Working Moms Aren’t ‘Girlbossing.’ We’re Striking a Delicate Balance Between Work and Home

Recently, I was asked to be part of a Wall Street Journal piece that looked at “GOP girlbosses” who “have it all”—ostensibly because, as a mostly-conservative-identifying mother of three who works full time, I fit the mold. But the result—a piece that mostly highlighted members of the Trump Administration and heads of DC think tanks who are working outside the home while raising young children—ultimately failed to tell the whole story about women’s work, and what that work means for the long-term survival of the family.

None of us can truly “have it all,” but that term is devoid of meaning other than as a political assessment of success in today’s often fraught world of balancing children and career, especially for women. Women who appear to “have it all”— at least in name—are really striking a delicate balance between work and home that allows everyone in our families to flourish.

Allowing big names like high-powered media mogul Megyn Kelly and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, both of whom are working full time, to lead the WSJ piece gave some readers, including other writershere at the Institute for Family Studies, the wrong idea about what the piece was supposed to be about. At least originally, the idea was to suggest that self-identified conservative women are more adept at striking a balance between pursuing their vocations and the demands of family life than their liberal counterparts.

To begin, the WSJ’s portrayal of the delicate work-life balance as “girlbossing” is something of an insult to the majority of mothers, who work at least part-time in some industry. It’s outdated and unfair. Many women don’t choose to work, but among those who do, many structure their work lives around—not despite or in direct contrast to—their family’s needs. And, as IFS research has shown, just about 30% of women prefer to work full time, with most women opting to pursue part-time employment while their children are growing up, particularly, when their children are very young.

For conservatives, as the WSJ article notes, there is a specific value on the natural family that allows them to strike the balance between work and home in greater numbers. And as several of us mentioned, motherhood is promoted as a gift and even as a “superpower” by largely right-leaning organizations, giving conservative women an entirely different perspective on the role of women in the workplace. 

“Girlbossing” implies a political or ideological component to women seeking to work while raising a family, suggesting that women are pursuing both full- and part-time work for their own edification and at the knowing expense of their children. While that may be true for some, European Union statistics seem to show that when given the choice between full-time employment and part-time employment, especially with regard to professional and managerial positions, women will choose part-time employment for its fixed hours or flexibility in order to better accommodate the competing priorities in their lives. 

At the same time, women who pursue higher education—and therefore are presented with better employment opportunities—also tend to have more children, according to none other than the London School of Economics. In Finland, women with degrees are experiencing an increase in the fertility rate not shared by women in America or much of the world. Women admitted to universities to study applied science had the best fertility outcomes: they were 8% more likely than less-educated peers to have children by age 38.

Pew Research’s work seems to indicate that these highly-educated women now make up a slim majority of the college-educated workforce— 51% of women vs. 49% of men. Furthermore, college-educated women, more than any other group, are closing historic gaps, in both income and career performance. That means that most women are working while also caring for kids—even if we fail to consider that every single mother is a working woman. 

Conservative women in particular feel that it is not only possible but likely that a healthy balance can be struck between work and home life.

If we were truly all “Girlbossing,” the tradeoffs wouldn’t be as evident as they are, because those in the workforce simply wouldn’t concern themselves with it. We need only to look at how men experience tradeoffs in their own work and home life without similar negative sentiment. No one asks whether men are “having it all,” or uses the phrase as a benchmark for male success. For most men, the work-life balance is simply reality, and it’s a privilege to be able to have a partnership where both spouses see value in living their vocation as individuals and as parents. 

The landscape for women should be no different. Women are often guided by cultural expectations, good or bad, in structuring their lives. That need for balance is inescapable for both sexes, even though it seems that only women are ever called out for their decisions regarding how those two worlds align.

We know that women are making these crucial decisions because when options disappear, women, in greater numbers, feel compelled to return home—not to full-time work. Earlier this month, the Washington Postreported that mothers are leaving the workforce in droves, erasing the gains in the de-gendering of the workforce during the pandemic. 

Although other IFS writers have argued that this is a return to a more traditional lifestyle, research seems to make it clear that when more flexible options disappear, women feel they have no choice but to strike out on their own or leave the workforce. No longer accommodated by corporate work, many women left to start their own companies in record numbers. Fast Company reports that women started one half of all new businesses in 2023, up a whopping 20% from 2019. When you own your own company, work-life balance is up to you.

Women want to pursue higher education and to work in some capacity, and conservative women in particular feel that it is not only possible but likely that a healthy balance can be struck between work and home life. That balance not only allows women to pursue a vocation, but to also be present in their children’s lives without fear of them suffering. 

Society would, of course, suffer if women left the workforce completely. We’ve long recognized that women—who are unique from men in ways that extend beyond simple biology—contribute to the fields of medicine, education, communications, nutrition, and management, because of traits unique to women, such as our capacity to multitask, nurture and engage, provide care, and express empathy, among other gifts. Some women not only must work, but their gifts are also necessary to society—and we must make accommodations for that. 

That is, of course, what I and other working moms told the Wall Street Journal—and that our work often informs our motherhood

“In the conservative world, especially among people of faith, you hear all about the rewards of motherhood…” Megyn Kelly said. “For us, having a family is a no-brainer. It’s part of your life plan, and you know that from an early age. It’s a question of when and how, and not whether.”

Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women’s Forum added, “Most conservative women, instead of resenting that they have to make a choice, feel grateful that they have choices to make.” 

This notion of “choice” is key: as the University of Cambridge laid out last year, women have always worked and almost uniformly for pay. The notion of the “stay-at-home mother” who does nothing but raise children is something of a modern luxury. The term itself is clunky and outdated, especially when it comes to how most modern and traditional women organize their lives.

It also seems to suggest that women who mother as their primary occupation do so in isolation, which is also a modern concept. IFS writer Erica Komisar suggested in her essay that mom and baby do “best” when mom is not employed outside the home full time. But that is profoundly ahistorical. Throughout history, stay-at-home parenthood was an occupation done in community with other stay-at-home parents and family around—but this parenting-in-community has mostly disappeared.

If we want to encourage greater fertility and stronger families, the onus is on society to support the types of accommodations—like part-time work, paid maternity leave, work-from-home, and flexible scheduling—that will allow more women and men to structure their lives in a way that is best for their own family.

As for women who may not be there full time during their child’s formative years, a comprehensive Harvard University study that included over 100,000 participants in nearly 30 countries found no meaningful difference  in happiness between the adult children of women who worked full time and adult children of women who did not. Adult female children of women who worked also reported greater achievements of their own in education and career. 

And when it comes to time spent with children, parents today are ahead of the game. Study after study shows that parents spend more time with their children today than they did 50 years ago—a point in time often looked at as an archetype of family structure (when many women stayed home). And the better educated and more successful the parent, the more time they spend with their offspring. 

So while it’s true that there’s no substitute for parental care, those of us who choose to work do not simply believe “any warm body will do” when it comes to putting our children in someone else’s care. Our care is paramount. Our choice to bring more people into our “village” to care for our children isn’t about replacing parenting; it’s about supplementing it in a way that makes sense for everyone, including the child.

Everything in Balance

As I said before, “having it all” is simply a misnomer: no one, mothers or fathers, can truly have it all. But it doesn’t really seem like anyone, particularly mothers, want to “have it all,” at least not in the sense that we are fully parents while we are also fully invested in our careers. Both men and women seek a balance that is right for them—and they self-define what it means to be successful within that balance. 

Ultimately, if we want to encourage greater fertility and stronger families, the onus is on society to support the types of accommodations—including part-time work, paid maternity leave, work-from-home, and flexible scheduling—that will allow more women and men to structure their lives in a way that is best for their own family. Giving more women the choice—and giving more families the choice—to structure their working lives around their families will ultimately make the world better for both parents and children.

Emily Zanotti is a Catholic writer, humorist, and professional chicken tender living with her husband and three children in Nashville, Tennessee. You can find more of her writing at the National Catholic Register, and on her Substack, “Growing Olives in Nashville.”

Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or views of the Institute for Family Studies.