If you look at it from the perspective of an employer, many of us young parents can be a liability. We have fixed timings for kiddo pick ups and drop offs during which we are unavailable for meetings or additional work. Sometimes our kids fall sick, or their caregiver does, prompting us to shorten hours or stay home. Oftentimes, we become sick after our kid has been sick, which means even more time off. 

If kids are young, many of us want to travel and spend more time together as a family. This may mean taking vacations in the summer and over the holidays. These peak hours may clash with the business needs- depending on what industry we are in, such as retail and healthcare.

All of the above has happened to me this year, my first full year of working and parenting. It’s been a rich and fulfilling year for myself personally, but it hasn’t been without its share of problems. 

Reading some of this may make you worry about becoming a parent yourself, or worse, feel like you may never want to hire a young parent. Both of these are understandable propositions. However if you are in the first group of people, who love their work and also want to build a family, here are 5 things that can help you achieve what you want to, while becoming indispensable to your team.  

Become 10x better than everyone else

This is the golden rule. If you’re far better at what you do, you’ve already proved yourself indispensable. You are essentially hard to replace. However, you’re also hard to ignore. If you are sick, have a kiddo emergency or go on vacation, the team is going to be talking about it. Some of them will give you a hard time for it. Only because they need you back and can feel the hole you are leaving behind! 

How do you get better than everyone else?

You relentlessly work on improving your skillset. Give a 200% to your work when you’re at work. If you love your work, this is easy to do. In Naval Ravikant’s words, work ‘feels like play’ and comes naturally to you. If you’re stuck in a job you hate anyway, it will be a matter of time before you leave it.

Coming to a shitty job is the worst feeling in the world after you’ve left a crying toddler/baby at home or in day care. 

Have reliable childcare and have a 2nd and 3rd back up 

Even the most reliable caregivers will occasionally call out sick, or need time off. It’s frustrating but it’s fair. In these cases, it becomes crucial for you to have systems in place where you can rely on a backup nanny or leave your kids with a family member/trusted caregiver. Whatever works for your situation. Of course, you could take the day off too, but this post is not about that. 

This post is about how you become a kickass working parent. And if you want to be kickass at your job it means you too need to be reliable. This starts with you hiring the right caregiver team for your kids, and when they don’t work out, you have other options to fill these gaps. 

That said, having child care can be very costly. However this too will be managed well, if you follow rule 1 and become 10x better than everyone else. If you’re truly 10x, you will be compensated accordingly. And therefore you can afford the important luxuries of having reliable childcare and a 2nd or 3rd backup. 

Of course it goes without saying that the luckiest working parents amongst us are those that have grandparents close by to serve as caregivers or backups! Nothing is more comforting than to know your child is in the best place possible outside their own home.

Time, not wealth, is your most important asset 

Working parents don’t have a whole lot of ‘free’ time. Between work and kids, you have a few moments to yourself. You could use that to watch mindless TV or listen to the news. Meet ‘friends’ who are no longer enriching your life. Or you could use that to learn a new aspect of your craft. 

I can think of so much wasted time in my 20s and early 30s where I was glued to the television. I binge watched random TV shows that I don’t even remember anymore. I continued this trend even into married life. Now that I have such little time, I value it more. Every moment counts. And so, washing dishes or doing the laundry becomes a time for listening to a course on sleep disordered breathing or restorative dentistry. Work commutes are for podcasts by internists and physicians on different medical conditions that affect our patients. 

Believe me when I say this is not me preaching. I had a wake up call when I hit the third trimester and realized I will have even less time when the second baby is here. That shifted things for me very quickly. 

Health is wealth 

If you’re not healthy, you will never be a good parent or a good worker. You will be tired, unhappy, and not be able to give others your 100%. Being sick is the worst, but not even knowing you’re sick is worse! Many people are sleepwalking through life eating an unhealthy diet, not exercising, developing chronic health conditions (in their late 20s or early 30s) and being completely unaware of this. 

I see a lot of aged patients in my practice and what I’ve realized after learning more about their medical conditions is that most people develop chronic conditions very early in life and feel its effects very late in life. They start showing the signs and symptoms of diabetes in their 30s and become diagnosed officially only decades later. They fail to lose the weight after childbirth and then develop sleep apnea, GI issues and arthritis in their 50s, not understanding the root cause of these conditions. Our medical community tends to be focused on delivering medicine rather than prevention. So it’s nobody’ s fault that we don’t act sooner to prevent these conditions. 

Despite being a dentist and understanding that diet plays a huge role in causing cavities, for decades I have failed to educate my patients on balancing their meals. Only now, are we starting to do this. Nutrition is not even talked about in visits with my own PCP! In the 10 minute conversation we had there were many other things of ‘far greater importance’ to be discussed than nutrition. Which, come to think of it, is probably the most important when it comes to longevity. That, and exercise. 

Since becoming pregnant again we incorporated strength training daily for 30 mins in my routine. Some days I need to skip this. But most days my hubby and I get a workout in after the little one is down for the night. It’s not impossible to do this. Everyone has these 30 mins lying around somewhere in their day, we just need to use it wisely. 

Stop caring about what others think

This is the last thing I will leave you with. What others think is not our concern. And is out of our control anyway. 

Many times I would anticipate what my patient felt before presenting treatment plans to them. This I quickly learned is the wrong way to practice, and is a significant disservice to patients who are depending on us to educate them. Being honest with others is the same as being kind. Sure, they may get upset about the facts but at least they have been given the truth so they can digest it themselves. 

After becoming a parent, I also learned not to care if someone gets cross at me for not returning their call, leaving a meeting early, or avoiding events that are more of a formality. Following my gut has made me a happier, more relaxed person. There’s no more pretense!

You also don’t have to give a reason why. But, if you decide to, it could be as simple as ‘hey, this is my daughter’s dinner and bath time, so I will leave this meeting in 5 mins’ or ‘I am solo parenting tonight and will not be attending this dinner meeting’  or ‘hey missed your call as I’m putting my little one down for the night, are you able to text so I can help you?’

Notice that you never have to apologize. Not that apologizing is bad but apologizing tends to look like we have made a mistake. Sometimes society tends to unfairly blame the person that says ‘sorry’. It’s because the word has been overused, that it’s begun to lose its relevance. 

A different post from the usual, but hope this helps!