How to Smash the Motherhood Penalty

Navigating a fast-paced career, higher education, board governance, and ultra-marathon training is a massive feat on its own. Add two young kids into the mix, and keeping a dual-career family on the tracks requires more than just goodwill. It takes real systems, radical transparency, and constantly checking in on intentions.
In this episode, Emma sits down with dual-career Auckland couple Jessie (Product Compliance Manager, MBA candidate, and ECE Board Director) and Brendan (Banking Marketing Technologist and Ultra-Marathoner). Jessie and Brendan open up about how they move past default parenting roles, handle the invisible mental load without getting defensive, and use physical tools like visual whiteboards to keep their household running smoothly.
They also unpack what it really takes to build a village when family support isn't always around, and why society needs to build better support structures for dads if we ever want true gender equity at home and at work.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
Intentions vs. Actions: How moving from internal assumptions to vocalising intentions prevents daily resentment over household tasks.
Unpacking the Mental Load: Brendan’s journey from feeling defensive about default-parenting critiques to actively taking ownership of cognitive and emotional tasks.
Systems That Actually Work: Why physical whiteboards, Sunday night schedule check-ins, and calling out when you’re "low sync" keep busy households running.
Early Childhood Education as Infrastructure: Jessie breaks down why accessible, flexible ECE funding is a critical economic lever for protecting women’s long-term earning potential and Kiwisaver.
Building a Community "Village": Creative strategies for trading off parenting duties with neighbours and friends when family isn't nearby.
The Magic Wand Solutions: Why mandating 50% female representation in senior leadership and building dedicated dad support networks are vital system levers.

Connect with Emma
This podcast was funded and created by Emma Mclean, the founder of Works for Everyone. Emma Mclean is a mum of three and founder of Works for Everyone, a professional development business that partners with NZ's leading corporates to help them retain and grow their working parent talent. She does this through innovative leadership programmes, executive coaching and keynote speaking. She founded her business in 2019 following a 20-year career in corporate strategy where she experienced first-hand how hard it was to have a career and a family. As an impatient optimist when it comes to system change, she launched her successful podcast "How to Smash the Motherhood Penalty" in 2023 where she talks to humans who are actively working to change the system that creates financial penalties that only mothers pay. And in 2024 she launched the first NZ Part Time Power List, to shine a light on those senior roles in NZ that are career building, not side stepping.
To work with Emma or enquire about speaking: emma@worksforeveryone.co.nz
www.worksforeveryone.co.nz
https://www.instagram.com/worksforeveryone/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-mclean-9176217/

When you’re pregnant with your first child, the return-to-work plan feels straightforward. But for so many mothers, the reality of unyielding corporate cultures, zero workplace flexibility, and an unsettled baby closes the doors on that career plan fast. It isn’t a choice. It’s running out of options.
In this episode, I’m joined from across the Tasman by writer, content creator, and app founder Ash BG (known online as @youwantedthis). After being backed into a corner and forced to quit her corporate PR job post-maternity leave, Ash began pulling back the curtain on weaponised incompetence, systemic inequality, and the mental load. What started as viral content quickly evolved into a thriving Substack community and the creation of Tether, an app designed to track, measure, and rebalance unpaid domestic and emotional labour.
We dig into the uncomfortable reality of modern parenting: why being married to "one of the good guys" still leaves mothers exhausted, how the system actively conditions men to benefit from unpaid labour at home, and why true equity at work is impossible until we fix the default parent dynamic.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
The Return-to-Work Illusion: How rigid workplace structures push ambitious women out of traditional careers and into freelancing or forced departure.
The "Good Guy" Paradox: Why mothers in progressive, loving partnerships are still drowning under the cognitive and emotional load.
Quantifying Unpaid Labour: How Ash’s app, Tether, creates a neutral, data-driven starting point for couples to track physical, mental, and emotional tasks (including invoicing the patriarchy).
The Breadwinner Dynamic: Unpacking the financial vs. domestic value trap and why a higher salary shouldn't grant a free pass from home responsibilities.
The Magic Wand Solution: Why mandating paid parental leave for men from day one is the single most critical lever for closing the motherhood penalty.

Resources:
Connect with Ash BG on Instagram @youwanted.this
Download Tether: The Mental Load App on the Apple App Store to track, log, and rebalance domestic load in your home: https://tether-app.co/
Connect with Emma
This podcast was funded and created by Emma Mclean, the founder of Works for Everyone. Emma Mclean is a mum of three and founder of Works for Everyone, a professional development business that partners with NZ's leading corporates to help them retain and grow their working parent talent. She does this through innovative leadership programmes, executive coaching and keynote speaking. She founded her business in 2019 following a 20-year career in corporate strategy where she experienced first-hand how hard it was to have a career and a family. As an impatient optimist when it comes to system change, she launched her successful podcast "How to Smash the Motherhood Penalty" in 2023 where she talks to humans who are actively working to change the system that creates financial penalties that only mothers pay. And in 2024 she launched the first NZ Part Time Power List, to shine a light on those senior roles in NZ that are career building, not side stepping.
To work with Emma or enquire about speaking: emma@worksforeveryone.co.nz
www.worksforeveryone.co.nz
https://www.instagram.com/worksforeveryone/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-mclean-9176217/

I'm joined this week by a repeat offender, Tāmati Rimene-Sproat, TV presenter and host of Counting the Beat, who's now 18 months into fatherhood. We first met when Tāmati interviewed me for the show before he'd even had his son, so I wanted him back to talk about what those 18 months have actually been like on the other side.
Tāmati is refreshingly honest about the highs and lows: the sleep deprivation, the "no one tells you how hard this actually is" reality, and how quickly it all flies by. We talk about how he and his wife have navigated juggling two careers with unpredictable schedules, why they're determined to build an equal household rather than default into traditional roles, and how a genuinely flexible, empathetic production team gave him the space to be a hands-on dad from day one. Tāmati also shares a beautiful te ao Māori lens on what it means to put people, not productivity, at the centre of how we work, and why that shift would change everything for parents and kids alike.
This is a warm, honest, big-hearted conversation about fatherhood, flexibility and what "good" can actually look like when employers lead with empathy.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
What surprised Tāmati most about becoming a dad, and why the biggest shock was how fast it all goes
How he and his wife are navigating two unpredictable careers and building an equal household
What it looked like when his production company said "don't even ask" to three months at home
Why Tāmati believes his experience isn't yet the norm, especially for dads asking for flexibility
The te ao Māori concept of putting people at the centre, and what that could mean for how we all work
Why empathy from employers doesn't just help families, it builds loyalty and lifts productivity
Tāmati’s magic wand: a system that lets every parent experience what he has, so the motherhood penalty stops falling on mothers alone

Resources:
Te Whare Tapa Whā is a holistic Māori health model developed by Sir Mason Durie in 1984 that compares wellbeing to a four-walled meeting house.
The whakataukī that Tāmati referred to is
"Ko te piko o te māhuri, tērā te tupu o te rākau"
The way the young sapling is shaped (or bent) determines how the tree will grow
Connect with Emma
This podcast was funded and created by Emma Mclean, the founder of Works for Everyone. Emma Mclean is a mum of three and founder of Works for Everyone, a professional development business that partners with NZ's leading corporates to help them retain and grow their working parent talent. She does this through innovative leadership programmes, executive coaching and keynote speaking. She founded her business in 2019 following a 20-year career in corporate strategy where she experienced first-hand how hard it was to have a career and a family. As an impatient optimist when it comes to system change, she launched her successful podcast "How to Smash the Motherhood Penalty" in 2023 where she talks to humans who are actively working to change the system that creates financial penalties that only mothers pay. And in 2024 she launched the first NZ Part Time Power List, to shine a light on those senior roles in NZ that are career building, not side stepping.
To work with Emma or enquire about speaking: emma@worksforeveryone.co.nz
www.worksforeveryone.co.nz
https://www.instagram.com/worksforeveryone/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-mclean-9176217/

I'm joined this week by Davinnia Tan, an employment relations leader who has served as a member of the Employment Relations Authority, an independent reviewer of ACC decisions, and a peer reviewer for workplace investigations. While serving as a member, Davinnia became only the second person in the ERA's 25-year history to have a baby, and what followed was a front-row education in just how far Aotearoa's institutions still have to go when it comes to caregiving. Outside her day-to-day work, she writes Ngākau Reworked, exploring the motherhood penalty and matrescence through a tikanga-informed lens.
Davinnia shares the confronting reality of being declined a four-day week with no reasons given, having to choose between full-time daycare or leaving her statutory role, and being told to pump breast milk in a CCTV hearing room with the screens covered. We talk about the stark contrast between her experience and her husband's, whose employer became part of their village, and what that taught her about the power of paid partner's leave.
We also get into why New Zealand hasn't measured the motherhood penalty since 2018, has never measured the working dad experience at all, and what Sweden's 50 years of parental leave reform can actually teach us about what works. This is a conversation about systems, statistics and the deeply personal cost of a country that still treats caregiving as a "nice to have."
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
What happened when Davinnia was declined a four-day week with no reasons given, and the impossible choice it created
Why being a statutory officer meant she had no rights under the Parental Leave and Employment Act
How her husband's supportive employer became "the village" that held their family together
Why New Zealand hasn't measured the motherhood penalty since 2018, and has never measured the working dad experience
What Sweden's "use it or lose it" parental leave reforms reveal about what actually shifts father engagement
Why flexible working needs consistency, not just policy, to stop pushing mothers out of the workforce
How outcomes-based, output-focused job design could ease pressure on managers without more red tape
Davinnia's case for parental support to be recognised internationally as a human right
Her message to any dad on the fence about taking parental leave

Resources discussed:
https://substack.com/@ngkaureworked
https://www.instagram.com/ngakau.reworked/
ShortChanged - The Pay Equity Podcast Investigation

Connect with Emma
This podcast was funded and created by Emma Mclean, the founder of Works for Everyone. Emma Mclean is a mum of three and founder of Works for Everyone, a professional development business that partners with NZ's leading corporates to help them retain and grow their working parent talent. She does this through innovative leadership programmes, executive coaching and keynote speaking. She founded her business in 2019 following a 20-year career in corporate strategy where she experienced first-hand how hard it was to have a career and a family. As an impatient optimist when it comes to system change, she launched her successful podcast "How to Smash the Motherhood Penalty" in 2023 where she talks to humans who are actively working to change the system that creates financial penalties that only mothers pay. And in 2024 she launched the first NZ Part Time Power List, to shine a light on those senior roles in NZ that are career building, not side stepping.
To work with Emma or enquire about speaking: emma@worksforeveryone.co.nz
www.worksforeveryone.co.nz
https://www.instagram.com/worksforeveryone/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-mclean-9176217/

I'm joined this week by Jayne Chater, executive coach, leadership development specialist, and author of A Slight Detour: A Guide to Navigating Family and Career. Jayne has spent decades helping women accelerate their careers at every stage of life, and she brings both professional expertise and lived experience to this conversation as a mum of three navigating a blended whānau of nine.
We get honest about what the motherhood penalty actually feels like from the inside: the guilt of going back to work early, the guilt of staying home, and the quiet resentment that builds when caregiving roles are simply assumed rather than discussed.
Jayne shares her own story of being thrown into senior leadership in her mid-20s, navigating pregnancy with no paid parental leave as a self-employed woman, and the moment she realised the expectations at home had never actually been talked about, just inherited.
We dig into what employers can do differently (starting with checking assumptions, not policies), what mothers can control when everything feels like it's on fire, and why learning to say "full stop, silence" instead of over-explaining might be one of the most powerful career tools going. We close with three magic wand wishes that get right to the heart of a system that still doesn't value caregiving.
This is a warm, funny, deeply honest conversation for anyone juggling career and caregiving and wondering if anyone else feels this exhausted too.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
Why the motherhood penalty shows up on both sides, guilt at work and guilt at home
What happens when caregiving roles are assumed rather than discussed with a partner
Why "checking your assumptions" matters more than any parental leave policy
How to stop apologising and over-explaining, and why "full stop, silence" changes everything
Why sickness in the family should be spoken about as a household issue, not a personal failing
The difference between coming back "down" after a career break versus coming back "on"
Why knowing your yes and your no (and sticking to it) protects your time and energy
Jayne's three magic wand wishes: unlimited household support, work valued on impact not hours, and six months' fully paid leave for both parents

Book: A Slight Detour: A Guide to Navigating Family and Career - https://jaynechater.com/book
Connect with Emma
This podcast was funded and created by Emma Mclean, the founder of Works for Everyone. Emma Mclean is a mum of three and founder of Works for Everyone, a professional development business that partners with NZ's leading corporates to help them retain and grow their working parent talent. She does this through innovative leadership programmes, executive coaching and keynote speaking. She founded her business in 2019 following a 20-year career in corporate strategy where she experienced first-hand how hard it was to have a career and a family. As an impatient optimist when it comes to system change, she launched her successful podcast "How to Smash the Motherhood Penalty" in 2023 where she talks to humans who are actively working to change the system that creates financial penalties that only mothers pay. And in 2024 she launched the first NZ Part Time Power List, to shine a light on those senior roles in NZ that are career building, not side stepping.
To work with Emma or enquire about speaking: emma@worksforeveryone.co.nz
www.worksforeveryone.co.nz
https://www.instagram.com/worksforeveryone/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-mclean-9176217/