​Pressing On as a Tech Mom: How Tech Industry Mothers Set Goals, Define Boundaries & Raise the Bar for Success

My review of Pressing On as a Tech Mom: How Tech Industry Mothers Set Goals, Define Boundaries & Raise the Bar for Success by Emilia M. DAnzica & Sabina M. Pons

D’Anzica and Pons are tech executives with years of experience. They have both served on a variety of tech advisory committees, and have successfully navigated the tech industry while also being full-time parents. In Pressing On as a Tech Mom, their first nonfiction book both individually and together, D’Anzica and Pons conduct interviews with other tech leaders who are mothers, and in a question-and-answer format they distill valuable information for both women and men about how to navigate an industry that is quite often hostile to parents. At the end of each chapter, they have a section aimed at thought leaders about what we can learn from the stories of each of the women interviewed.

Repeated studies show that the number of women working in tech continues to drop, which is not great for the industry nor society in general, as women who work are less likely to have impoverished families and children.[i] So, in a time where the tech industry wants to—and needs—to appeal to more women, the research D’Anzica and Pons conducted can be invaluable to attracting women to (or back to) the tech industry.  

Pressing On cites very recent articles about women in tech, such as the Wall Street Journal’s How Women Can Ditch the Guilt When Juggling Careers and Family by Joann Lubin (Feb 2021), and I’m Not Returning to Google After Maternity Leave and Here is Why, a scathing internal memo published by an unidentified female former Googler (2019). The authors cite studies like this to show the ups and downs of the industry. They also conduct personal interviews with a number of female managers and leaders who are still working in tech and doing well.

There were a few points in Pressing On where I took issue with their rampant positivity. For one, D’Anzica and Pons take some very disturbing studies, but they spin them in such a way so as to appear like one-offs, or even the fault of the women themselves, at one point writing, “we have also learned that the greatest challenge to potential mothers can often be their own mindset.”[ii] This attitude disturbed me a little, as the fact remains that tech is a harsh environment for women to work in whether they have a positive mindset or not. 

D'Anzica and Pons were both fortunate to get their starts in the tech industry fairly early on, so while reading this book I questioned if they were providing the full picture to younger tech hopefuls who may be in a pre-parenthood stage of life. I worried a bit that their uplifting and positive messaging throughout might give the wrong impression of this cutthroat industry.

However, in part nine, Why Mothers Belong in Tech[iii], the authors carried out a survey -possibly the first of its kind— of over three hundred tech mothers, and the results were hard to ignore. This chapter, with survey results right in the center of the book, was a great spot for what the literary world might consider a dramatic mid-point reversal.  While the rest of the book is uplifting interviews with specific women who succeeded in both motherhood and tech, this section is more honest and forthright with the facts.

In their survey, they found that nearly one third of the mothers interviewed wanted to drop out of tech at some point, due to its aggressive and hectic environment.[iv] Sixteen percent of the women they interviewed left their jobs and had no intention to return, most saying the environment is not friendly to those who have chosen parenthood.[v]

This mirrors reality, which is that a career in tech is not an easy one to pursue as a parent.  A study from the University of California San Diego shows that nearly half of new moms, and a quarter of new dads, leave tech careers after having or adopting a child, and do not return by the time the child starts full-time school.[vi]

It wasn’t until this chapter in Pressing On as a Tech Mom, that I felt the authors were being forthright with this reality. Even then, they glazed over a lot of these harsher facts in order to paint a rosier picture. In reading further, I opted to give D’Anzica & Pons the benefit of the doubt and assume they did this strategically, perhaps hoping that their more uplifting and positive messaging would inspire parents to join and stay in the tech industry. If that was their intent, then they did a great job. Their interviewees acknowledged the struggle but talked about how they overcame it, and the authors added notes for industry thought leaders about how to take the survey data and make their work environments more welcoming to parents.

I hope their positivity works, but as a realist –and a tech mom who was often faced with choosing between work and my kid – I know working in tech is harder than the book makes it sound.

Despite this somewhat wary review, I do recommend this book for young mothers and other parents. Since nearly ninety percent of people will eventually have children during their working lives,i and the tech industry continues to grow, it’s critical that we encourage young people to take up these STEM roles, whether or not having children will eventually make it difficult to stay there. Pressing On as a Tech Mom shares that little bit of reality mixed with a lot of hope.

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[i] Sawhill, Isabel V. and Katherine Guyot “ Women’s work boosts middle class incomes but creates a family time squeeze that needs to be eased,” Brookings, May 2020,  (https://www.brookings.edu/essay/womens-work-boosts-middle-class-incomes-but-creates-a-family-time-squeeze-that-needs-to-be-eased/)
[ii]  D’Anzica & Pons 64
[iii] D’Anzica & Pons, 119
[iv] D’Anzica & Pons, 123
[v] D’Anzica & Pons, 125
[vi] Cech, Erin A. & Mary Blair-Loy “The Changing Career Trajectories of New Parents in STEM,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Newsletter, Feb 19, 2019, (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810862116)

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