If you can leave your comfort zone as a working parent, there are opportunities at home and at work that you might never have found.
Mike Wong, our Lead Dad of the Week from Seattle, Wa., stepped up to be the go-to parent for his son Damen, now age 4, but it wasn’t because his wife Lauren had left Chicago to move to Seattle for his job. It was just the logical thing to do.
Mike works for Maven Clinic, which provides fertility treatment and other maternity care to employers and health plans. She worked for a company that was acquired by DocuSign, which has a large office in Seattle. That merger created more opportunity for her – but it also required more time in the office.
As a product manager, he realized he had more flexibility, so he stepped up and hasn’t regretted it. “DocuSign had more of a return to office mandate, and I did not have that,” he said. “She has more external meetings so it’s less flexible. I’m a product manager so it’s more compatible with slack and email.”
Up until that point, she had been the spouse moving for his job. He grew up in Chicago and went to Northwestern University. She grew up in Washington, D.C. and went to Georgetown University. He jokes that they both went to well-regarded schools where they lived – in other words, in their comfort zones. They met in Madison, WI, working for Epic Systems, the medical records company.
But then he got a job in Chicago and they moved there, and it was his job that moved them again, to Seattle. Now she’s in an office far more than he is.
Unlike many working parents, they’re living in a tech-forward city. Kid gets sick? It goes on an app called ProCare, and they both get the notice. He’s there for the unplanned parenting; she’s more apt to do the stuff that can be planned, like well visits at the doctor’s office.
For the mundane day-to-day, that’s Mike’s job – and he relishes it. School pickup, afterschool activities, dinner time. “My son’s excited to talk about whatever mundane thing when I pick him up at school,” Mike said. “Those daily interactions are so cool and he’s happy to see me. Those moments are not for sale. Those mundane interactions with him are as important as being a good professional.”
Mike’s found a way to blow off steam when the juggling becomes a lot: running long, far and hard. His break is weekend distance running while his wife watches their son.
Those long runs – like being a working parent – are ways to challenge our comfort zones. Welcome, Mike, to The Company of Dads!
