How My Mom Shaped Me
Lessons from a Boomer recruiter on finding balance in an always-connected world.
What My Mother Taught Me About Business Before the Age of Always Being Reachable
I grew up in business. My mother was a recruiter, also known as a headhunter. Her job was to find jobs for people who were either unemployed or looking to change jobs.
The process for something like this was pretty standard. You got called for an interview with my mother and then interviewed by the company that was looking to hire. Of course, the process has evolved tremendously since my mother worked in the industry. Nevertheless, there were values I learned from my mother—and from the Boomer business model—that I think are worth preserving.
The importance of voice calling
So many people in the business world now value text-based communication, such as email, over a phone call. Phone calls, to me as a freelancer, feel intimate and personal. Taking that extra step of showing a potential client who you are through your voice can make the difference between a sale and a pass.
There is something different about hearing another person's voice. It creates a human connection that a text message or email simply can't replicate.
Setting mentally healthy work boundaries
In college, the best advice I ever received came from a professor who encouraged us not to keep late hours or push ourselves to exhaustion. Most of my colleagues were working full- or part-time jobs while pursuing a college degree. I freelanced as a writer and, as a result, could frequently be up late polishing drafts.
Put this into perspective: my mother first became a headhunter before the age of cell phones, when there were hours during which you were simply unreachable and your boss had to accept that.
There's value, particularly from a mental-health perspective, in setting hours when I work and hours when I don't. Creating periods when you are unreachable enables you to recharge and come back to work healthier and more energized.
Being unavailable wasn't necessarily viewed as being uncommitted. Sometimes, it was simply understood as part of being a human being with a life outside of work.
The joy of being offline
So much of modern business revolves around waiting for a ping.
As a writer, artist, and musician, I'm constantly looking to see whether a label or a boss is trying to contact me regarding the latest ping. 5G internet means we are constantly reachable—a marked change from the Boomer era of Nokia phones.
I think it's a hallmark of Millennial culture to make fun of—and even shame—Boomers who use “dumbphones.” Yet the rise of brands like Light Phone shows that there is a market for devices like this, even in the workplace.
The appeal of phones like the Light Phone, more often than not, is that they allow the user to disconnect from the internet—something Boomers understood the value of long before many of us did.
What We Can Learn From the Past
Having taken all of these tools into account, I think they all share one thing in common: a form of rebellion against the idea of always being reachable.
I loved my mom as a businesswoman, but I also loved her because she was available.
Contemporary work culture prides itself on availability. We are expected to answer the message, respond to the email, pick up the phone, and remain connected at virtually all times. Being unreachable can almost feel like a professional failure.
But my mother knew something that I think we've forgotten: being available to the people you love doesn't require being available to everyone, all the time.
If there is one thing I learned from my mom, it's not just that she was a hard worker. It's that she understood the value of boundaries, human connection, and knowing when to step away.
Those lessons didn't just shape the businesswoman she was.
They helped shape the woman I am today.
