In Chapter 15 of 19 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Advice do You Have for Working Parents to Better Balance Career and Family?" As a working mother, she acknowledges the challenge balancing work and family. She makes it a point to set realistic expectations for what you may reasonably accomplish and to do what makes you happy.
Stacie Grossman Bloom is the Executive Director at the NYU Neuroscience Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center. Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). She earned her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did a post-doctoral fellowship at Rockefeller University in New York City. She earned her BA in Chemistry and Psychology from the University of Delaware.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: What advice do you have for working parents to better balance career and family?
Stacie Grossman Bloom: It’s hard to balance work and family, and as a working mother there is a lot of pressure on you. I would say you have to have realistic expectations of yourself, what you can reasonably accomplish. Don’t beat yourself up because you can’t be at home every single minute of every single day with your kids. But, mostly to do what makes you happy and if your job makes you happy, then do your job. I think there are a lot of studies that have shown that, you know, there is no difference in happiness between kids whose moms stay at home with them and kids whose moms work, that the most important factor is that the mother is happy. So, I think take care of yourself and then take care of your family.