Episode 68: From Pumping Breaks to Pickups: Holding Firm to Your Hours
ITUNES | SPOTIFY
As a working mom, you know what it’s like to have a “hard stop” — whether it’s pumping breaks, daycare pickup, or shutting the laptop by 5 to start the dinner and bedtime routine. But what happens when work doesn’t respect those boundaries? In this episode, we’ll talk about how to confidently hold your hard stop without guilt, what to say when a manager or colleague pushes back, and how to feel confident that you’re still doing enough. If you’ve ever worried about being seen as “less committed” because you have to leave on time, this episode will remind you that boundaries are not only important, but they're also a form of leadership.
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📍 You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is for. Are any of you who have ever had to have the conversation about how you have a hard stop? I was thinking originally about the end of the day, like having a hard stop at the end of the day, but I was also thinking that's applicable if you have a hard stop because you need to go pump right anytime where you have to say.
No, I can't join a meeting at that time, or no, I don't have a minute, or no, I can't get that done or back to you by the end of the day, unless end of the day is after my kids' bedtime. And even then, why do you have to log back on for a second shift at all? Isn't there another way?
So in this episode, I wanna talk about those situations and how they can feel. I remember those so clearly from my days in the office, but even now, at times, I have to draw that boundary and what you might do. Instead of giving in, instead of allowing others to schedule things or request extra time from you, when you do have a hard stop or another commitment, now you might be thinking that this topic is only for those who work in an office setting.
And while that is probably the most widely applicable scenario, I think it also applies in so many other settings and other places in our lives. Remote work, for sure. Self-employed work. Part-time work.
How many of you are part-time or have done it for a season of your life? You know that the hardest part of that schedule is actually keeping your own boundaries around those part-time hours. It is so easy to work more because so many others don't remember that you're actually part-time.
That's a whole other topic. If I should do an episode of that, please reach out and let me know. After you have kids,
after you become a working parent, I think we can all agree your availability just changes. To what extent it changes really depends on your childcare arrangement. I could think of maybe a few examples where maybe your availability changes very little because you have a partner who stays at home with the kids, or you have just a really great childcare set up with long hours to support you.
But for many working parents, for many of the working moms that I support. There are set hours during which you have childcare or
set hours for school with before and aftercare, which means that your work hours, at least during the daytime, are more set as well. You can't get to the office or log onto your computer until the nanny arrives or until you complete the drop off and get to the office or back home.
And if your childcare provider has to leave by a set time or you have to be at pickup by a set time, lest you start incurring overtime charges, you definitely have to be done by five or four 30 or six or whatever it is. But for many of us work is not over at five or five 30.
There is always more to do. It's up to us to manage our calendar, to manage our focus and our expectations, to make sure that we do the most important things during the bulk of our childcare hours Then if you log on after hours in the evening, after the kids go to bed. That's your choice.
But what I'm talking about here is when you have to set that expectation or hold that boundary externally, you have to say to your manager, to your colleague, to your client that no, you can't keep working on that deliverable until it's done. You can work on it until five o'clock. Or you have to decline a meeting invite because you'll already be home with your kid by that time doing the dinner and bedtime routine hustle, or when you have to leave that team's message unanswered because you're driving to school to pick up, or when you have to pack up your laptop and bag and walk out of the office right past everyone else who's still heads down working away.
Unless you work in an office setting or for an organization where drawing boundaries around your time is the norm, it can be challenging. I remember having to. Walk away from my desk three times a day when I was pumping right back from maternity leave or needing to leave on the dot and walking through the office setting.
I still worked in an office when I had to be home to relieve our nanny or later to be at daycare for pickup. It can feel like you are the only one who's doing it, like you're cutting out early. What do others think? Am I doing enough? Is this fair? We know it is. Logically, we know it's fair.
We know we're working the hours. We're just maybe doing them at different times, but it certainly can bring up lots of questions, especially, and I hope this hasn't happened to you, but I know that it does. If someone says something about it, oof. So uncomfortable. Now, this exact scenario came up last week when I was coaching a client who works a flex schedule.
Maybe some of you do this as well for her in order to make childcare coverage work, and their choice to make it work for their family is that she works seven to three and her husband works nine to five. So while her colleagues, including her manager still have two hours at least left in their work days in the afternoon, she is packing up her stuff and heading out to pick up her kids at three.
Now, in this particular scenario, there was a project that they found out about in the early afternoon, and it needed to be finished by end of day. And the manager said, essentially, figure it out like not my problem. Figure it out. How do you manage that? What do you do in a scenario like that when you have a true hard stop?
It can feel disrespectful on the part of the manager in this scenario of your agreed upon or approved hours when someone expects you to just stay later because maybe your hours are different or maybe your hours aren't different just because other people are staying later, that there's an expectation that you would as well.
Whether the request is made maliciously or not, I think it is important to remember that at the end of the day, the person asking just wants to solve a problem. They just need a solution.
Now I'm taking the approach of Dr. Becky. If you know Dr. Becky from good inside who says, what does she say? Assume good intent or positive intent. You know your work situation best, but we could assume positive intent. Maybe this person just has someone higher up breathing down their neck, or they want this project done and off their plate.
Or they just don't wanna have to deal with this client anymore, who keeps sending these requests? So then the question becomes, how can you help solve it? The example from my client, she was able to do as much work as possible before she had her hard stop, before she had to leave to get her kids. She tagged in a colleague to do more work while she was picking them up and getting them home and settled, and then she chose to log back on that evening to finish up the pieces that only she could do to meet that end of day deadline.
Another solution could be to challenge the end of day deadline. If you are sending over a report or whatever the deliverable is at nine or 10 o'clock at night, is the recipient really going to review it then, or could they get it in their inbox by 9:00 AM the next morning with the same result?
In the example of my client, that would be great because she starts work at seven. That gives her two hours to finish it up and send it off. Or could you get a piece of the thing done today by three or five and the balance of it or the rest of it submitted tomorrow? We assume that it's all or nothing, and we also assume that the request is actually urgent.
But is it really, does it hurt to ask in a way that shows you understand there's pressure here and a problem to solve? You just want to provide some options. You wanna provide some potential alternative solutions. Another thing that my clients and I often talk about is how we don't owe anyone a detailed explanation as to why we can't, as to why we have a hard stop.
You don't have to say, I'm not available for that 5:00 PM call because I have to get my daughter from daycare, or I have to get home to relieve my nanny, or I'm not available at 10:00 AM because that's when I pump. You can just say, sorry, I'm not available at five, but I could absolutely do first thing tomorrow morning.
Or I'm not available, but please go ahead and meet without me. Send over any action items that I can follow up on for you tomorrow. In this day and age, with so many AI tools, it's so easy to get a meeting recap or a meeting summary to not really miss out on that much. If you can't join. Now I am all for normalizing the fact that we are humans and we have lives outside of work.
We shouldn't have to hide that. We shouldn't have to feel like we are robots where all we do is produce, produce, produce. But I also am a realist and I recognize that in some environments, sharing that you are a human can be used against you. It's sad, but that is still where some organizations are, and I recognize that, and I trust you to know what type of setting you work in.
For my clients in big law, the more detail you provide, the more ammunition they have against you. For my clients at family friendly organizations, absolutely share because chances are everyone else or many others are in a similar situation. By giving yourself permission, maybe you give someone else permission to hold a boundary as well.
Regardless of. The outcome or the solution. This is all about owning and being confident in your situation, in your hours, in your boundaries, making sure that to the people that it matters. So. Your leader, your manager, that your expectations are aligned, but then trusting in yourself that you are doing the work,
that by leaving at three or at five or taking a break to pump that you can still feel proud and in integrity about the work that you are doing. If you're having trouble getting the work done, if you haven't done your own capacity planning to really understand the volume of what's on your plate and to know what your priorities are, reach out.
I do that work with clients all the time. It is so important because the truth is most of us are being asked to do more than is possible, and no one is going to step in and say, Hey, that looks like you have too much on your plate. We have to do that and there is a way to do it that is empowering and that respects the very real work and deadlines that do have to get done.
If you know your own boundaries, especially around your time, you're working to complete projects, support clients doing the work. Then having a work or meeting request come in that's outside your boundary time is simply an opportunity to collaborate and compromise so you can find a solution that hopefully works for everyone you included.
Sure. Sometimes that might mean working after the kids go to bed, or it might mean asking. Your childcare provider, your family member, your nanny, your partner, to stay late, or to ask a friend or your partner to pick up the kids from childcare so you can get an extra half hour or hour toward this deadline or for this meeting, you know, when the request is truly warranted, when the urgency is truly warranted.
But often we don't pause long enough to question whether this is really an emergency or even a necessity, and to see if we can figure out another way to solve this. That doesn't involve giving up on your hard stop or letting everyone walk all over your time.
When you come at it from that perspective, when you have integrity in your work and truly just wanna find a solution, that doesn't mean you have to give in and doesn't mean that others have to do everything and you don't do anything. That's real leadership, and I'd love to see more of us demonstrating that in our workplaces not because we're trying to slack off or do less work than colleagues who don't have the hard stops that we do, but because we should all be able to have some boundaries around our time and our energy, and still be able to do solid work that we're proud of.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. If you struggle with boundaries at work or in life, if you are not where you want to be in your career or having trouble staying organized and setting priorities for yourself. I have one-on-one coaching spaces opening up this fall, and I would love to talk to you.
If you're interested and want to learn more, you can go to themothernurture.com/application to submit a brief application and I will follow up with details. 📍 I hope this episode was helpful. I think this is a topic that we don't talk about enough and we all have hard stops. How can we honor them while still doing the work?
All right. Until the next episode. Take care and I'll talk with you soon.
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