The Coffee Chat (#15)
My conversation with Michele Hsu - Growth Marketing Thought Leader, former CMO at a financial services company and mom to 2 teenage boys
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Hi there 👋🏽
Given that a lot of parents read this newsletter I wanted to share details of a global conference taking place on June 25th and 26th called Discovering the Child
It is an annual global conference that convenes more than 10,000 educators, parents, caregivers, guardians, and advocates to engage in conversations on child development & Montessori education.
My mentor and friend Han Zhang is part of the organizing team so I know the conference will be amazing. She has also generously offered a few free tickets for the readers of the newsletter (first come first serve). To avail your free ticket - click here
☕ Now, on to today’s coffee chat…
Meet Michele Hsu
Michele is a seasoned growth marketer helping no-code, indie developers and SaaS small businesses launch and grow new products. She has 25+ years of experience in the space and prior to starting her own practice she was CMO at a financial services company.
I got to know Michele quite serendipitously.
Last year I wanted to learn more about MarTech and stumbled upon the Scrappy MarTech newsletter. Each issue was packed with insights and I was curious to learn more about the person behind it. That lead me Michele. We got talking and I learnt that she was a working mom and pre-Covid had been the primary breadwinner in her family. Her husband had chosen to stay at home with the kids.
In 2021, this is still a pretty non-conventional family set up. Kudos to Michele and Richard for making this work. This is stereotype defying stuff and hopefully helps someone somewhere get comfortable with the idea that this is an acceptable model to adopt for their own family.
Below is my conversation Michele…
Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your family
I’ve been a working mom for over 16 years!. I am 52-year-old woman, married to my husband Richard for almost 20 years, with 2 teenage boys (14 and 16). Teenagers! Yikes! How did that happen?
I have been the breadwinner for the family and my husband has stayed home with the kids. At the time we decide to have kids, he was a professional musician just getting off the road and I was Chief Marketing Officer, so it made sense financially for me to be the one to work. Traditionally speaking, our roles have been reversed.
Until last year that is. I was laid off because of COVID so he jumped in and got a job after being out of the workforce for 20 years. Now I am “primary” with the kids as they do remote school learning and I try to discover my next professional step. I’m taking my entrepreneurial tendencies and seeing where they lead me. I’m currently building an audience on Twitter and publishing a newsletter Scrappy MarTech targeting growth marketers, no-code marketing makers, and entrepreneurs
I know it has been a few years but for the next few questions I would love for you to go back in time and tell me for you what was the hardest part of becoming a new parent?
My goodness! What isn’t hard about becoming a new parent? You have this little person who depends on you for everything! It is an overwhelming responsibility. I remember thinking that everything I do or don’t do will be imprinted on my sweet innocent baby’s brain and will affect the human being he becomes for the rest of his life! So many tears shed. Mine, I mean, not the baby’s.
I had a high level of new parent anxiety that as time went by, got less and less. I learned that kids are incredibly resilient to parent’s dumb mistakes. It’s interesting to ask my kids about what they remember when they were little. Events that I thought were so critical and life changing left no memory for them. And yet they remember little things that had a huge impact on them that I don’t even recall. I jokingly say we all screw our kids up, just not in the ways we think we do.
A major challenge early on was post-partum depression. Crying, feeling overwhelmed, having invasive thoughts about bad things happening to the baby – all the classic symptoms. Many women have this happen, yet not a lot of people talk about it. It is not a reflection of how strong you are. It is chemicals and hormones wreaking havoc. That got resolved over time too, but was incredibly hard.
After becoming a parent did you adopt any new beliefs, behaviors, or habits that most improved your life?
I learned the value of “the village”. I am an introvert by nature. I have a small circle of very close people. My husband is extremely outgoing and extroverted. I am sure if I had stayed at home with the kids, I would have kept them to myself. My husband, on the other hand, took the kids to “Mommy & Me” classes, playdates, and pre-school co-ops. The village he found for our family was amazing.
Reaching out for support from other parents when we needed it was so valuable. And being there for others was rewarding. I am so glad that I learned this lesson of community.
What is one of the best or most worthwhile investment you have made after becoming a parent?
The best thing my husband and I did was establishing a weekly date night.
We started this routine as a way to support each other and to take care of each other in the exhausting “baby days”. No matter what, we kept our date. We gave the kids to a sitter/parent when they were younger, got out of the house, and spent a few hours together. Some dates, we laughed and enjoyed the night and remembered why we loved each other. Some dates we were so tired we just sat quietly and stared into our cocktails. Some dates, we fought and cried and disagreed. But every date brought us a little closer together and reminded us that we had a partner in each other.
We still have date night even now. With the quarantine, we sit out on our deck with a cocktail and just be a couple.
Did you take some time off once you had your babies (i.e. maternity leave, longer unpaid leave)? If yes, How did you feel during that period? What was the transition back like?
Maternity leave was too short. It was 13 weeks half pay, if I remember correctly. Transition was extremely difficult. I was having post-partum symptoms, nursing & pumping at work, and like a zombie from lack of sleep. I was jealous of my husband who got to stay home all day with the kids, and he was jealous of me being able to go to work with adults. I did feel very fortunate that we were in a situation that he could stay home, so I felt less guilty because of that.
You have been a pretty stereotype-bursting working mom given that for pretty much the last 20 years you were the primary breadwinner in the house while your husband who is a musician was the stay-at-home parent. I would love for you to tell me a little bit more about how this was perceived 20 years back and if that perception has changed? Also, did this non-conventional family set up have any second-order effects on your career? (e.g., you could focus more on work vs other women who did not have stay at home partners, or you felt a lot more pressure on playing all roles etc)
I think our roles being reversed from traditional roles was more eye-opening for others than it was for us personally. Richard had more barriers to overcome than I did, honestly. Professional working women with children wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was Dad in a “Mommy and me” class. He encountered some strange looks and there were times some parents were uncomfortable setting up with playdates. On the other side of the coin, he got much more praise and expressions of amazement of “all the things he did for the kids” than most mom’s get who have been doing the same things for years. And “how lucky I was”, as if a Dad wasn’t expected to do normal childcare things.
From my end, I feel as if I did much more at home than a traditional working father. When I got home after a long day at work, my “mom” day began. I took care of the nighttime routines that didn’t end until bedtime. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it was exhausting.
The “second-order” effects on my career isn’t what you would think. I didn’t have an advantage over other women, and I didn’t feel like I could focus more on work. The effect I felt was incredible pressure to keep my job because I was the income for the family. I had to endure some toxic environments for too long because of my responsibility to the family. My husband was very supportive, and never once gave me any pressure to do this. It was my own feeling.
Remember that old brainteaser? There was a car accident, the father died, the son was taken to the hospital and rushed to the operating room. The doctor said “I can’t operate on this person. It’s my son!” How can that be? Well, of course, the answer is the doctor is the boy’s mother. When I was a kid, this was a real brainteaser. No one ever thought of a doctor as a woman or a mother. Now, my kids immediately say “it’s the mother. Duh.” We have come a long way.
You mentioned that last year the roles reversed - Your husband is out working while you were with the kids as they do remote learning. How was that transition ? What was it been like to parent two teenage boys in 2020 while you were also figuring out what was next for you professional?
2020 was incredibly difficult. There were good days and bad days. But our family has been very fortunate. We are all healthy, stable, and have a strong support system. The day-to-day challenges have been trying to keep my kids from becoming Zoom zombies in remote class, time management and organization, socially keeping them engaged with their friends, and getting physical activity. Typical teenage stuff.
Reversing responsibilities between my husband and myself have been interesting. I think we appreciate each other more and what the other has been doing over the past years. Although we always intellectually understood, there is nothing like having to live it. He is getting a better sense of what it means to work a full day with meetings, bosses, deadlines and I am getting a better sense of laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, and homework.
What advice would you give others who are on the cusp of becoming parents? What advice should they ignore?
The best thing about parenting is that if you make a mistake, there are going to be plenty of opportunities to do it differently next time. My husband likes to remind me (who is very goal oriented) that parenting is not a straight path. You move forward, you move backwards, you go sideways. Over the long-term journey, you make progress.
I wish new parents could understand that “parenting makes for long days and short years”. I remember days where I was going on 2 hours of sleep, not sure when I would ever feel like a functioning human being again, and the day would never end. Yet it seems like only yesterday my little boys had their first day of kindergarten. Where did those 16 years go? Cliché? Yes. It’s a cliché because it’s true. But that advice never helped me at the time coming from people who smugly made it through the sleepless nights. Best to ignore it.
The thing that really helped? Learning to taking time for myself and not to feel guilty about it. You are a caretaker. Without being healthy, mentally and physically, you are not going to be the best caretaker for your kids. It’s not selfish to take care of yourself. It’s critical to being a good parent.
Quick-fire Questions:
What’s the best thing you have watched recently?
The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young
What’s the best thing you have read recently?
Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley and Smart but Scattered by Drs Peg Dawson and Richard Guare
What’s the best thing you have listened to recently?
It’s Quiet Uptown from Hamilton will never not make me cry and break my heart.
Michele’s also had a special message for the readers, specially the young women who read this newsletter….
Something I wish I had understood early in my life: You may be an incredibly strong woman who can handle being treated unfairly, sexual harassed, or taking on more than your share. That doesn’t mean you should have to.
I would love to hear from you, feedback is always welcome!
And if you happen to know an inspiring working parent who should be featured in a future edition (or if you yourself are one) - please do get in touch.
Disclaimer: All views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer