Take Your Child to Work with Purpose

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On Thursday, April 28, parents across the country will take their daughters and sons to work, just as my mom took me when I was a child. As I celebrate the launch of my new book, Work on Purpose—designed to help young people create careers with personal and societal significance—I want to take a moment out to thank my mom, Ellen Galinsky, for having demonstrated a meaningful career to me growing up. I invite you to take advantage of this important annual ritual by engaging with young people just beginning to form their ideas about how they can create a satisfying working life. And I can’t think of anyone better than my mom to give us a bit of advice on how to do this.

Lara Galinsky: Mom, as the president and cofounder of the Families and Work Institute and the author of forty-five books and reports, you are a real expert in the work-life sphere. What role did your work play in how you raised me?

Ellen Galinsky: I think it is fair to say that you and your brother WERE the impetus for my work. I used my research to answer the questions I—and others—had about life these days. For example, when I wanted to start a child care center at the college where I worked (so I could be near you during the day), I got a grant from the Ford Foundation to study exemplary child care programs and with a colleague, wrote a book called The New Extended Family: Day Care that Works. I used what I learned in the process to help create The Family Center at Bank Street and you were the first child there!

Every project I have done has helped me become the parent I want to be. When I wrote my book, Ask the Children, I learned that if kids had one wish to improve the way their mother’s or father’s work affected their lives, they wished that parents would be less tired and stressed. That finding helped me find ways to try to damp down the stress from work when I got home or if the stress couldn’t be turned down, I learned to tell you, “I had a bad day and it has nothing to do with you.”

Even though I wrote my latest book, Mind in the Making, when you were an adult, it helped me learned to focus in a world of overwork. And my research on work and family life has helped countless parents (including me) create a better fit between work and family life, just as it has helped countless employers create more effective and flexible workplaces.

Lara: Were you surprised when I told you that I was writing a book about developing a meaningful career? What did you learn about the field through this process?

Ellen: No, I wasn’t surprised. More than anyone I know, you searched for the career you wanted. I remember that as you were finishing college and looking for a job, you went on an intentional journey not just to find a job, but also to find a career. You did informational interviews, one after another, after another. You kept a notebook and would circle what you found interesting in jobs and then began to see patterns in what you wanted. It took awhile (and you took some temporary jobs en route), but eventually you discovered that you were really interested in social entrepreneurs who used a business approach to make the world a better place. And that’s the work you have done ever since, first at Do Something and now at Echoing Green. Throughout, you have worked hard to understand social entrepreneurs so you can share what you have learned with others, no matter where they work.

As you wrote Work on Purpose, I did learn the importance of listening to your head, following your heart and unleashing your hustle so that you can “work on purpose.” I love that concept!

Lara: What lessons does your research on work and family have for parents—and adults everywhere—as we anticipate Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day?

Ellen: In my study and book, Ask the Children, I found that most children (three in five) thought their parents didn’t like their work very much. In contrast, most parents did like their work.

Where did children get this idea? I found it was because parents were more likely to come home and tell the stories of what went wrong at work than what went right…or because parents felt guilty and told their children that they wished they didn’t have to work.

Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day is a chance for parents to intentionally share what they really like about their work. Parents are children’s most important teachers when it comes to learning about work.

Have you participated in Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day? What was your experience like? What advice would you give to parents?