You see, I love working.

I really love working, and I love being a developer, I love being an engineering manager.

I love solving hard problems every day.

And I've always worn a lot of hats.

I work at GitHub as the engineering manager as well for another team that is working on

a secret product, re-imagining fun and collaboration in code.

I'm also a Mozilla tech speaker, on the word of Ruby Together, and I run a podcast about

parent-driven development.

I have stickers for all of these things.

If you want to chat about any of them, please come and find me.

I've been a community organiser, a mentor, a developer, an organiser, a COO, and then,

all of a sudden, I was a mom.

So this is Devon.

He was important in April 2015.

This talk is going to have a lot of pictures of him.

Devon's a full-blown toddler now and joined by his sister, Layla who is just over a year.

Today, I want to talk about the challenges people who are parents and developers face,

as well as what some solutions are, and how these solutions can help a company and an

entire team.

So, when Devon was about five months old, I felt like I was losing my mind.

I had been back at work full-time for a while - if you want to hear a separate rant, talk

to me about maternity leave in the States - and after a particularly bad week of very

little sleep at night, and having a really challenging workweek, I just really wasn't

sure if I could do it.

How was I going to keep learning all the things I needed to be learning while being a great

mom, employee, and adequate partner?

How did did others do it?

Was I being unrealistic?

Was I being lazy.

Could I even be a good mom and a developer or was this industry just truly not for me?

If I've being really honest, there's been many times in the past four years where even

though I loved tech and I loved code, I thought about how nice it would be just to go and

do a job that I could do on autopilot.

I seriously thought about leaving the industry.

You see these cute pictures of parents orchids on Facebook or Instagram, but it's not always

like that, and, for me, in the early days, it definitely usually wasn't like that.

It has hard, tiring, frustrating.

It was also amazing, and all-encompassing.

It was really, really lonely.

Based on what I was experiencing, I created a survey to ask parents a few questions about

this issue, and what I found out from reading hundreds of surveys, is there are some real

trends and common issues.

In an industry, the values - in a industry that voles open-source contributions, parents

are struggling.

So let me take a second to describe a typical day from a few months ago.

So Devon wakes up around seven, Layla already around 730.

A lot of parents say it's closer to 5.30 or six.

I would nurse Layla while Devon has a glass of milk and by 8.15, we really need to get

moving, brush teeth, make car breakfasts - you can feel free to judge.

We're not morning people, car breakfast is what works very well for us.

And at 8.45 or nanny comes which is already a huge privilege.

By nine I drop Devon off at preschool.

By 9.25 I was home pumping breast milk while eat breakfast and starting to check emails.

I would jump into the work day, do that punctuated by a few more breast-milk pumping breaks until

about 5.15.

Then I race out the door, grab Layla, put her in the car, from 6.15 to 7.15, we do dinner

for the kids, sometimes try to cook our dinner, Bath time, bed tile, et cetera.

From .45 until around nine, we finish cooking, we eat dinner, clean up, prep food in bottles

for the next day, jot down childcare notes, talk about pertinent household stuff we need

to, usually relax for like 30 minutes, and then we head to bed.

We have it pretty good, even with two.

Now, fortunately, this was a day from a couple of months ago.

I got a lot more time back in my day as I weaned my daughter and didn't need to pump

breast milk.

Dropping the number of times that I had to pump in a day felt amazing.

I had more time to concentrate and didn't have to go through this huge context-switch

every two hours.

And I mention this tangent because pumping breast milk was mentioned in over half of

surveys for mothers and their answer is about company provision or issues they faced.

Now, the only time in that whole day that I would have to do any code for myself would

be those last 30 minutes that I have to relax, and even if I gave up that little bit of self-care

time, my brain is so tired by then, I wouldn't get anywhere fast.

And if you think about this in terms of code challenges that often need to be completed

outside of your work day for new jobs, parents may have to spend the whole weekend just working

on a couple of code challenges.

It also means depending on our partner or spouse to do the childcare and not seeing

your kids.

This might not seem like a big deal, but when you're already working full-time, it really

is.

This is even more challenging if you're a single parent.

If you're a accessible parent, then you're likely paying for weekend childcare to get

these code challenges done.

Another issue mentioned was being able to stay sharp.

Developers live on coffee and solve really hard problems.

If you are a nursing mom, you're probably getting significantly less sleep, and you

can't rely on those cups of coffee to keep you going.

A recent study from baby care found that over 40 per cent of parents with babies aged zero

to six months only get one to three uninterrupted hours of sleep per night.

Parents lose a total of 44 days of sleep in their child's first year, and a newer study

found that parents are sleep-deprived for six years after they have a kid, and I'm like

really selling this parenting thing right now!

It's hard to keep a clear mind and solve hard problems when you're not getting uninterrupted

sleep, and you don't get the weekend to catch up or recharge.

A parent wrote, "Sometimes, the last thing I want to do or even have time to do when

I get home is code or learn new code.

Gone are the days of no responsibility and doing whatever I like when I get home.

Finding a couple of hours to work on a personal project or pick up something new is hard,

especially when trying to help out my other half who is also tired."

When I asked if having children helped or hurt their career, only a small portion of

fathers said it hurt their career.

They felt it either helped or had a future impact.

About 60 per cent of women said that having children hurt their career, but even more

than that, said it didn't hurt their career, but it changed it.

Many women said it slowed their career, affecting the overall trajectory and growth potential.

Now, I don't know about you, but that description certainly sounds like hurt ing mothers clearest

to me.

So here's the total breakdown of parents based on if they felt that having a child helped,

hurt, or had no impact, or helped and hurt their career.

Here are those same traces based on mom answers and bad answers.

As you can see, when everyone is together, the portions are equal.

As you break it down, it tells a much different story.

This data is backed up by additional research.

This 2018 study on children and gender and equality in Denmark shows these results based

on gender and earnings in Denmark, which I know at least for most Americans consider

closer to the gold standard in terms of supporting parents.

So while there are lots of challenges that parents face, there are also lots of solutions.

Looking at these surveys, they're identifiable solutions that companies can put in place,

solutions that colleagues with or without children can employ, and things that parents

out there can also work on.

These solutions can actually benefit an entire team.

The company- based ones: allow working from home or unconventional working options.

Even when a parent is ready to come back to work, offering different options can make

huge difference in their happiness level.

For women who are pumping, being able to work from home makes an enormous difference.

When I worked from home, I could pump in 22 minutes because I had everything set up, and

ready to go, but any time that I went into an office, it took me 32 to 34 minutes each

time, because I had to set up, clean up, and the travel time to get to the room, hope nobody's

in the room, et cetera.

Hopefully, this isn't as much of an issue in Europe or outside of the States but I wanted

to mention it again, because over half of surveys from women suggested that issues are

difficulties around pumping pup if you have women at your company that are pumping in

their bathroom, your company needs to seriously consider how they prioritise mothers in the

workforce.

Allowing working from home takes the stress of a commute out of the equation, and allows

parents a little more flexibility and time in their day.

Another option is to offer a part-time transition back to work, so surveys show that people

took this in different ways, some working less hours, some working less days, but a

gradual transition back to work for pretty much as long as the company can allow it makes

an enormous difference in a parent's lifestyle.

Second, companies can take a much more proactive role in creating support systems.

So a really simple example of this might be a parenting Slack channel where parents can

share experiences, issues, and pictures of their kids.

And a more involved option might be to connect parents returning to work with those who have

taken parental leave in the past and allow for it to be a safe space pour both parties

to discuss - for both parties to discuss successes, issues, and challenges.

Finally, train managers on what to expect when someone on parental leave comes back

to work.

This is important for moms do dads but moms?

In particular.

Oftentimes, managers in tech may never have had a mother go on maternity leave for their

team.

They have no idea what challenges she is facing, what questions might help or hurt her return

back to work transition, and how best to support her.

Over and over again, I felt my boss was a big part of my success when I was a new parent.

Third, create realistic expectations returning to work.

If your company operates out of KPIs, or goal-setting, recognise these should be revisited when parents

come back to work, and set new goals.

These will likely not be as ambitious as they did in the past.

If you're a manager, encourage realistic goal-setting, and, if you're an employee, recognise that

your whole life has changed.

Give yourself a least a quarter or two to adjust to the new normal.

As your children get older, you will become what effective goal-setting and realistic

expectations look like for you.

Fourth, if you have children or if you don't have children or for the majority of your

team is childless, don't make parent stuff weird.

Talk about nursing, kid things, in whatever ways feel comfortable.

One of the things that I did when I was back in the office after my first was create an

emoji for when I was away from my computer pumping.

This helped me feel open and honest about what was going on, and it did so in a way

that didn't make my team feel awkward or weird about it.

After my second, I just stuck my pumping times right on my calendar so folks didn't schedule

meetings over them.

My previous company, I did a lightning talk for the engineering team.

I did two while I was pregnant, about what that was like, and one afterwards about the

science of breast milk and pumping.

My team asked interesting questions and had much more empathy and understanding for me

afterwards, and my hope is by exposing them to some of the terminology and experiences

that there will be more understanding and empathic to women or parents they might work

with in the future.

But, this should not be incumbent on the pregnant individual to do so.

Managers should have an understanding of these facts, and also be willing to be the one that

helps their team understand these considerations.

That's realistic expectations and normalising it.

When creative options, realistic expectations, support systems, and normalisation of someone's

life choices are incorporated into a team or company's culture, it is positive, it has

positive benefits for the entire company.

The open acceptance of diversity and intentional support around the uniqueness of a team-mate's

life creates that sort of in a team.

As they are trained to establish and seek out things like support systems, or create

realistic expectations, anyone going through any sort of hardship or life adjustment will

feel supported.

Once you've created these systems and benefits, it's easier to see how similar accommodations

for others enable teams to thrive.

Support systems could help folks from burning out, and normalise being open about struggles

and successes makes it more likely that someone who is burning out will speak up earlier.

Realistic expectations encourage teams to craft better guidelines around work and promotion