The day before I interviewed Dr. Dana Sumpter, a new mother wrote in on the Becoming Mama & Beyond Facebook group about working during the pandemic and how it’s impacted her mentally, physically, and more.
I couldn’t believe how timely our episode was and how impactful our conversation would be.
I met Dana through another colleague who shared that she was running a research project on working mothers during covid. Being a research nut myself I couldn’t wait to hear more. I also wanted to have an opportunity to connect with another working mother in the field so I reached out to her.
Dr. Dana Sumpter is an Associate Professor of Management at Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business. Formerly a Vice President of Human Resources at Citigroup, she draws from her experience as an expatriate in Asia and her research on behavior at work in teaching graduate-level cross-cultural management and diversity. She is a working mom, with two young kids, and has used the inspiration of her personal experience to drive her current research agenda, studying the experiences of working mothers during the pandemic.
A few weeks before our interview - Dana interviewed me as part of their research study which should be coming out to publication soon. Today you’ll hear highlights from their findings and much much more. Some of the things you’ll learn today are:
- The silver lining of covid 19- whether that is changing careers, adding in passions, spending more time with family
- The expectations that we have on ourselves and that women tend to put higher expectations on themselves rather than men
- The motherhood mental load
- The difference between integrators vs segmentors
- How managers can be more compassionate and empowering during this time
- Having difficult conversations with your spouse about roles and responsibilities
And so much more.
If you are a working mother you’ll absolutely want to listen in to our episode today. Dana gives incredible tips on how to navigate covid as a working mom! If you want to get in touch with Dana you can write her at Dana.sumpter@pepperdine.edu or listen to her TEDx Talk it is linked here: https://www.ted.com/talks/dana_sumpter_don_t_underestimate_working_mothers