02: Work Advice for Parents from Karla Miller

Parents At Work

The guest on today's show is Karla Miller. Karla writes for the Washington Post Magazine's weekly @ Work Advice Column, where she answers questions on everything from co-worker clashes to employee rights issues. Karla also works full time at a local accounting firm and volunteers as a wife and mother of two children, who are now four and six years old. Listen in, to hear Karla's story.

Karla's Parent At Work Story started before she was even technically a parent while working for the same accounting firm that she does now. Her plan was to leave work and get her house in order about a week before her baby was due to arrive. About six weeks before her due date, she woke up to find that her water had broken. That was lesson number one: Children don't give a hoot about what your plans are. After spending a day in the hospital in labor, she was given an emergency C-Section. With that, came lesson two for Karla: You really do need excellent co-workers and a supportive work environment, in order to survive the experience of becoming a parent. Fortunately for Karla, she had all of that. Listen in now, to find out more about what Karla has learned through her experience of working and becoming a parent.

Today, Karla talks to Tom about:

• Her really supportive work environment.
• That with parenting, there are always things to juggle and to take into consideration.
• The often overlooked difficulties of being a stay at home parent.
• The work she does for the accounting firm, which, is fortunately quite flexible, and she can do a lot of it on her laptop, wherever she is, or via email.
• All the different elements that she has to balance, in her busy life.
• Her particular blend of flexibility and freedom.
• The stress that comes from having work flexibility.
• The double standards in people's attitudes towards male working parents, as compared with their attitudes towards women parents, who work.
• What she sees, as a writer, with parenting in the working world.
• That it's sometimes a relief and a welcome change of pace, to go into work.
• How she makes it work, as a working parent.
• A tip she has for parents- don't over share or over justify yourself for being unavailable work, it's not necessary to share too much detail.
• That every family is different.
• How she landed her writing job at the Washington Post.
• That turning a problem into a story helps you to get a better perspective on it.
• The kinds of concerns that Managers tend to have, about their workers with children.
• Parents will sometimes try to take advantage of their situation, to get a better deal at work.
• Moms often learn to get much more done in much less time.
• The sense of camaraderie that can develop between co-workers, when supporting and helping each other.
• The advice that she would give to her 'before she had children' self.
• The little things that one tends to miss, as a parent, like going out for a meal and being able to eat with both your hands.

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