Why Aren't Parents Seen as Leaders?
Have we become so impressed by professional status that we've forgotten what leadership actually means?
A friend of mine was married to a man with considerable professional status. As a result, they were often invited to dinners with well-known and influential people.
She told me how conversations at these dinners frequently unfolded. Someone sitting next to her would ask, "And what do you do?"
"I'm a mom," she would answer. Never mind what else she did professionally. She deliberately chose to introduce herself as a mother.
The conversation would come to an almost immediate halt. "Oh. And what else do you do?"
And she wouldn't tell them. It was her quiet rebellion against the low status society assigns to a parent.
She was furious about how quickly people dismissed the work, responsibility, and commitment involved in raising children.
Apparently, being a parent wasn't enough. You needed a professional title to be taken seriously.
And why?
Why do we recognize leadership in the workplace, yet rarely recognize it in the home?
My friend fumed as she told me how dismissive these encounters felt. As if raising children, putting your heart into helping them develop into capable, thoughtful human beings, wasn't worthy of an interesting conversation. As if parenting wasn't real work. And certainly not leadership.
But why not? When we talk about leaders, who comes to mind? A CEO? A manager? A politician? Someone with a title, authority, and people reporting to them?
Why do we recognize leadership in the workplace, yet rarely recognize it in the home? Think about what is required of parents, every day, for many years.
They make decisions under pressure. Navigate conflict. Build trust. Set boundaries. Communicate. Adapt to unexpected situations. Guide and support another human being's development.
And working parents often do all this after a full day at work! Yet we call it 'parenting.' Not leadership.
Have we defined leadership too narrowly in our society?
Perhaps we've become so accustomed to associating leadership with professional positions that we dismiss the leadership opportunities within family life.
Of course, yes, becoming a parent doesn't automatically make someone a good leader. And neither does becoming a manager.
Leadership requires presence, awareness, emotional intelligence, responsibility, and the willingness to develop ourselves., among other skills
And parenting gives us opportunities to practice exactly these capabilities every single day.
When your child challenges you, how do you respond? When everyone is exhausted, can you remain grounded? When conflict arises, do you react automatically or choose how you want to show up?
These are leadership questions. At home. And at work.
What if we started seeing parents differently, for real? What if companies recognized that their working parents aren't simply employees juggling two competing worlds?
They're people with opportunities to develop leadership capabilities in both worlds. And what if parents began seeing themselves as leaders, too? Not because they're in charge of their children. But they are in the extraordinary opportunity to guide, support, and help another human being learn to lead themselves while leading themselves.
Because leadership isn't defined by where you practice it. It's revealed in how you show up. At work. At home. In life.
And perhaps it's time we stopped asking only how companies can support working parents. What if we also asked how we can develop them as leaders?
Want to strengthen your leadership at home?
The Intentional Parent Blueprint™ helps working parents develop self-leadership, emotional awareness, and communication skills to build stronger relationships at home.
Connect with Mooniek Seebregts for an exploratory conversation.