What new mothers can teach us about the future of work
If you want to know whether a workplace is built for the future, don’t ask the CEO. Ask the woman sprinting to daycare pickup at 5 pm. For the past several years we’ve approached new mothers as workers who need support. Flex schedules. Rooms to pump. Extended leave. Grace when the baby gets sick for the fourth time in as many weeks. All that is important, certainly. But it also may have led us to ask the wrong question. Instead of what do mothers need from work? Maybe we should be asking what can work learn from mothers? {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/Girl-Li.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/souter.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/subscribe","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457710,"imageMobileId":91457711,"shareable":false,"slug":"","wpCssClasses":""}} AI can’t fix a culture addicted to busywork We are at a moment in time where AI is transforming every aspect of how work gets done. New mothers are serving as a stress test (think canary in the coal mine) to reveal if companies are evolving with technology or just leveraging tech to maintain the status quo. For years, many companies assessed commitment by how many hours you logged or how visible you were. The best employee was the person who showed up first, stayed the latest, replied to emails at 10 pm, and was basically reachable at all hours. Burnout becam