Across industries, more organizations are introducing policies to support working parents — flexible hours, remote options, extended leave.
These are important steps.
But as we heard at the Women at the Top Summit, policies alone don’t make working parenthood sustainable.
It’s culture.
It’s partnership.
It’s the web of support that makes space for real life when things don’t go to plan.
What Parents Really Rely On
When parents talk about what helps them most, it’s rarely a policy they mention.
It’s a person.
A manager who trusts them to step away for a sick child.
A teammate who swaps schedules without judgment.
A partner who takes the early meeting so they can make school drop-off.
These small moments shape how supported a parent feels — and they can’t be captured in an employee handbook.
Working parenthood isn’t meant to be managed alone.
It thrives on shared understanding and the safety to ask for what’s needed — at home and at work.
Teamwork Makes Working Parenthood Possible
In our coaching and consulting work, we see that the most successful parents — and the healthiest organizations — treat working parenthood as a team effort.
That means:
- Partners who share the load.
- Managers who normalize flexibility.
- Colleagues who collaborate, not compete.
Thriving as a working parent depends less on endurance and more on collective understanding.
When the culture says, You can have both care and ambition here, people rise.
What Real Support Looks Like
Real support isn’t about more policies — it’s about embedding empathy into daily practice.
✅ Normalize conversations about caregiving.
Parents shouldn’t have to choose between honesty and professionalism.
✅ Build psychological safety for life’s interruptions.
A meeting can move. A deadline can flex. The work still gets done.
✅ Celebrate teamwork.
When colleagues cover for one another, that’s culture worth noticing.
These practices make support visible — not performative.
When Policy Becomes Culture
What keeps parents in the workforce isn’t just resilience — it’s reciprocity.
When organizations treat flexibility as trust, they don’t just retain employees; they earn loyalty.
And when leaders model empathy, it ripples through teams.
At Phoebe, we help companies build exactly that — cultures where policy meets practice, and support becomes shared.
Because working parents don’t need perfection.
They need partnership.
And that’s something a policy can’t create — but a culture can.
