Women at Work - No Partner, No Kids, No Problem

0:00So what I'm most interested in learning about in this conversation is whether there is bias against single childless women and how the bias shows up. Right, and it sounds like it's possible the bias could be favorable in some ways, right? We've seen research that shows that single women make as much as married men with children or close to, but we're also seeing a lot of evidence that they're not treated well and thought thought less of. So I'm going to be curious to see how that research shakes out. Yeah. I'm just excited to hear more about new research that's being done in this area. I feel like more women are delaying having children and getting married until later and later in their professional careers and their lives. And I don't know if that has been studied super well aside from areas like pay. So I just want to see what we know from research about this demographic.

1:06You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Nicole Torres. And I'm Amy Gallo. This episode will explain some of the questions and tensions around being a single, childless woman in the workplace. Because the organization says, well, you know, you don't have anything, you don't have anything else to do. So you can take this extra work. And that can then be a problem for a single, childless person who does have an active life outside of work or who's seeking an active life outside of work.

1:35That's Tracy Dumas. She's an associate professor at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business. We'll talk with Tracy later in the show about the challenges that single childless women often face at work. First, my conversation with the woman who's been reflecting a lot lately about her own singlehood, the writer, Shani Silver. Thank you for taking time to talk to us. Thank you for having me. Okay, so, Shani...

2:00You have been writing a series for Refinery29 called Every Single Day. And it's about what your life as a 36 year old single childless woman is like. And in the series so far you've written about like how online dating is awful after 30, how if you need help you have to hire it and how in the end you are totally fine. But one thing that surprised us was that you didn't write about work or you haven't written about work yet. Why not? Right.

2:26I think there are probably a lot of reasons and also maybe no reasons. I think what I write about for refinery is typically what I'm the most passionate about in sort of like sometimes negative and angry way. I certainly think that's that's how it can tend to come across. But also, I think when being single has affected me in the workplace, it's been really that sort of one off thing that happens that I handle and process and that sort of thing. And with the series on refinery, it's more about the day-to-day existence for single women and how that's different and how it's also not overlooked. It's just, you know, nobody knows about it because how would you unless you have been living like this? But I'm just wondering, have you seen any upsides professionally to being childless and single when you think about it? Yes.

3:15Yes, I have absolutely seen upsides to being single and to not having children professionally for sure. The biggest upside is just time. I think that I have a lot of time luxury that parents do not have because I'm essentially just taking care of me and parents are taking care of definitely more than just themselves. And naturally, a greater portion of your day is going to be taken up with that caregiving and raising of a family. And because I don't do that, there is time in my day that I can give to not just my normal nine to five, but also any kind of side project or creative project or something that I want to pursue. I just noticed that I have far more time luxury than

3:59certainly my friends that are parents and my colleagues that have been parents. On the other side of things, I really haven't noticed any massive negatives to being single. I haven't ever missed out on professional opportunities or been overlooked in any way or have been, my status has never been frowned upon professionally. So you said no real negatives to the single side of it. Do you think there are downsides professionally to being childless?

4:29Yes, I think so. They're a little bit more subtle and you have to kind of have experienced them to notice them. But yes, I have definitely seen downsides to not having kids and that where I've noticed it the most is in.

4:43the forgiveness that is given to people who are coupled or who have children in the workplace when it comes to taking time for their personal lives in a way that that same forgiveness is not translated to someone who is single for example there are two that really stand out in my mind the first one is if someone in the workplace says, you know, I'm going to be gone for the next two weeks because I'm getting married. That's a really reasonable request. I think between travel and, you know, managing family flying in somewhere and actually having a wedding and then going away for a honeymoon. Two weeks is a really reasonable timeframe for that, for sure. And I always wondered, you know, if I was just to show up at work one day and say, hey, listen, I'm going to take two weeks off because.

5:28I need to do something in my personal life as well. Would that receive the same kind of, or the same level of forgiveness or level of okayness that someone getting married gets? And I don't think it would at all because there are subtle judgments about any kind of vacation anyone takes ever because we live in kind of a burnout culture. But it definitely seems less important than...

5:53Then someone who is married or has children and I think the other example that I would give would be When parents leave at the end of the workday or arrive at the beginning of the workday at the same time every day consistently like a hard out at 5 p.m The assumption being that they're going to obviously pick their children up from school or relieve a nanny or something like that. There's very little judgment around that it's Something they have to do every day at a certain time and this is part of being a parent obviously and that's just what's going to happen and there is very little you know Negativity surrounding that nor should there be any negative negativity surrounding that but if I was to leave as a single childless person on the button every day at a certain time that would be considered early in our current professional culture I think that I would be judged for that there there have been questions like where are you going? You know big plans tonight things like that sort of

6:48those invasive questions that are really nobody's business. But definitely there are more inquiries around how I spend my time because as a single woman with no kids, it's less clear. No, those examples really relate to me. The wedding one too is like, weddings are this big event that people can, a lot of people can relate to. So when you're like, I'm taking two weeks off for this, like it kind of clicks in their mind versus like, I'm just taking two weeks to find myself is very different.

7:16Have you ever been asked at work or have you ever been asked in an interview if you're married or if you have kids? I've been asked a lot and it's always in a really subtle way like it'll just be like during the course of conversation somebody will be like well I don't know if you're married or whatever but and part of it's obvious I don't wear a ring but also the question has just come up really overtly before and I've taken multiple routes I've answered it and I have not answered it and I think to be like 100% honest with it when I've answered it and said, no, that I'm single, it's been because I want that to be to my advantage because I have seen the sort of judgments and assumptions made around women in my age bracket, particularly those that are married around, well, is she going to get pregnant? Is she going to go on mat leave? I've seen the judgments around it because I've interviewed people and I've gone through the hiring process before and I've seen

8:13firsthand the discussions that come up around women that are interviewing. So, yeah, kind of in a guilty way, yeah, I've absolutely answered that question when I thought it could be to my advantage. And I've also refused to answer it because I've also wanted to protect my own boundaries and recognize that I have the ability to do that. So there have been times when I've answered it and times that I haven't. So there's some research on how unmarried women without children they earn pretty close to what men do. So all the stuff about the gender pay gap, it's not as simple as that. Some researchers are calling it the motherhood wage gap because single childless women, in terms of their earnings, look pretty similar to men. And it's really mothers who take a hit. So on the one hand, if we look at this research, single childless women are at this.

9:03pay advantage. But you have written about how not having someone to split the bills with is a loss. So there is a cost to not being coupled up in that way. So we're wondering what the happy middle is. Have you found one? Is there is there a happy middle between these two realities? I don't know. But if you find it, I would like you to let me know because I can't seem to locate it. And I think on the one hand, I do benefit from a lack of you know, the motherhood wage gap for sure. But at the same time, I'm still really angry about it. And I don't think it's fair. I don't think mothers should ever take a professional or financial hit. That's one side of things. The other side of things obviously is for single women, I think that that financial hardship is a lot more private and a lot less discussed because you don't really realize that like

9:55Yeah, I am paying for everything myself with no financial support or splitting of anything ever. I don't think that there's a happy medium. I don't think there's a perfect existence for anyone, no matter what their status is, no matter whether or not they're partnered or parents. There's just all of us sort of out here trying to do the best that we can do with what we've got. And that's really the closest I've come to reconciling it in my brain is that everyone's just doing their best.

10:21So you touched on, you know, judgments and assumptions that can be made toward women of a certain age, you know, interviewing for a job or whatever. Have you experienced or felt or wondered about judgments and assumptions made about your, like, your status? Of course, yeah. I think it's really hard to interview with somebody in what would be considered, you know, The decade where you're likely to have kids I think it would be silly to think that people weren't wondering that about me for sure. And the one thing that I have noticed professionally that I'm sort of thought of in a different way or seen in a different way or maybe bucketed into a different bucket.

11:04is when I'm very open and honest about the fact that I don't want children at all. And I think that there's like a cold assumption about women that don't want to be mothers. And I have noticed among colleagues that there is just sort of this chili bucket that I'm put in when I'm very open about the fact that even if I am parted one day, I do not want to have children be a part of my life ever.

11:27I mean, I want to play with other people's kids. Let's not be drastic. Love that all my friends have babies and we get to all hang out and go to brunch together and it's amazing. But I just choose not to have my own. And I have noticed that there can be this stigma attached to somebody who does not want children and is very open about that. And there's always this pull for more information about that.

11:51is it because I can't? And then suddenly there's this understanding and warmth that's put back on to me. But that's not the case. It is just simply a decision of mine that I have made. And it's one that I think buckets me as somebody who is not as nurturing of a person or as warm of a person. And I don't think that's the case at all. And I wish that it wasn't because I think that there are so many ways to be a nurturer, particularly in the workplace when you are dealing with direct reports whose careers you want to help develop and whose skill sets you want to help develop and who you want to be a mentor for. And I love mentoring. Absolutely love it. I love having them. I love being a mentor to others. And I think that I have been saddened by any, you know, a sumptive coldness attached to me in that way. So I'm also curious.

12:48Do you think men and women, single men and women, childless men and women are viewed differently? Oh my god, yes. I mean, and maybe I'm wrong, but like I don't think that there's any sort of stigma attached to a man who says he doesn't want kids. I don't think there's any stigma attached to a man who says he doesn't want to get married. But I have seen stigma attached to myself.

13:10for saying that I want to get married and I'm obviously not married and I'm not dating anybody. So there's inherent sadness attached to that, even though it's like not sad at all in my mind. And then there's the inherent stigma of being very open about not wanting children. So the things that, that breeds stigma toward women in my experience have not bred the same kind of stigma when attached to men. Yeah. The inherent sadness. The inherent sadness. That gets thrown on you. Yeah.

13:38That'll be the title of my autobiography one day. That's a good one. That's a really good one. Shanie talked about some of the bias she's encountered at work, policies that don't meet her needs, norms that leave her feeling disrespected, colleagues who think she's cold. We wanted to see how widely shared those challenges are for women and how to handle them. It is tough to disclose and discuss aspects of your non-work life that are different from your colleagues.

14:13Tracy Dumas studies the relationship between people's personal and professional lives, one of her areas of expertise is status, like marital status. And she's done research on single childless employees. Tracy, we're super excited to talk to you. Thank you for making time for us today. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Maybe we can start by you telling us what are some of the most common stereotypes about working women who've never been married and who don't have kids?

14:43Yeah, so if we think about stereotypes in general, the stereotype and gender norms are that women are supposed to be warm, and they're supposed to be nurturing, they're supposed to be helpful, they're supposed to be supportive of other people. And what we know is that career women in general are seen as competent often, but not necessarily as warm.

15:08And then when we look at research on how family structure might affect the way women are viewed in the workplace, what we see is that a woman who is married and has children gets a bump on the warmth component because, all right, well, even though she's this career woman, she has these traditional gender roles. So she's in a romantic relationship with a man.

15:34she has children so she's in this nurturing role and so we do see differences then in the way single women are viewed with respect to this particular stereotype component so that's that's a part of it and then if we think more broadly on a societal level You can think of being a single childless woman almost as a stigmatized identity, right? So there are derogatory terms associated with being a woman who's not married. And then if we're thinking about your responsibilities and activities outside of work, then they are seen as perhaps trivial.

16:19or frivolous or less important than the responsibilities of caring for a home, caring for a family. Right, so we see them as cold spinsters who have no life. Well, I didn't say that, but certainly if you put together... I'm just trying to put together what you just said. Yes, yes, correct, correct. That would be consistent, right, with what we know from research.

16:47I'm just wondering, what do we know about working women who are single, who don't have children? What do we know about their lives at work and outside of work? What we know from existing research is that their lives are much more complex than is assumed. And in fact...

17:07Although single childless people don't have things like child care responsibilities that they don't have the same level of domestic responsibilities. What we do see in our research is that they are reporting more community involvement. They are reporting more personal development that's even controlling for age. What we also know from research is that there are assumptions about their lives. There are assumptions about how family structure shapes what you're doing outside of work. There's this expectation that they don't have responsibilities, that they are fully unencumbered and able to totally give themselves over to work. They're going to be available for any extra tasks. They're going to be available at the last minute to travel or to stay late or to work on the weekend. And so if I think about a personal example, several years ago when I was still a junior faculty member,

18:07I was asked to take a faculty candidate out to dinner. Can you take this person out to dinner? And I think it was like the day before, so can you do it tomorrow night? Because everyone else has a family responsibility that they have to take care of. So can you do this? And so the expectation is, I didn't have anything else to do.

18:30that I was going to be able to take this person. And I was very happy actually that I was going to be flying out to present research at a conference. I was very happy that I had a work related excuse that people were going to respect because often the non-work commitments of single childless workers may not necessarily be respected or they're seen as frivolous or trivial or Not a good reason. So if I had said well, I'm I'm committed to Volunteering or I sing with my church choir and I have to go to rehearsal or then there is some concern that Those responsibilities may not be respected in the same way

19:21Let me ask about family responsibilities, Tracy. Yeah. Because single women without dependent children are the people most likely to be caring for their aging parents. Yes. So if you are responsible for caring for a family member or even a friend who is like family, how do you talk to your boss about needing to take time off for that for the flexibility you need? Yeah. So that's a great question. And I'm glad that you mentioned friend as well because for people who don't have have children or who for whatever reason didn't form a traditional family structure. For many of those people, they're their friends, they're, you know, what sociologists would call their non-kind ties or maybe their fictive kind ties become essential to their well-being, to their social support. And we don't have any structures currently for the most part to

20:15acknowledge those. So I would say, you know, first of all, just understand exactly what are the policies in your organization. Because there are some organizations that have leave options that are not explicitly tied to parental duties or that are not just maternal leave. So I would say, first of all, just become really familiar with the policies in your organization. Then I would say have a conversation with your supervisor.

20:43about the accommodations that you need explicitly what you need, but also I think have some solutions about how to make it work as opposed to just, hey, I need this time, can you help me? I think that's the way to work in a system that doesn't have a pre-established set of structures in place to help you meet your non-work responsibilities. Right, that makes sense.

21:10Let me ask this. What are the benefits professionally of being a childless single woman? Yes. So on the one hand, there is potentially this deficit with respect to, well, you're not seen as warm. You're not as high on this warmth component. But there is also this expectation that, well, if you don't have a spouse and children to care for, then you can work just like a man and and there is this notion that perhaps single childless women are a new version of the ideal worker that they can be here all hours. If we need them to be, they can travel at the last minute. If we need them to be, they can totally devote themselves to work. This is the notion of the ideal worker. And historically, that ideal worker was a married man who had a wife who was not employed, who facilitated his ability to be this unencumbered person, totally focused on work, totally accessible for the organization whenever they needed him. And he didn't have

22:21a competing set of responsibilities or commitments and certainly I think it's intuitive that let's say someone especially who's building a career just getting started out trying to establish themselves then perhaps there is some benefit of being able to have this single-minded devotion to work that benefit is somewhat dubious because there are also some challenges. And so one of the challenges is that they can internalize this notion that because I don't have a husband or child or household to take care of in terms of nurturing and taking care of other people, then I should be at work all the time. But this idea that

23:14many single childless people often feel as if that set of assumptions also places a burden on them because the organization says well you know you don't have anything you don't have anything else to do so you can take this extra work or you can take this particularly demanding assignment and That can then be a problem for a single childless person who does have an active life outside of work or who's seeking an active life outside of work or, you know, well, I don't have a family now, but I'd like to have one. I'd like to have the time to meet people and go out and just have a fuller life. Tracy, the conundrum you're talking about of

23:55being completely dedicated to work that you don't have much of a life and yet wanting a life but not having the time to build one go on dates, meet people, whatever. How do you navigate that conundrum? There's a combination of things. One is as an individual being very intentional about drawing those boundaries yourself. So communicating to your organization or your co-workers and making a decision yourself that you are going to protect your participation in your non-work life. But certainly what we also see is that the organization has an important role to play. I have some research. It's another collaboration with Jill Perry Smith that looks at different types of policies.

24:47And so what we found is that single childless workers responded more to these, what we call progressive policies, things like leave time that's granted perhaps to volunteer or a compressed work week is a little bit more.

25:05nontraditional than a standard flex time policy which would be a situation where you know I can instead of working nine to five I can start at seven and leave at three so just shifting the schedule so that would be a typical standard flex time policy in those findings from that paper very consistent with other findings that we've seen in terms of creating a culture that is friendly.

25:28to single childless people where they feel respected and they feel equal in the workplace and they don't feel as if there's this pressure for them to do something different in the workplace than their colleagues who are married or have children. So Tracy, if your company doesn't have those policies, however, how as a single childless woman do you navigate having a life?

25:54It might mean having some uncomfortable conversations with your manager or your supervisor. It might mean talking with human resources personnel who can help you navigate or maybe who could mediate for you, who could advocate for you in your organization. What is clear, if I think again about research, what is clear from research?

26:20is that when people have positive, full, active lives outside of work, it doesn't compete with their contribution in the workplace. There's a great article that was actually published several years ago in Harvard Business Review. It was called Leadership in Our Mist, was the title of the article. And that article was all about the...

26:45civic engagement and community engagement of minority employees and how they learned really valuable skills from managing their church choir or being actively involved in a minority alumni association of their university. And that people were developing incredible leadership skills in these roles, skills that were very valuable for the organization.

27:15And so those types of activities are certainly not family specific. We could see single childless people being very active in those types of activities. So part of I think advocating in your organization is communicating not just this idea that I just want to, you know, go have fun sometimes or I just want to go socialize sometimes. But this is a part of making me and allowing me to be my best in the workplace as well. I wanted to ask about more about bias against single women. I've heard the assumption made that single women without children just aren't married or don't have children yet, as if the presumption is that all women just want to have children and get married and that's our goal. How should single women respond to these kinds of presumptions when they hear them in the office? Right. So if you're talking about how to navigate that with

28:14with a manager. Part of it might be talking to them about your strategic plan for yourself, your five-year plan, your career goals, and communicating with them, you know, even finding someone in the organization who can play a mentor role or a sponsor role.

28:33what I think is important about that or would be helpful about that is it gets people enlisted in involved in supporting you. It also communicates your intention and your motivation for moving forward. And hopefully then what it also does is it enlists them in thinking about how you can achieve those goals irrespective of what your family situation might be, right?

29:02But it is unfortunate that that is a perception that women have to face. It's like, you know, it's a problem if you do, it's a problem if you don't, and you can't, no matter what you do, you can't escape problematic assumptions and expectations about ultimately how your family status is gonna negatively impact your contribution or your devotion to work. Right. Another thing I've like wondered about, it's not necessarily a challenge, but Like one thing that a lot of people at work connect over is having a partner and their kids.

29:39I have been asked several times, just really nicely by colleagues or by people at networking events, like, oh, do you have children? I want to tell you the story about my children. I want to know if you'll understand. To me, it was like the implication there. And I never really know how to respond. I say no. And then I worry that I'm just shutting that conversation down. And I'm not seeming warm if that is something that's kind of.

30:04expected. Do you have any advice for if you're feeling socially excluded because you don't have a partner and you don't have kids, like how do you how do you manage that? Yes, okay. So and I totally can identify with that. I've experienced that as well. And it's such a common question. You know, listen to their story. And my guess is that even if you don't have your own children, maybe you have nieces or nephews, or maybe you have a good friend who has children.

30:33So maybe what you could say is, well, no, I don't have kids, but your story is really funny. And it reminds me of something that my college roommate has a daughter who I just adore, and she had a similar situation or something like that. So that's one easy way, I think, to pivot the conversation. So no, I don't have kids myself, but I know kids. I've experienced kids. I've interacted with them.

30:59So if you're just trying to connect and you know have commonality that I think that's an easy way to do it. And also I think there's nothing wrong with acknowledging the work that you do is something that we have in common and so some people like to avoid shop talk and that that's understandable and if and if you do shop talk too much then you can be potentially seen as someone who doesn't have anything else to do. But in terms of connecting with people. I think that's not a bad way to to start and there's actually some research that would suggest that that the task that we do the work that we do.

31:40can help bridge differences as well, because it is something that we have in common when we work in the same organization. So I think those are some ways to connect and deal with that, because I think that is a very real concern, that how do I connect with these people when my life outside of work is so different from everyone else's. Tracy, thank you so much for sharing all your insight on this. Thank you very much for having me. I've been thinking about like the upsides and the downsides of... That's kind of like how I thought about...

32:11how I put some of this research and this idea into context. Right. So what do you mean? And well, so Tracy touched on like, there are benefits and downsides to being a single or unpartnered woman with no children at work. And so for me, like some of the upsides of that, I feel like there's a lot of mobility that comes from being single or childless. So I was able to move from New York to Boston like, not on a whim, but really without having any intense negotiations with a partner or with a family, I was able to make that decision. So there's a lot of mobility there. When I was single and 23, I could make the decision to move for work. I could have a more like single, not single-minded, but I was able to focus on myself and my career and my personal growth and opportunities in a way that was unencumbered, I think compared to, you know, if

33:07now that I have a partner and even if I was to have kids, it would be very different. So I think that mobility, freedom, personal growth and time to pursue like your own individual interests, those to me are all upsides of being single and not having children. But there are some of the downsides for me are like, I think I have terrible work-life balance because I don't have those family responsibilities. I have additional time.

33:35and I feel like I should be spending that on work, especially at this point in my career too, which is, it's earlier, I'm still starting out, I'm wanting to prove myself, I wanna take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way, so I very rarely say no to things. So my work life balance is terrible. And then also I think it's true too that like managers or colleagues, there can be more expectations for single childless women to like, put in more time or do more work because it's- Or to take up the slack. To take up the slack. Because it's known that there aren't these other obligations, or it's assumed that there aren't these other obligations waiting for you. So that's a downside. I think FOMO is a downside too. I'm seeing more and more friends and acquaintances on social media and Instagram and things. People post pictures of their babies and their partners and their pets.

34:32And so there's a Volvo that comes with that too. And that comes up in the workplace when people are talking about their weekends and going on family trips or going to kids' recitals and things that can make me feel weird sometimes to talk about my somewhat uneventful weekend. You know, the interesting about that though is that if you look at the happiness studies, people with kids aren't happier. I just think there's something more legitimate.

34:57About it, right? Like if you posted on Instagram view at your sculpting class and compared that to like your friends who were like, you know taking their kids to the zoo Like the zoo trip seems more legit when you probably are much more happy in the sculpting class like it's hard to figure out why that FOMO would happen when we know Says the murky mom that having kids isn't all that gets cracked up to me. Yeah And there's like a certain sense of guilt maybe that comes with having more free time than other coworkers. Like I do have the time to work later or just to work at weird hours and to like raise my hand for more things. And that, I don't know, I felt guilty about that sometimes, which is weird. So I think of working moms as just guilt ridden all the time.

35:56So I guess the guilt thing is just a matter of perspective, right? Well, I think we work in a work culture that just makes you feel bad for not working all the time. Yeah, because that whole thing about the ideal worker Filled me with horror. Yeah, and I recognized a lot of it and you know took me to a very dark place And I think you're talking a little bit about that too, Nicole. Yeah. Yeah, I think that comes up Do you feel like you're expected to be the ideal worker? Yeah, I think it's totally self, I mean, it's self-inflicted. I don't think anyone expects any of us to be, but I think that the, that saying no is frowned on. Right. And I really related to her story of saying, she was so relieved she had a legitimate work reason to say no to that request to take the professor out to dinner. And I do, I think I

36:55rely on the legitimacy of having a child a lot as an excuse for not doing things. So one of the things I've learned is that you don't have to give an excuse. You can say, I can't. Right. And that's enough. You don't actually have to give chapter and verse on why. Yeah. Although given all the bias that we talked about with her, do you feel like just saying no without an excuse would somehow harm you? I don't.

37:23I don't. And, you know, it sort of depends. I mean, we don't get asked to do that sort of thing, but for a work dinner, let's say, I think it's better if you don't want to go on a work dinner, let's say a group outing, it's better to say, I can't, then I'm too tired. You know what I mean? Right, right. Something I've wondered, like in thinking about this and in hearing Tracy, I'm wondering what you both have experienced or thought about this, but.

37:51I feel like there are assumptions about how people who don't have children spend their time. And maybe not as even assumptions, but it's just that because you're not taking care of children or you don't have family responsibilities, what you're doing outside of work can be seen as more frivolous. It's optional.

38:09And so sometimes I just hear what co-workers think I do outside of my work, and it's like they think I'm at the club all the time. Wait, you're not at the club? I'm never at the club. I'm never at the club. But it is like, yeah, Nicole's going out. She's going to have a lot of fun. This is how she spends her evenings and her weekends. And I find that hilarious because it's not true. But I'm wondering if that, does that change when you get married? I feel like it must change when you have children.

38:35I think all our coworkers assume I just go home and do laundry, watch TV, right? Because that is the assumptions you make about married people. As a working mom and other fellow working moms, we'll always say, what did we do with our time before? Because having a child does feel like such a ginormous time sock that you're sort of like, until you imagine all these things you should have done, like go to the club or visited with friends or traveled or picked up hobbies and so then you sort of get wistful about those things and I think we project in some ways positively on single co-workers as you must just be having so much fun because I am not. That's so interesting. One of the things which I think I was somewhat aware of going into the conversation but was really emphasized was how excluded

39:30single childless women must feel when the conversation turns to children or turns to partners. I mean, I had a friend who's a lesbian point out to me once, she said, pay attention to how quickly straight women mention their husband and kids in a conversation. And it really was, including myself, it was frightening. It was like within the first two minutes of almost any casual work conversation.

39:55So, I mean, one of the things that occurs to me when this happens, and it happens all the time, is it's totally understandable that people, women who are married to men and have children, have a lot to talk about on those fronts. I mean, those are very absorbing aspects of their lives. It's just, you know, the fact of the matter is if you're not married to a man and you don't have children, it's a conversation that, you know, has only limited interest.

40:25What do you think about asking people, do you have kids? I feel like that's such a common question. And yet I've also heard people say that is so rude to ask someone you don't know. Like if you don't know them personally enough to know whether they have kids or not, don't ask the question. I don't know. I think it's kind of harmless and it's a way to connect. Okay, I did it last week. It's a conversational gamut when you're just trying to figure out what you're going to talk about.

40:54it's a little less ridiculous than how about those Yankees? I think it is relatively harmless. I had brought it up as an example because maybe when it makes me feel the most uncomfortable is when someone is telling me a story or about to tell me a story, and then they preface that by saying, oh wait, do you have kids? And I say no, and then it's like, will I not understand your story?

41:21I don't know. I don't think it's rude or even it intentionally like Made to be uncomfortable, but it's something that I've noticed I can stumble to answer later Yeah, yeah, it can be awkward on the other side, but you know a no Yeah, well, and I think the presumption that You wouldn't understand the story because you don't have kids is the rude part maybe of that scenario not necessarily the question Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but there's another part about you know, do you have kids, which is it? We're all looking for the thing that lights up. The person we're talking to, particularly a stranger and usually kids is what lights people up. You know, they love to talk about their kids or their grandkids or whatever. And so that's really just an honest attempt to find out what, to see someone at his or her best. Right. One of the other things that we briefly talked about with her that I was really interested in is also the identity

42:22as a friend that we talk about identities as being single married with children without children. But then single women and married women have other identities that aren't researched or validated. I mean, I think friend is probably top three for me. And yet no one's like, how are your friends? Or, you know, when you say, I'm going to meet a friend, that that feels like something that's really easily pushed as opposed to I'm going to pick up my kid. And I'm just curious what you all thought of that as an extra identity. I went in another direction because I remember from being single that my friends were my family more so than they are now. And so if a friend was in need, it was much easier for me to drop everything and to be there. Yeah. I mean, I had one of those experiences this summer where a friend

43:20who had very little biological family needed support. And I had to drop everything and go. And I was hesitant about sharing it because I thought it wouldn't be seen as legitimate. But then when I did, people were incredibly understanding. Yeah. I mean, haven't most of us been there? Yeah. Yeah. True. How are your friends? They're good. That's our show. I'm Amy Gallo. I'm Nicole Torres. And I'm Amy Bernstein.

43:54Our producer is Amanda Cursey. Our audio product manager is Adam Buckholz. Maureen Hoek is our supervising editor. We get technical help from Rob Eckhart. Erica Truxler makes our discussion guides. Jam Olajars is our copy editor. And thanks to Jenny Rollins for her production assistance on this episode. We love hearing from our listeners.

44:17Feel free to email us at women at work at hbr.org and let us know what you think about the show and what other topics you'd like us to cover. And one last thing, I want to remind everyone about our Women at Work newsletter. It's free, it's short, and it's a really good way to learn about new research and advice that we're publishing at HBR. I write it each month and I'm always looking for more feedback and ideas. So go to hbr.org slash newsletters to sign up and let me know what you think.