Coral Edwards: My Narrative
Being a birthparent, mother, or primary caregiver in the United States isn't just a challenge — it's downright hostile for many of us.
At the height of the pandemic, women lost 12.2 million jobs between February and April 2020. Job losses hit Black and Latina women particularly hard. These job losses didn't come out of the clear blue sky. They simply laid bare how harsh and tenuous the United States' systems for women — especially birthparents and primary caregivers really are.
The United States is only one of six countries in the entire world that doesn't offer national paid leave. For those who are fortunate enough to get leave, it averages 10 weeks — and it’s not always paid. And that doesn’t even touch the needs of birthparents and mothers when they come back on the job.
Between extra hours of domestic labor, sky-high childcare costs, and a dire lack of parental leave and support, it's impossible not to feel the weight of a system stretched to its breaking point — and that breaking point so often lands squarely on the backs of mothers.
Expectations versus reality
Before having a baby, I had spent many years in New York City, climbing the ladder in the tech world. My career was a key part of my identity. I loved everything about my work: managing my team, growing company revenue through growth marketing, and investing in company culture. I grew up as an only child to a single parent and had never had an interest or experience with children before. Babies just weren’t in my vocabulary.
When I was pregnant, I figured I'd go away for 12 weeks to have the baby, maybe come back after eight weeks because I'd be bored, then restart work as the same person I always was — just being a mom before and after work, instead.
I assumed the company I worked at would do a good job of supporting me because they did a great job of supporting everyone. Plus, I knew several employees at the company had gone through pregnancies — there just hadn't had any birth parents who were also managers. I didn’t realize how significant that seemingly minor detail would become.
When I returned to work after using up my parental leave, I was surviving on a grueling four hours of sleep a night — and had been doing so for the 12 weeks leading up to my return. Both my husband and I were stretched to the breaking point, and I suffered from postpartum depression with suicidal thoughts.
I was getting judgment both inside and outside of work from every angle about my parenting skills, whether positive or negative. The jarring transition left me feeling overwhelmed and under-supported — and my personal sense of self was completely shattered.
I knew I was a different person but I didn’t understand my new identity, I didn’t know who I was anymore.
A personal struggle with a national problem
In the midst of the pandemic in 2020, 1 in 4 women considered leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers.
For many in the United States, the opportunity of having 12 weeks of paid maternity leave feels lucky. While I was fortunate in relative terms, the transition still left me reeling — and revealed to me it’s not even the bare minimum any birthparent deserves.
At a company with a typical philosophy of "as long as you get your work done, we don't care about your work schedule", I found that being a mother subjected me to a double standard. Out of the blue, my boss suddenly expected me to keep traditional hours instead of focusing on my deliverables or results.
Instead of taking care of my body and pumping when I needed to, I learned that the only acceptable time to do so was if I was in physical pain. All of a sudden, I constantly had to prove my worth as a manager as the expectations of my role had changed.
No one who worked at my company had gone through this situation, leaving me without an advocate or guide. I felt completely lost when it came to my life's direction.
I realized how ridiculous it was to be held to the same standards as cisgender men who had never given birth and never had to deal with the subsequent fallout. Applying the same expectations of returning to work for parents who haven't given birth isn't only inequitable, it’s absurd.
Experiencing childbirth is traumatic for many of us. Men don't experience having their genitals ripped open, birthing an organ — as well as a baby — spending at least two nights at the hospital, or wearing an adult diaper. They're not judged for breastfeeding, not making enough milk or making too much milk, for having a sleepy baby, a tired baby, a fussy baby, or a calm baby.
I came back to the office under scrutiny because I had “taken 12 weeks off” when I needed flexibility instead of the expectation to hit the ground running the second I returned.
I needed space. Space to transition. Space to put my life back together. Space to deal with all the new challenges and responsibilities that came with being the primary caregiver — from doctor’s appointments and daycare closures to sick days, mommy classes, and therapy.
My personal experience is part of a larger whole: A study by McKinsey found that during the pandemic, women were feeling more pressure at work than men — more exhausted, burned out, and disproportionately overburdened with labor at home.
It was as if my identity was a puzzle that had shattered into glass shards. I couldn't put the same puzzle back together because I wasn’t the same person. I had to get to know my new self.
A new vision for myself and others
Over the next few years, I became a vocal advocate for better parental leave policies and support at work — especially for birth parents and primary caregivers who carry tremendous responsibility.
By the time I became pregnant with my daughter a little over three years later, my work policy had changed to 16 weeks of paid leave plus two weeks of transitioning time back. We also had access to Maven, a virtual care platform for families.
While this was an improvement, it still wasn't enough. The company had no parental leave guidelines, no transition plans, and no support systems in place. The only way to change the policy was through taking action through advocacy with other mothers who were in the same boat.
It took years to transition from being super career-focused to seeing career as a part of my identity — but not all of it. I developed a new support system within my work, exclusively for birthparents and mothers, and started dreaming about what I wanted to do outside of it. I had been involved with coaching for several years and intuitively knew it was my calling, but still wasn't sure how, when, or where it would happen.
After years of coaching and reflection — and a few weeks after learning I was pregnant with my second child — I finally realized my vision: to empower birthparents, mothers, and primary caregivers in the form of coaching, marketing consulting, internal company policy and culture advocacy, and governmental policy advocacy.
Here's the thing: if we are forced to live in a capitalist system where we’re relying on companies to provide us with basic health insurance and a living wage, then it's not enough to settle for the bare minimum. Instead of offering a one-way street, companies need to step up to support us through our life transitions.
Failing to rise to the occasion doesn't always come from a place of bad intent. Sometimes, poor parental leave policies simply come from a place of not knowing how things could be better — and not having enough people demanding that companies change.
Still: the United States’ abysmal parental support statistics speak for themselves. My mission is to create environments that offer birth parents, mothers, and primary caregivers the ability to bring our full selves to work with comprehensive support. We deserve to be appreciated and truly supported as the powerhouses and assets that we are.
How I can help you
Now I'm on a mission to help moms and primary caregivers navigate their own journeys, for a more fulfilling and authentic path forward. In addition to supporting individuals, I help organizations implement practices that offer deeply needed support to moms and primary caregivers — because we can’t make these changes alone.
Interested in working together? See how I work with both individuals and organizations for sustainable growth.
