What if pressing pause on your career was actually the smartest, most strategic move you could make?
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Neha Ruch, author of The Power Pause, to challenge the myths we’ve all been fed about stay-at-home motherhood, caregiving, and career pauses. We dig into why our culture undervalues care work, how identity gets tangled up in motherhood, and what it actually looks like to take a pause. Whether you’re considering stepping back from work to raise kids, support aging parents, or simply regroup, Neha shares smart ways to protect your finances, keep your skills sharp, and eventually re-enter the workforce on your terms.
Key takeaways:
Language matters — call it a power pause, not “opting out.”
Neha explains that how we describe our time away from paid work directly shapes how employers (and we) value it. A pause is not quitting; it’s intentionally shifting your energy toward caregiving or life priorities while knowing your career isn’t over. That clarity helps reduce shame and reinforces ambition.
A pause is a chapter, not a lifetime decision.
Fear that “this will define me forever” keeps women from making choices that could actually benefit them and their families. Treating the pause as a temporary season creates freedom and reduces pressure — and allows you to reassess every few months instead of locking into a life-long identity.
Caregiving is valuable work — protect your financial dignity.
When one partner stops earning, power dynamics can shift fast. Successful pauses require joint financial planning, explicit acknowledgment of the caregiving contribution, and legal protections like a spousal IRA or post-nup to ensure the caregiver’s long-term financial safety.
Keeping skills warm doesn’t require tons of time — but it does require intention.
Neha encourages using even small pockets of time to grow: one professional coffee meeting a month, a few blog posts, joining a community group, or tracking proud moments in a “hype file.” These tiny actions maintain momentum and confidence for future re-entry.
Your pause builds real skills — don’t undersell them on your resume.
Project management, efficiency, conflict resolution, advocacy, time coordination — caregiving grows leadership skills every single day. When returning to work, own the experience instead of apologizing for it, and translate daily responsibilities into professional accomplishments.
Re-entry takes time — and that’s normal.
The biggest mistake Neha sees is expecting a quick turnaround. Instead, build a transition period to secure childcare, update skills, and find stepping-stone work that restores confidence — especially with employers who value nonlinear careers.
Notable quotes
“Clarity comes through motion. You have to move yourself forward… experience it.”
“We’ve dumbed care work down to diapers and laundry… but it is physically demanding, emotionally demanding, complicated, and nuanced.”
“Identity in our culture is so tied to what we do for a living… What do you do? has come to stand for, who are you?”
Episode at-a-glance
00:00 Intro & Identity and Career Breaks
01:06 Myths & Stereotypes of Stay-at-Home Motherhood
04:13 The Financial Realities of Motherhood
08:21 Identity Shifts & The Power Pause Concept
12:27 Making Career Pauses Temporary, Not Permanent
14:53 Building Skills & Staying Connected During a Pause
21:56 Validation & Measuring Success in Caregiving
28:11 Positioning a Career Pause on Your Resume
31:50 Financial Power Dynamics in Relationships
40:09 Elder Care vs. Child Care Pauses
47:04 Reentering the Workforce: Pitfalls & Strategies
49:54 What Does a Successful Power Pause Look Like?
Neha’s Links:
Website: https://www.thepowerpause.com/
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Meet Neha
Neha Ruch is the founder of Mother Untitled (now known as the Power Pause), the leading platform for ambitious women leaning into family life. A thought leader, influencer, and sought-after speaker focusing on women, work, parenting and identity, Neha’s work at Mother Untitled is catalyzing a shift in how society views stay-at-home motherhood. Her book, “THE POWER PAUSE: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids – and Come Back Stronger Than Ever,” was published by Putnam in January 2025. Neha lives in Manhattan with her husband, their two children, and their dog Coconut.
Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
What if a career break wasn’t a step back, but rather a power move, especially if you’re a parent? Today we’re chatting with Neha Ruch. She shares how women can keep their skills sharp, maintain financial dignity, and reenter the workforce with confidence. If you’ve ever wrestled with the idea of an identity shift of caregiving, questioned how to protect yourself financially during a career pause, or wondered how to position that experience on a resume, this episode is for you.
And yes, if you’re watching on YouTube, and you should be watching on YouTube because the videos are great. My plant needs a drink. I just gave it to her. Let’s get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. You’ve worked with hundreds of mothers. What’s the biggest myth you wish we could blow up about women who take a break from their careers?
Neha Ruch:
That their brains go and die. That they’re in some way giving up.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. When we talk about the societal or even the personal feeling of that, where is that stemming from, that feeling of, “Oh, my brain’s just going to rot for the period of time that I’m taking care of my children.”
Neha Ruch:
Well, we have this very shut in image of the idea of stay-at-home motherhood, even that framing, that language implies shutting one place, stagnant, not moving forward. And if you date back, let’s call it the 1970s, we saw this incredible wave of feminism that did so much to bolster our careers and move us into the workforce and say we were capable.
But the undue side effect was that anyone doing care work in the home was mislabeled as a traditionalist defending tradition. And left behind, by the way, date back to 2023, we surveyed a thousand members of the general population, 1,200 out of-home parents. If you ask anyone what they think of as a stay-at-home mom, they will still say June Cleaver, which is a remnant from the 1950s show, Leave It to Beaver. If you ask them who they think of as a working mother, they will say Sheryl Sandberg, Michelle Obama, and Beyoncé. It’s just this very extreme power chasm around ambition and success, and it doesn’t represent the reality of most of the women in between.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about that stereotype of what we think a stay-at-home mom looks like or what her experience is versus what the reality is actually.
Neha Ruch:
Well, I think first, we think it’s a forever thing. We think of a stay-at-home mother as, I mean, the caricature is someone in complete servitude to her family and in that role for entirety and oftentimes defending tradition, apron clad. And then by the way, the only memes we have replaced it with is desperate housewives, the Pinterest mom, the soccer mom. And none of it expresses the reality that the data shows, which is one in three women who are working out of the home are going to pause their careers in the next two years. One in two are going to downshift their careers. And 90% of the women on pause aim to return to the workforce.
So, it’s much more ever evolving and fluid. And I think a lot of it is that we just didn’t update the dialogue to now where women are having kids later than their 1970s counterparts. So, they’re coming in with a foundational work and education experience. They have much more hands-on partners if they’re in a heterosexual two-partner home. The dad is spending three times the amount of time as any generation prior. And they have access to all of these digital tools and technologies and freelance and creation. And so, there’s a lot more gray area between those black and white ideas of stay-at-home and working.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, this traditional portrait of a stay-at-home mom is largely rooted in fiction, and you mentioned that in your book. But now we’ve also traded it for something else, or we have this other archetype that is existing, which is the working mom who does it all the, “You can have it all and then some.” How is this also not helpful for women?
Neha Ruch:
Right. I think it’s that we don’t show the vast in between so we don’t have enough options on the table. That’s what we want. This work of the power pause is never to say that pausing is the right choice or the only choice. It’s to say that if you need or want, by the way, one in three women feel forced because of the cost of childcare, 60% would cite a financial consideration.
If you need or want to pause, that you are recognized as having made a bold, nuanced decision and you’re not written off with any tropes and you’re recognized for the reality and dignity of what that day-to-day included. But on the other side, we also want to demystify the like Diane Keaton from Baby Boom in a power suit with a baby dangling off and show, wait a second, there’s also women who have negotiated a two-day work week as a radiologist for a season, or they have passed on management duty for this year because they just need a bit more headspace at home to manage through their teenager who’s going through a new mental health diagnosis.
We just want to be able to show all the aspects that are making work-work in a myriad of different ways. And that way, it becomes more accessible to say, “Yes, I’m going to have a long, sustainable career and it’s going to look different in different years.”
Tori Dunlap:
You mentioned the financial cost, and of course we can’t have this episode without talking about that. We found a survey that said 13% of women felt it was viable to return to full-time work after having kids, even though 98% wanted to. So, we have a gap from 13% who think it’s viable, which means almost nobody thinks it’s viable, but 98% want to. So, what does that tell us about how work is or is not set up for motherhood?
Neha Ruch:
Well, I think a lot of it comes down to paid family leave. The saddest messages I get are the ones of women who are two weeks postpartum trying to make a really big decision. By the way, without having had the sleep or the support to make a really informed decision about care, so when you start to deconstruct, well, how are they creating an infrastructure around themselves to return to work with confidence? Well, they haven’t had the time to heal, let alone sleep, let alone come up with a very complicated structure that they’re about to hand off their child to. So, there’s a lot around that.
And then there’s the cost piece. And we commissioned that same survey I mentioned and 60% cited financial considerations, but the reality is it’s often much more complicated. That 84% site, like a very valid want to spend time with their kids, which like, yeah, they’re human. They want a little bit more time than six weeks. And we’re obviously the lowest common denominator in terms of paid family leave.
I think that the other pieces of it are cost of childcare. Other pieces of it are flexible on remote work. You see headlines like last week’s or from the Washington Post about women receiving from the workforce again. Well, of course they are. If there’s mandates to return to five days a week in office. We saw gains because we were putting more options on the table.
Tori Dunlap:
One of the things I think about a lot in even my own personal decision about whether I want to be a parent or not is the identity piece. I think for men, they get to be dads along with all of the other things they are. And society, as soon as you become a mom, that’s your entire identity. And I think especially with stay-at-home moms or what Tiffany Dufu, who’s a previous guest on the show called non-compensated working moms, what that ends up doing is like, you’re not only a mom, but you’re that archetype of the woman who’s staying home. So, how does the identity piece influence a woman’s decision on whether or not she stays at home to caregive?
Neha Ruch:
I think an identity in our culture is so tied to what we do for a living. What do you do has come to stand in for, “Well, who are you?” And when you part with your paid title for a chapter, you suddenly have to reconcile, “Well, how do I answer that question at a cocktail party? And how does that make me feel about my worth in this room and how people are going to perceive me?” Because those like five pithy words that you’ve gotten used to saying have come to represent like your creativity, your competence, your determination, and we don’t have an adequate or commensurate dignity for motherhood.
What I can coach women to say and advise women to say is, “This is your chapter where you might get to create an identity bigger than work because all of that experience did not disappear.” If I’m a 15-year brand marketer, doesn’t go away. I’m that now plus a little bit extra. Because now in this next chapter, I’m going to say, “Right now, I get to be with my kids. I’m exploring what comes next.”
And I get to add to that the parts of my identity that I want to bring with me. And actually, it can be a really interesting moment of saying, “These are the experiences and accomplishments that as I take stock of, I want to carry on and they’re now a foundation that I get to build a whole portfolio of non-traditional experience and perspective and skill.”
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. I mean, your approach is called a power pause. How is that different from simply quitting or stepping away from work and why does that framing matter?
Neha Ruch:
Well, I think and I know you agree that language matters, right?
Tori Dunlap:
Absolutely.
Neha Ruch:
The way we talk about ourselves matters, the way we tell our story to the world, to future employers, our partners matters. And for too long, we’ve said, “Oh, they’re opting out, they’re dropping out, they’re leaning out.” And it’s come to seem antithetical to ambition and success and growth. And I felt very strongly that as an ambitious woman, when I was saying, “Wait a second, I need to be for a lot of reasons.” It was cost of childcare. It was my husband’s job at the time. It was that I genuinely just wanted that time for myself. I wanted language that spoke to, I am for a chapter shifting my time and energy and focus to something else of priority.
For me, it was family life. For other people, it could be health or elder care. And in doing so, not only am I making that as a strategic shift, but I’m actually going to actively think of it as a time where I’m growing alongside my family, that I’m going to actively think about ways I’m going to expand my interests, my skills, my network, so that when and if I’m ready to return, I’m actually coming back with that sense of enrichment.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and speaking of the language, I think I just wrote down, you keep saying for a chapter or for a time, I think about our audience or I think about anybody I talk to in our community, any decision to our brains feels like a forever decision. I talk to people who want to be business owners and they go, “Oh my gosh, but what if it doesn’t work out?”
And so, they like work themselves into a tizzy, just like stressing about that feeling of like, “This is for forever.” But you’re making a really important distinction, which is this might not be for forever. This might just be for a chapter. Can we talk more about why the timeframe is so important as opposed to making a decision where you feel like, “This will be my identity, this will be my life for until I die.”
Neha Ruch:
Because that’s so much pressure. That just sounds intimidating listening to describe it that way. The reality is that we are in a very specific moment in certain circumstances that may challenge our sense of time and energy. If you have young kids and limited access to quality childcare, that’s going to change when your children age into school. If your children are going through a particular diagnosis at age nine because of neurodivergence, I’m just thinking about some of the stories that have come up for me in doing this interview, you’re going to navigate that period and there will be unlocks of time as you move forward.
And by the way, an expansion of new interests that might lead you in new directions. And I think trusting that process and also just giving yourself permission to recalibrate and reexamine. I say to everyone, “If you don’t know what to do, take it in three-month increments, six-month increments, one-year increments, and it allows you to make the best decision for right now without feeling trapped by the decision in a year from now.”
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. I’m liking it to running a business because that is the thing I know, but I think so many people get caught up in making the wrong decision. And I’m like, sometimes you only know that’s the wrong decision for you after you’ve made this decision and you experience life in that decision and you go, “Actually, this isn’t working.” And then you can change your mind.
Neha Ruch:
Well, clarity, I heard Megan Hellerer say this who is a clarity coach and she said, “Clarity comes through motion.” You have to move yourself forward. It doesn’t come from all the pros and cons list. I can give you all the journaling prompts in the world, but in the end, you have to-
Tori Dunlap:
You have to experience it.
Neha Ruch:
… experience it.
Tori Dunlap:
So, when we’re talking about building those skills, what are some tactical ways to keep your financial skills, your network, or your resume warm during this power pause?
Neha Ruch:
I think the understanding first that this is a moment in time, and on the other side of it, you are going to want to know that you have grown and stayed connected. When we say we’re going to take a beat for our family life or our elder care, whatever that may be, that becomes tunnel vision, our soul metric of success.
But what happens then is very quickly you’ll start feeling this nudge of, “Oh, I’m stuck. I’m not moving forward.” And the reason why is because if you’ve been in a traditional career for a decade, you’ve gotten used to benchmarks for how you’re moving forward. Promotions, salary bumps. And in the absence of that, if we start saying, “Well, I guess our new metric of success is like how well our kids behaved?”
Tori Dunlap:
The kids don’t die today. Yeah.
Neha Ruch:
Yeah. It’s going to be real listless real soon. And so, I encourage women to say, “Yes, you might not be drowning in excess time when you have two young kids.” However, you can start thinking for the first time without the confines of what your job told you success looked like, you can start thinking, “Well, what does authentic success look like for me when no one’s telling me what it is?”
And there’s a number of different ways to do this, but I always encourage women, write your ideal day in five years, who you’re spending time with, what you’re spending time on, how do you feel in your relationships, how do you feel in your mind, how do you feel in your body, what does your home environment feel like? Not because that’s going to be who you’re going to be tomorrow, but because it reveals to you your truest version of success.
And then from there, you can look at personal goals, professional goals, and family goals. And again, I had two kids and at the time, no paid help. And when I did this exercise, I was like, “Well, I don’t know how I’m going to write a book and do a…” Well, you can start to break it into really measurable small ways.
So, if my personal goal in that five-year exercise was I want to be a calmer human. Well, my metric that worked for me that year was I’m going to listen to one podcast a week on women in communication and women in anger. And that’s going to help me evolve my sense of my own awareness and my emotions. And that was it. On a professional level, I’d always wanted to write and I’d never gotten to, and no job was letting me write back then.
So, I thought, “Well, this is my time. I’m going to do three blog posts a week.” That’s it during naps and nighttimes. And on a family goal, it was so small. I just wanted a sillier household. I wanted my kids to look back and be like, “We had a silly household.” And it was, I’m going to have one dance party every single week. That was success.
Tori Dunlap:
I love it.
Neha Ruch:
And it’s not to say that they need to be that small or they need to be much more grand. It’s to say that I was moving through that day to day with some degree of intention that I could look back and be like, “I moved myself forward.” And then obviously as more time became available to me, my kids aged into school, I could build on all of that and expand those metrics.
Tori Dunlap:
I think it’s so important what you just said, because whether you are a parent or not, life gets away from you, time gets away from you. And it’s so easy to look back over your week, the month, the year and go, “What happened?” Time just went by. And I think we often get to the end of, yeah, again, it’s the month or the year and go, “What did I accomplish or what do I have to show for this year?” And yes, those can be very specific accomplishments, but they can also just be, “Yeah, we were silly and we have some great times because we made intentional time to dance around the house for five minutes a week.”
That’s incredible. Those are the memories you’re going to have. Those are the moments where you’re going to go, “Yes, I am living all of the dreams I had. Or I am living in my authentic purpose of being somebody who shows up for the people I love most.” And I think taking those really small steps of trying to build the life or the person you want to be in five years, it doesn’t have to be, “I’m saving a million dollars by tomorrow,” or, “I am the best mother that you’ve ever seen in the world in this week.” It’s small steps that you’re taking over time.
Neha Ruch:
And then it becomes a filter of how you structure your day to day. And I think that for me, and I think for the women in our community, if you have a clear benchmark on, I want to move myself forward during this year in a networking capacity. I want to build community. We’ve been fed this idea that if you’re I’m a “stay-at-home mom, I have to be a super mom.” And that means I have to do arts and crafts in the morning and then I have to make lunch in the afternoon and then I have to have a perfect…
Well, maybe I can say the perfect meals aren’t actually that important to me. I’m going to actively say that’s less important so that I can use that lunchtime to meet other friends in our community. I’m going to get 15 hours of a babysitter or 10 hours of a babysitter because I do actively want to nurture my network outside of the home.
And maybe my professional goal for right now is just to have one meeting a month with someone from a different industry so I can just explore because that was the gift of my power pause was this idea that suddenly the track that I thought I was on was more open. It was like a playing field and I got to explore and test and learn a little bit. I’d already checked the ego at the door because I was suddenly a stay-at-home mom. So, might as well start that little blog. And I think allowing ourselves to have a little fun with it is exciting.
Tori Dunlap:
I know I keep comparing this to running a business, I am not a parent. That’s the thing that I keep thinking of.
Neha Ruch:
That’s your baby.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. It is my baby in many ways. But one of the things that’s been so difficult as a CEO is nobody says, “Atta boy.” I don’t have a boss, right?
Neha Ruch:
Totally.
Tori Dunlap:
I don’t have a boss to be like, “Hey, that was a really good social media post.” Or, “Hey, this converted really well.” I have to get that internally. And I think that that is probably, if I were to relate my experience, one of the most difficult things about being a parent and specifically a mom is you don’t have a boss or somebody above you or even coworkers to say, “Hey, you made it to school pickup on time even though it was really hard. Nice job.” How do we atta boy ourselves? How do we find validation in this work that society devalues, that often we devalue ourselves because of all of the narratives? How do we keep validating the work that we’re doing in a society that does not validate it at all?
Neha Ruch:
Oh, that’s good. I think there’s this one exercise that keeps coming up for me as you’re speaking. I did it during my pause and I still do it now. Open an iPhone note or Google Doc and write every time you feel proud of yourself. Don’t let that moment go by. Or even when your interests feel sparked or you had a really deep conversation or you listened to something that made you linger a little bit, not because all those dots are going to immediately make sense, but because when you look back at the end of six months or a year, you can start to extract themes.
So, as a parent or a woman in a career shift or career transition, you might glean from it, “Wow, I’m really interested in family policy” or “I’m really good at project management. I didn’t even realize that about myself. Who knew I cultivated that skill?” Or, “Wow, I have really made an impact in our community. I didn’t realize how many parents or community members I was interacting with, whether I was getting better parking in front of our apartment building or managing a bake sale.” Whatever that is, you’re suddenly triangulating for yourself this hype file of, I’m really good at a lot of things that went unnoticed in the background of the ordinary day that is actually quite extraordinary.
And I think in parenthood, like being a founder, a lot of it is minutia and it can get lost in that. The day-to-day can get lost in that until you step out and take notice a little by little of the ways in which you’re developing and the ways you’re impacting. Because at some point for the woman who is ready to return, she needs to be able to package that all up. And you write career pods for family life or career sabbatical for family life.
Well, once you have those bullets, then you just think, “Wait a second, that time that I was on the family education forum for school, I implemented a highly publicized community engagement program. That’s what I actually did.” And suddenly that becomes much more confidence boosting to move yourself forward into the next space.
Tori Dunlap:
You are mentioning something I wanted to talk about anyway, so I think this is the perfect time. How do I position a power pause on my resume? How do I position a power pause in an interview? I know as somebody who now hires people, I’m seeing more and more of this, which I fucking love of women who are saying, “Oh, for these four years, I managed my household. I got everybody to school pickup on…” It’s so great to see that. So, how do we position that in an authentic but also effective way if we do choose to go back to the workforce?
Neha Ruch:
I think a big part of it is owning it with clarity. We interviewed a number of women who were navigating the stage and oftentimes recruiters will say, “It’s much better to call out why you took that career break and say it was for family life. It was for an international relocation. It was for elder care so that the question marks are taken care of.”
And so, my answer to people will often say, “Does it make sense to write career pause on my resume?” And I’ll say, “Yes, and.” Yes, and you want to give careful time to all of the sub-bullets that go under there because oftentimes when you’re parsing through that iPhone note or your Google Doc, there are applicable pieces.
I always use this example of a woman down in North Carolina. She had her Google Doc. And when she was looking back, she saw this time that she had reorganized the bus route for her kids’ pickup because they just weren’t getting picked up on time. And when she was looking back, it did two things. One, it made her think, “Wow, I am actually really interested in project management. I’m going to start gearing my search that way. I’m going to take an online certification and double down on that direction.” But it also offered her a really compelling bullet.
She wrote, instead of, “Reorganize my kids’ bus route.” She wrote, “Implemented highly technical infrastructure change to local organization.” And that’s what happens. That’s like the actual inspiring work of parenthood, but oftentimes you need to take that time to reflect on the advocacy, the research, the planning, the family operations that were happening in that day-to-day.
The part two though is give yourself at least a year on transitioning back and think about ways in which to brush up, whether that be online certifications, whether that be advising or helping a friend on their business, use small opportunities in the school or whatever environment is local to you to just build up those relevant supplements. And ideally, and a lot of the work of the book is charting out ways you’re doing that over the course of the years that you’ve been on pause, but if you are just listening to this and you’re just thinking, “Well, I want to return.” Give yourself that year to start to build that story back up.
Tori Dunlap:
I think this is one of the ways AI could actually be really useful is you plug in everything you did and AI can spit out at you the official resume statement because I think it’s often hard of like, how do I use corporate jargon to explain what I did? So, I think that that can be really, really helpful.
Neha Ruch:
I would just add one thing on career portfolios, I want you to think of it as a career portfolio. That term was not introduced by me. It was a woman named April Rinne who wrote the book, Flux. She’s an operational organizational expert. And she basically said, “We are moving towards a workplace that understands jungle gyms versus ladders.” And when you’re interviewing, look for the employers like you, Tori, who would value that, who would value that you might have taken a deviation and developed more experience that layers onto that portfolio and actually makes you a more whole, wise contributor.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Okay. I have to get into something that does not get talked about enough, especially in like the mom influencer posts we see online. So, when one partner steps back from earning income to raise kids, then the financial power in the relationship shifts. That can bring up everything from guilt to resentment to just this straight-up imbalance of power and ownership over money and finances. So, how do we start to shift those power dynamics when one partner is holding the financial reigns?
Neha Ruch:
We talked a lot about reframing ambition I think tied very closely to that is reframing our idea of financial dignity. I think we in grossly undervaluing care in this country. We’ve dumped it down to diapers and laundry. Meanwhile, by the way, $231.1 million a year are spent on parenting books, 141.1 on parenting apps because everyone is trying to do this immense work of raising this next generation and yet we don’t have a line in the GDP for the actual work that has to go into taking care of these children.
This is a delicate and nuanced conversation. I want to start by saying, I think stay-at-home motherhood, we talked a bit about this in the beginning, but stay-at-home motherhood of the many myths that have surrounded it, we have assumed that it’s a luxury. And the reality is that 60% would cite financial considerations and making that choice because it’s the best choice for their family at that season and because the cost of childcare.
When you realize that, it’s not to say working out of the home is a luxury, it’s to say that the privilege is to get to choose. And the reason that that’s important is because when we say one side is a “luxury”, we deem it of less value and we deem it of worthy of less support. And I think stay-at-home mothers or women who step into a career break, immediately step into this feeling of, “Well, it’s a luxury that I get to do this.” Instead of what we offer, which is two parents together are making an informed decision.
And by the way, one in five stay-at-home parents right now are dads. Gender aside. Two parents hopefully doing money meetings every year. That was something I was very grateful that my husband had started. He ran a tech company at the time, so he basically copied the P&L and applied it to our life very early. So, we had income in, income out.
And we sat down in January, every January and said, “Well, these are the budgets that align with our values.” And when we had a child, it became glaringly obvious what the budget line item would look like for childcare. And by having an explicit dialogue, we could then have a really informed discussion around what are our values for right now? What do we both want? What do we both imagine for our life? And then we could think about, well, how could we move things around? Where would we shift from family vacations or dining out to allow us to make this shift?
And the point was to say we together were making a decision that benefited the entire household because I was not going to depend on him for the income. He was also going to depend on me for doing the care work that let him single task outside of the workforce, outside of the home. Being able to have an explicit conversation that we were an interdependent household, making a strategic choice for right now allowed me to feel like I am still financially dignified. I still have access to this household income because even if I’m not contributing in pay, I’m contributing … He could not have run to the Bay Area every time a new VC called if there wasn’t a security blanket at home.
And I was very clear about that contribution. I don’t think every couple has that immediate understanding. So, if you as a couple are sitting down and the partner on the other side does not have that same immediate understanding of that mindset, slow down. Do not make this decision until both partners are on the same page. Bring in financial planners, bring in a relationship therapist until you do feel like you’re on the same page.
Consider a postnuptial agreement. I think we don’t talk about prenups and postnups a lot, but we enter contracts all the time in businesses. And that’s just a way of making yourself feel safe and protected when whichever partner is stepping into that shift. And I think the other piece, and you and I talked about this in the very beginning, allow yourselves a checkpoint to come back and reexamine. That way, the partner who’s continuing to work out of the home doesn’t feel like this enormity of pressure forever. It’s a decision you’re going to make for whatever 18 months, two years.
And if it is not financially available to you to take a full pause, consider all of those other options we talked about. Think about what you’re optimizing for. If it’s more time at home, could you consider a part-time role? If it’s more headspace, could you consider moving off of certain projects or out of management duties? There’s many ways to make room for family life. It doesn’t have to be a full pause.
Tori Dunlap:
I have good friends before they got married, I talked to them about their prenup. We had drinks in a bar in New York and we talked about it.
Neha Ruch:
Amazing.
Tori Dunlap:
And one of the things that was so incredible about their prenup was they decided if she steps back from her career to take care of children, he will compensate her. He will pay out from his salary to make sure that her retirement accounts are still contributed to, that she has money to do the things that she needs to do. And it inspired a post that ended up going viral that I made where I said, “Stay-at-home mom should receive a salary.” It got a very spicy comment section, which of course it did.
Neha Ruch:
Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure.
Tori Dunlap:
So, should stay-at-home moms get a salary and what would that look like?
Neha Ruch:
So, the data says that if they were to get a salary, it would be $184,000 a year.
Tori Dunlap:
Yup. That’s the point I made as well.
Neha Ruch:
Yeah. Now that research is admittedly already dated, so it doesn’t include inflation. That’s from 2021. The challenge with that is that no one’s paying that anytime soon. So, I think the better, more solid, realistic path forward is that in your household, you come up with a very clear set of parameters that work, that both of you feel like you are contributing and that your contributions are seen and respected.
And if that’s a line item in the money meeting, just to keep it like front and center, that works too. I think this conversation is so important, not just because of like, “Oh, I want to feel financially dignified.” It’s also we need to feel worthy of support, because just because you have paused your paid work doesn’t mean you don’t deserve support. No one would be expected to work 24/7 without breaks.
And I would argue now working out of the home much more, the work that I did in the home for those five years on full pause was demanding. It was physically demanding. It was emotionally demanded.
Tori Dunlap:
Emotionally demanding. Yeah.
Neha Ruch:
It was complicated. It was nuanced. I didn’t have as much breathing room. And so, it was very important to be in a household in a dynamic where my workday was recognized, then I could say, “We together are going to clean at the end of the day because my workday’s over, your work day’s over. We’re going to split up the rest of the things.”
And/or that when we thought about investing, and I would suggest this to anyone, whether they work out of the home or in the home or exist in between, any paid help, whether that’s a cleaning person once a week, whether that’s a mother’s helper for 15 hours a week, comes out of the joint household income. It’s not out of the mom’s salary. It’s an investment in the whole household dynamic. And it empowers everyone to be rested in a whole. But that’s a big mindset shift in a culture that has grossly undervalued care.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. I mean, the most common, let’s call it disputing comment to my video was, “Well, we’re a team.” And as soon as I start paying her, it no longer becomes a team. And I think it’s the same logic that people use for, “I should completely combine finances with my partner because if not, then we’re not a team.” And if anybody’s been listening to the show long enough, you know I call so much bullshit on that because you need to be financially protected.
Now, I don’t think I know anybody who is a non-compensated stay-at-home mom, working mom who is making $180,000 a year, but who might, again, make sure that the money that’s coming in is still contributed to her retirement accounts, or that this couple that I mentioned, one of the things that they negotiated is that because she’s taking time off the workforce and she knows that she’s going to come in and not make as much money, her earning potential has shifted, that will be accommodated for and compensated.
So, I think to your point, there’s these small things that you and your partner can determine works for both of you where yeah, there’s that dignity, but there’s also the protection of your money and of the growth of that money, even if you are not getting compensated for 18 plus years of work.
Neha Ruch:
And one thing on IRA, there is something called a spousal IRA, which is so important to in the laundry list of things that most people don’t know, your partner should be contributing to that…
Tori Dunlap:
It’s big.
Neha Ruch:
… immediately if one of you has taken a career pause. I think there were so many examples of how couples prepared for their shift. One of them that was my favorite, and she happens to be an accountant, so she was well versed in the topic. She started to put for six months her income, her paycheck into a separate savings account for herself, and it let her build up her savings and it let them trial what it looked like and felt like to live on one income.
And so, you can see how there’s no one size fits all, but it is all about having the dialogue around value and making sure you feel safe and protected and that there’s adequate amount of planning. In their example, they plan for six months ahead of time.
Tori Dunlap:
You keep bringing up elder care as well, and I think that is something that, again, our society deeply devalues because it’s usually women doing it. Are there ways that an elder care pause is different from a maternity or a caregiving for children pause? Is it more socially accepted? How does that work in reality?
Neha Ruch:
It’s interesting because people have said that the joy of taking care of aging is much less than the joy of taking care of babies, right?
Tori Dunlap:
Which makes total sense. Literally life versus death.
Neha Ruch:
Right. So, there’s that piece of transaction, but I think sometimes when we think that work is done out of love and joy, we think it has less value. So, by that, I mean, we think of it as not work, it’s just something we do when we take care of kids. But it is work, just because-
Tori Dunlap:
Because it’s not as torturous. Is that the idea of caring for your early parents as you’re watching them die is like-
Neha Ruch:
Yes. Caring for is you’re struggling enough, right? Like you’ve earned it.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. You’ve earned it.
Neha Ruch:
And so, there’s a little bit of like, you are doing really hard work by doing that. Whereas kids is just associated with maternal, like because we do it out of love.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s a baked in requirement. Yeah.
Neha Ruch:
It’s a baked requirement.
Tori Dunlap:
Interesting.
Neha Ruch:
And I think it’s a tricky distinction because one is not harder than the other, and one is not less time intensive than the other. One has historically gotten a little bit more scaffolding in the workplace than the other, I think elder care, but it’s the same tension, which is that I have shifting, I have to make a complicated choice in my work dynamic to make room for other priorities. But it is interesting you bring that up because I’ve been noticing this trend of older gentlemen when they’re 50s or so saying like, “I’m taking a career sabbatical.” And everyone is so impressed by this career sabbatical.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, yes, of course.
Neha Ruch:
But we have been taking career sabbaticals for other priorities too. They’ll talk about health, they’ll talk about exploration, they’ll talk about travel.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, it seems sexy when men do it. It’s like, “Oh, it’s exciting because it never happens.” And like good for you taking time, or good for you taking care of children or your ailing parents, but then it’s just a requirement for women.
Neha Ruch:
I read this post the other day from a classmate from a different life and it was this long thing about how in stepping away from work, it’s really opened his perspective. It’s really allowed him to experience people in a different way, his efficiency, his empathy. I was thinking, “Well, that’s funny because that’s how I feel about motherhood, but I’ve had to rebrand the whole thing to make people pay attention.” So, I think we’re dealing with all of those forces.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. It is interesting. Again, men take a break and it’s like, “Because I’m coming back stronger.” And everybody’s like, “You’re so right.” And then when it’s women, it’s like, “But there’s no possible way you could manage your time with children. There’s no possible way you could be a good employee here.” The double standard kills me.
One of the things I wrote down, I don’t know if you’ve seen these posts. I usually joke it’s a research paper and by research paper, I mean I watched a TikTok, but I’ve seen all these videos that Europeans have a slightly different way of raising their children that there’s less children centered activities that you bring your kids to or that you set up for your children and more that children just come with you while you do things.
And I think it’s a really interesting difference. And when we’re talking about how do you protect your own time as a parent? How do you protect your own development while also caregiving? I think that can be an interesting shift. Have you seen this in reality of this like, “Okay, I’m going to go run an errand or I’m going to go meet with my friends and I’m bringing my kid along as opposed to this dedicated activity just for them.”
Neha Ruch:
I think both and. I actually think some of the myths that surround these career pauses is that your network’s going to die, your interests are going to die, but the reality is I met more interesting women at a baby group or in a play space or a playground just because they were in a shared stage of life by nature of where we lived, they were also making complicated decisions about their work and family.
You might talk about your diaper bag for 30 seconds, but then you very quickly move on to like, “What were you doing previously? What are you interested in? Are you taking a class right now? Are you thinking about going back to work? What’s your relationship would like with your partner?” The conversations aren’t limited to the baby just because they’re happening in a baby group.
So, I would say that I think your network and your interests can still expand even in traditionally play-centered or child-centered environments like a playground. That said, I do think that there is more dialogue around how can we integrate our children into our day-to-day. So, yes, I do see a trip movement towards more grownup spaces like restaurants and cafes becoming more accepting of bringing children along.
And I think there’s more dialogue around women deserving breaks and being able to invest time with their friends. And I think it’s also just allowing ourselves to know that we have permission to invest in ourselves alongside our kids. So, it’s less about the spaces it takes up and more to say that, yes, this chapter in our life might have a focus of raising kids, but we’re allowed to also raise ourselves too and make room for that, whether that’s getting a babysitter for a handful of hours, whether that’s dragging your get along to a networking event.
Tori Dunlap:
When it’s time to reenter the workforce, if someone decides that’s what they want to do, what are the biggest mistakes you’re seeing women make and how can they avoid them?
Neha Ruch:
A lot of the pitfalls surround deciding that they want to return and then expecting it to work the next day. I think that we are surprised by how long it takes, and part of that is the economic forces and the current job market. And I think part of it is that we do have to approach our reentry with strategic care. I think there’s some of the best tips I can offer are look for at stepping stones.
So, meaning look for the friend who needs help like five to 10 hours a week. Look for women owned businesses, small to medium businesses tend to be more open to non-traditional work experience and fractional work, because the best thing that I’m seeing right now is women pivot out of their pause. They decide to start work of meaning that affords some flexibility and then they hire other women because they understand the capacity for efficiency and time management.
There’s also this piece where we’re underprepared on the transition back in terms of childcare and support. The reality is just because it’s freelance or flexible work doesn’t mean you don’t need support at home. There’s no invisible magic time. And so, I think allowing yourself some time, not just for the planning around reentry and what job am I returning to, but what’s it going to feel like in my family? What’s going to have to give? I’m not going to be able to pick up my children three days a week. So, who is going to do that? There’s a recalibration around expectations in the home, expectations with your partner.
And I think the last pitfall that I think we all fall into is discrediting the immense amount of experience we just gained. I think we overcompensate, we undersell when we walk in, we take on this small way of like, we have to earn our stripes now that we’re back. And the reality is that all of that amazing experience didn’t evaporate. You just gained an incredible amount of perspective, leadership training, empathy, communication skills, organization, time efficiency. Do not discredit that. And I think humility is one thing, but being able to walk in and stay confident is another.
Tori Dunlap:
My last question for you. What does a successful power pause look like?
Neha Ruch:
It’s an openness to the ways in which you’re going to grow, an ability to get intentional about how might I reserve a little bit of room to move myself forward professionally, personally, and in a way that feels aligned to my family values. How do I give myself permission to structure my days so that there’s a little bit of room for me week over week? How do I give myself permission to get the help I need, whether it’s from my partner or page so that I can invest in networking a little bit, and tapping into the relationships that surround us in all of these different non-traditional environments?
How can I pay attention during this time to what lights me up, whether it’s scrolling Instagram and just stopping a little bit where I notice that I’m getting excited or I want to dig deeper and allowing this to be a moment of real self-study? Because I think we don’t get that chance to study ourselves and redefine what true success looks like. But I can promise you if you take that time, it’ll serve you well.
Tori Dunlap:
Your book has been all over my timeline. Everybody’s been talking about it. I’m so excited to recommend it to everybody in my life who needs it. So, plug away, my friend. Tell us where we can find it.
Neha Ruch:
You can get the Power Pause wherever you love to get books, or you can subscribe to the newsletter at the powerpause.com. And we have tremendous free resources like how to write a postnup on the Power Pause right now.
Tori Dunlap:
So, important. I love it. Thank you.
Neha Ruch:
Thank you.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminists, produced by Her First $100K. If you love the show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you’re looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to http://herfirst100k.com/ffpod.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist a Her First $100K podcast. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant. Research by Sarah Sciortino. Audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf. Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First 100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Sasha Bonar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclos, Meghan Walker, and Jess Hawks. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community for supporting our show.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
