My Time on Katie’s Couch

Catherine Merritt and Katie Couric

I had the pleasure of being a guest on The Katie show last week and shared the stage with two true working mom mentors, Katie Couric and Carol Evans. The segment centered around a recent study from Working Mother Research Institute about bread winning moms and the implications that role has on families and couples alike. It’s a subject I’m very passionate about, less the bread winning piece, but more about the empowerment of moms to stay in the workforce. It’s a hard decision that everyone needs to make on their own (and let’s be honest, it’s often not even a decision people have a luxury to decide) but I feel that if moms are furthering their careers, how can they feel as supported as possible while doing it? But I digress.

The whole experience of being on the show was somewhat surreal, in a good way. By nature of what I do for work, it was a funny feeling being on the receiving end of all the logistics and details. The production team at The Katie show (shout outs to Kelly and Bianca!) were superb and made me and Ian feel right at home each step along the way. By the time our segment was about to tape, we took our seats, the crowd was warmed up, and away we went.

Katie and Carol discussed the findings from the survey and those implications on families and couples with breadwinning moms. And then they shot to us, asking me and Ian questions about our own experiences. In addition to me speaking about my career, I was really happy Katie asked Ian a few questions about his own risk in starting his own business. If I’m proud of my own career I’m equally proud of his bravery to start IDM Photography.

The episode airs on March 6^th, so I don’t want to spill the beans (aaaaaand, let’s be honest, I have no recollection to what I even said!) but it was a very compelling conversation and the points we discussed both hit home at our house and I assume others. I hope the takeaway is that the key to any relationship (let alone a breadwinning relationship) is making it a priority, communicating and sharing the load. Easy peasy, right? Ha. It’s hard. Really hard. But it’s worth it.

Be sure to tune in on March 6^th and once it airs, I’ll dish a little more about some additional insights from the entire experience and our conversation with Katie after the show. It was juicy! 

Great first #CareerMomChat

I’m excited. Last night I hosted the #CareerMomChat on Twitter and despite not much promotion, we had some WONDERFUL conversations. As I’ve said before, while I appreciate a bunch of things from Lean In, I feel it is in many ways too remote and removed from where I’m at in my life (family and career) right now. So that’s what I’m looking to do- fill the gap and try to get some other mamas in on this as well.

We had a great chat with some really poignant and spot-on thoughts. I want thank Natalie (@bakeanddestroy), Evelyn (@evelynalauer), Julie (@juliesmolyansky),  and Rain (@Devivo) for taking part. A small but mighty crowd!

I think that moving forward, I’ll aim to host these a touch later (so I can finish dinner and getting the kids to bed) and on Tuesdays, as Thursdays are often tricky. All in all, off to a good start!