress monitoring app helps him keep burnout at bay. In particular, he advocates for dads creating friend groups so that they can feel appreciated more in their role and supported by other dads. You can find my free guides to prevent burnout at www....

Brian Anderson is a community organizer and dad to two girls. He leads the organization Fathering Together and recently wrote a book of the same name. He often blogs about being present with his girls and putting work aside for those moments.  Brian has had to balance his work mission with his desire to be a connected and available dad. He also talks about systems being the relationships between people and at the simplest level ask...

Dr. Charles Daniels is a therapist and TED Women conference speaker who was moved to tears during his talk as he described the struggles fathers face. He leads the organization Fathers Uplift. His approach to supporting fathers is multi-level, trying to change social stereotypes, providing community, and helping fathers self parent. Their secret sauce is how they make fathers feel. His wish for his children is to be able to choose ...

Jeremy Smith has two children and works full time. But following his experiences of taking paternity leave in the US, no less, he started speaking publicly about it and encourages other Dads to do the same. He shares some of the challenges of taking leave and the consequences it had at work. He also presents some tips about how to advocate for parental leave without becoming overwhelmed. Jeremy has hope that we have made progress o...

Ian Dinwiddy has two kids and is the founder of Inspiring Dads where he coaches Dads to play a role at home and work. Clear early articulation of values, goals and expectations for sharing the parenting load was part of Ian’s success. But also understanding the societal pressures that judge women as always responsible for the kids and in contrast giving men a pass when they make mistakes. And the expectation that even for primary c...

Eric Zimmer has two sons. He is the host of The One You Feed podcast, he’s a behavior coach, spiritual leader and writer. Eric overcame addiction in his early years giving him a unique insight into work addiction. But interestingly when he found a new purpose in life and started working less in his day job, he found less was more. Eric talks about aligning our choices with our values and questioning the value of climbing the corpor...

Jasper Schipperijn is Dutch but lives in Denmark on a farm with his son who has Type 1 diabetes and his ex wife and ex mother in law. This non traditional approach to co-parenting has enabled all the family members to share the load leaving each of them more opportunity to thrive. Jasper leads international research on healthy communities and active playgrounds and shares many examples of policies that support caregiving. Jasper de...

Jago Brown has three kids. At his company Lead5050, he is developing an accreditation process for companies to work toward gender equality. He also is a trustee at Equality Starts at Home, which is a charity set up to look at the difficulties inequality in the home has on many people and the knock on effects to their work life. At home, he and his wife use a system to help them support each other in household and childcare tasks. J...

Dereck Reynolds has three children and works in the foster care system. He’s the founder of Hug a Dad Foundation supporting dads to play active roles in their children's lives and the community at large. Dereck talks about the importance of positive male role models for young Black men. He understands that we need individual change, family change, community change and legal change to support stronger families and healthy communitie...

Jim Young is a burnout coach, author, comedian, and Dad of three. His new book Expansive Intimacy leverages the emotional intelligence we need in the workplace, allowing Dads to form deep connections and show up in more ways as a caring human as well as a competent CEO. Jim uses humor in his posts as well as his formal work with corporations, employing improv comedy as a way to elicit authentic and playful interactions in safe spac...

Dan Flanagan is a branding expert and community organizer for Dads, running Dad La Soul. He shares his story of burnout and how his career change allowed him to become a more involved Dad and provide a supportive structure for other Dads. He challenges the stereotypes of Dads as incompetent caregivers. And shares how building a global community organization just starts by starting. Dad La Soul exists to orchestrate a revolution in ...

Aaron Hipp has 3 adopted children and shares parenting as a team since both parents work full time. He is learning to set better boundaries around work, while also trying to recognize that his personality makes him enthusiastic about so many opportunities. He has learned from his wife to better communicate his needs but he wishes that Dads could be accepted by other Moms as equally capable helpers in their kids’ lives when they do ...

Eric Arthrell helped research and write the report The Design of Everyday Men, A New Lens for Gender Equality Progress when he was at Deloitte. This report highlights that the ‘always on always available’ culture leads to greater gender inequality and burnout. Eric now works from home and is the main caregiver for his two children. He talks about how Dads have to educate themselves to become more active participants in parenting an...

Ruchika Tulshyan is the author of Inclusion on Purpose and The Diversity Advantage. She is also the founder of Candour, a company that supports inclusion strategies in the workplace. Ruchika describes her personal journey that led to her focus on inclusion and how the biggest barrier is not recognizing your own role in changing inclusion. In particular, how our stories of working hard get in the way of seeing our privilege. Ruchika...