Aniket Pujari
Neha Ruch isn’t a fan of asking people “What do you do?”
The question, she says, doesn’t allow someone to give a full sense of who they are beyond what they do to earn a living. And if they’re not currently working a paid job, what then?
“It actually isn’t until you part with that career title that you know you’re challenged to examine: Well, who else are you outside of it?” Ruch says.
Ruch’s mindset around this shifted when she took what she calls a “downshift” and later “power pause” from work: Around the time she had her first child in 2016, she downshifted her New York City brand marketing job to two days a week before eventually taking a pause from the workforce to raise her child.
While on her career break, Ruch became interested in helping other women navigate their career pauses and new motherhood. She founded Mother Untitled, a platform to empower women pausing or shifting careers to focus on family life, and is the author of the newly published book “The Power Pause,” which examines how women can plan a career break after kids and return to the workforce “stronger than ever.”
As ever, the conversation around motherhood has been a challenging one. The pandemic shined a light on the high cost of child care, while recent social media trends have glamorized a more traditional view of the stay-at-home wife and mother.
Here’s how Ruch, now 39 and the mom of two kids, wants to reframe the conversations around women’s careers and parenting ambitions, why she thinks motherhood needs a better PR, and what she thinks about the so-called “tradwife” trend.
Why she says leaving the workforce to raise children is ambitious
Ambition has always been tied to a corporate ladder for a long time — a one-way movement toward professional gain and gain.
When you take a wide-angle view on ambition, the dictionary definition of ambition is “the determination to do things with care.” That’s it.
And so when you think of it that way, in the long game of life, you’re going to have a platter of priorities that are going to shift. At some point they may shift toward family life. And if you are intentionally shifting things to make room for what you value in that moment, that is an ambitious choice.
The biggest thing she’d reframe about motherhood: It ‘gets really bad PR’
Your interests and your passions don’t have to wilt in motherhood.
Motherhood gets really bad PR. Being able to reframe this time in your life as an enriching chapter, that you will develop new skills, and you will discover new ways to think about what matters — that infuses a real sense of possibility into a stage of life that is often derided as mind-numbing for a long time.
Another necessary reframe in today’s culture around caregiving is that in a two-partner household, if you together are making the choice that one parent pausing or shifting their work to do more of the care work is in the best interest of the family, then the partner working outside of the home is equally dependent on the partner working in the home. This idea of an interdependent household is foundational.
What she’d change about her own career break
I think I resigned from my company in haste.
You’ve done so much work to build a series of experiences and connections that have gotten you this far. Being able to nurture those on your way out, they become your on-ramp back.
Another do-over: Many at-home parents stepping into unpaid work subscribe to the false belief that if we do unpaid work, we don’t deserve help. I really struggled with the idea of investing in a babysitter if I wasn’t bringing in an income.
An investment in any form of help, whether that be a meal delivery service or house cleaning or a babysitter or a mother’s helper, that’s an investment in the whole household. It benefits the partner working out of the home because it reduces the mental and emotional load on them. It benefits the parent primarily in the home because it gives them a break to come back and reset. It benefits the child because they get exposed to fresh energy and other loving adults.
Why a career pause doesn’t have to last forever
This idea of stay-at-home or working mother is a black-and-white idea: Either resign yourself to a life of domesticity or kill it in the workforce and sacrifice time with your family. And the reality is, we want more options on the table for the long game and to make work sustainable to work for family.
The reality is, 1 in 3 women who are currently working out of the home are going to pause their careers in the next two years [according to research commissioned by Ruch]; 1 in 2 are going to downshift their working hours, meaning they’re going to go part-time or freelance or flex. And 90% of the women on pause aim to return to the workforce.
I think when we embrace this more fluid narrative, we can let professionals and parents dial up and dial down according to their priorities while still maintaining their sense of possibility.
What she thinks of the ‘tradwife’ trend
The tradwife is a hashtag, and hashtags are a sliver of reality.
These are women who figured out what sells, and they figured out a way in which to monetize their lifestyle.
The Instagram trend created virality around a lifestyle that just doesn’t speak to the modern reality of mothers who are really making complicated choices around work and family in wanting to preserve their options in the long game of life.
It’s not to say that that lifestyle is wrong. It’s just to say that it’s not indicative of the vast majority of women who really want to be seen for how modern they are, how feminist they are, how much they intend to stay connected to their professional selves and their ultimate aim to return to the workforce in a new and empowered way, while also growing alongside their kid.
Part of women being able to step into the power of family life is letting go of false ideals that suck up time and resources, like having a perfectly clean house or well-dressed children. We have to let go of some of that to say, “You know what, I’m going to make chicken nuggets for dinner so that I can use time to work on that project.”
To be able to invest back in ourselves, something has to give.
How flexible work can reduce the motherhood salary penalty
If you look at the salary penalty as of 2023, women are paid 84 cents to the $1 paid to a man. If you add a career pause to become a mom, women are paid 79 cents to the $1.
We’re finally starting to see more options. And part of that is dignifying pauses — adding more fractional part-time or freelance work, contract work, flex work options — so women are able to stay connected to earning potential and professional experience, so that they don’t have to face as much penalty when returning.
It’s not just a gendered issue, because we’re seeing 1 in 5 stay-at-home parents are dads right now.
As this really becomes more of a family issue and not a women’s issue, we can consider: How do we put as many options on the table?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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