Work, Parent, Thrive: 12 Science-Backed Strategies to Ditch Guilt, Manage Overwhelm, and Grow Connection (When Everything Feels Like Too Much)

by Yael Schonbrun

Overview

2023 National Parenting Product Award Winner

2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist

Twelve practical strategies to experience more joy and feel less guilt as a working parent, drawn from ACT, the groundbreaking therapy technique that has helped countless people.

Dr. Yael Schonbrun calls out the myth of the work-life balance and offers practical strategies that can help us reframe our approach to working and parenting from the inside out. Based in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), these strategies won’t create more hours in the day, but they can shift how we label our experiences, revise the stories we tell ourselves about working and parenting, and recognize the value we get from each role.

Differing values and commitments pull working parents in opposite directions and the social supports families desperately need are lacking. Yet even with these very real challenges, we can find more peace and less stress.

Some of these strategies include:

• Getting clear on our values and using these to help us make what often feel like no-win choices around time and resources

• Practicing mindfulness in both parenting and working

• Subtracting less meaningful obligations from our lives
  
  

These steps can help you crush both roles, with examples from the author’s research that show families of many shapes and backgrounds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611809657
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	372,613
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

YAEL SCHONBRUN, PhD, is assistant professor of psychology at Brown University, a family therapist, and co-host of the podcast Psychologists Off the Clock. In 2014, she wrote a piece on motherhood and ambition for the New York Times that went viral. She has since contributed a chapter to Double Bind: Women on Ambition alongside Roxane Gay, Molly Ringwald, and others and has written for Psychology Today.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Problem of Working Parenthood ix

Part 1 From the Head

Transforming Your Working-Parent Mind

1 When You're Lost, Let Values Be Your Guide 3

2 Change Your Working-Parent Mindset 22

3 Unhook from Unhelpful Labels 41

4 Spin Your Story 59

Part 2 From the Feet

How to Working-Parent More Strategically

5 Do the Right Hard Things (the Right Way) 77

6 Rethink Your Rest 100

7 Turn Constraints into Creativity 127

8 Remember to Subtract 148

9 Grow Connection through the Good, the Bad, and the Downright Infuriating 172

Part 3 From the Heart

How to Working-Parent Happier

10 Finesse Your Stress 203

11 Tend to Your Happiness Needs 226

12 Balance Your Pleasure and Meaning 250

Epilogue: Love Deeply, Contribute Meaningfully 268

Acknowledgments 271

Notes 275

Resources 300

Index 303

Editorial Reviews

09/05/2022

Psychologist Schonbrun debuts with a helpful look at how to achieve satisfaction as a working parent. Citing data from 2020 that 60% of married couples with children were both employed, Schonbrun writes that having two demanding roles—at work and as a parent—can leave caretakers overwhelmed. But parents have a “vast and often untapped power” within their grasp, and to help them access it, the author offers advice for establishing a “work-family enrichment mindset” (by, for example, asking oneself “How does each role strengthen skills in the other?”), taking notice of words that frame working parenthood negatively (describing it with terms such as “conflict,” “unfair,” or “impossible”), and finding meaning in mundane tasks (“Locating some pleasure in vacuuming has noticeably shifted my obstacles to vacuuming”). By weaving together examples from her own and other parents’ lives, Schonbrun creates an effective guide to viewing both working and parental roles as symbiotic and mutually strengthening: “Acknowledging that we simply cannot be all in to either parenthood or work when we are actively engaged in both can help us set (and then regularly reset) realistic expectations,” she writes. This will be a balm for overwhelmed working parents. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Work, Parent, Thrive is an essential antidote to today’s stressful working-parent culture. Yael Schonbrun shares simple and useful strategies for parents who want to feel grounded, connected, and fulfilled in all aspects of their lives.”—Melinda Wenner Moyer, author of How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes

“Combining work and parenting is overwhelming, and too often we feel they are in conflict. This book provides simple, practical tools for making them work together.”—Emily Oster, author of Cribsheet and The Family Firm

“This might as well have been called ‘How to Be a Happier Working Parent’—and it will, indeed, help you do just that.”—KJ Dell’Antonia, The New York Times bestselling author of The Chicken Sisters and How to Be a Happier Parent

“If you want life advice from a dry scientific text, put this book down now. But if you want a book that feels like a conversation with a smart, empathetic friend who’s seen it all and helped countless clients improve their lives—and can help you with yours—read Work, Parent, Thrive.”—Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of Rest

“This book is for every working parent who thinks they don’t have the time to read it. Make time! Yael Schonbrun combines academic scholarship, clinical expertise, and personal experience as a mother of three to offer deeply wise advice on how to manage our inner lives while we wait for society to make the outer lives of us working parents more manageable.”—Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice and Why We Work

“Parenting is hard. Working is hard. Caring deeply about both is even harder. In an area rife with judgment, hot-takes, and ‘hacks,’ thank goodness for Yael Schonbrun. She offers much-needed nuance and complexity and provides an evidence-based framework to harmoniously integrate what, for many people, are the two most important parts of their lives—family and craft.”—Brad Stulberg, author of The Practice of Groundedness and Peak Performance

“Reading Work, Parent, Thrive is like chatting with a knowledgeable best buddy, one brimming with fascinating stories, cutting-edge science, and practical tips from the therapy room. Yael Schonbrun offers a way to accept our working-parent reality and use elements from both worlds to our advantage. It’s just what every working parent needs!” Michele Borba, Ed.D., educational psychologist and author of Thrivers: The Surprise Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine

“You likely picked up this book to find a way forward as a working parent. That’s a fine start, but not just any solution will do. You are a living, breathing human being, not a broken dishwasher. A truly effective way forward needs to help you become aware of your own self story, to focus on how you relate to your own insides, and to aid you in finding meaning and purpose. Those are the kind of processes that pay off in every area of life. It will take both knowledge and practice, but this wise and well-written book will deliver scientifically sound know-how in clear, bite-sized units—you just need to supply the energy and commitment to learn and to grow. Ready when you are! I can highly recommend the journey.”—Steven C. Hayes, PhD, originator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Foundation Professor of Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno

“Work, Parent, Thrive is an invaluable roadmap for thriving in working parenthood.”—Lori Gottlieb, The New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

“In a moment when we’re all drowning in demands, this book is an engaging, evidence-based analysis on how we can stay afloat. As a working parent, it will save you more time than it takes to read.”—Adam Grant, The New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife

“The path to becoming a parent is not linear and often met with numerous feelings. One of the most common—but least talked about—is a case of identity crisis. Dr. Schonbrun offers a framework of reimagined working parenthood that burns guilt and shame to ultimately thrive.”—Eve Rodsky, The New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space

“An effective guide to viewing both working and parental roles as symbiotic and mutually strengthening. . . . This will be a balm for overwhelmed working parents.”—Publishers Weekly

“Shares how working parents can change their mindset, take a strategic approach to work and parenting and improve their emotional well-being. . . . Work, Parent, Thrive helps you achieve success—and reduce stress—in both domains of your life.”—Success

From the Publisher