It was noisy. It was one of the many school snow days in February, and everyone was home, Desiree Coleman-Fry remembers. She was on a call with her boss, and one of her four children kept walking by “sounding like she had pulled out a bass drum.” Another kept popping his head into the room to ask questions.
Coleman-Fry knows firsthand that being a mom can be hard, and being a mom who works outside the home adds complexity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, things got even more challenging. In response, Coleman-Fry is building an online community to support employed moms like herself, and she recently caught the attention of LinkedIn: Coleman-Fry is one of 100 creators (the only one from St. Louis, she adds) that the networking site selected for the inaugural class of its Creator Accelerator Program. It’s a 10-week intensive, incubator-style initiative that supports content creators in building their platforms with a $15,000 award and guidance from experts and peers. Coleman-Fry is using her award to curate conversations to sustain moms in the labor force.
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The pandemic has been disastrous for employed mothers, who quit their jobs in the millions over the two-year period. For those who didn’t leave the workforce, it’s been incredibly stressful, according to research. As Coleman-Fry explains, during the pandemic, she had to be “the short-order cook, gym teacher, and math tutor” in addition to her employment duties.
As a business executive who previously worked at Wells Fargo and United Way, as well as an expert in diversity, equity, and inclusion, Coleman-Fry has for years been a leader addressing the concerns of working women. She’s been featured in Business Insider and Blavity, and on PBS, and was named one of Hive’s 2020 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Leaders of North America. In 2020, she hosted The Queen Within a Virtual Women’s Empowerment Summit, which brought together 1,000 women from across the globe to prioritize health and well-being.
With help from LinkedIn, Coleman-Fry created a conversation series, Women Work Well, to foster a community for employed moms. The biweekly half-hour conversations are a chance for mothers to support and inspire one another and gather ideas for success. During the live video conference conversations on LinkedIn, women will have the opportunity to talk to one another, ask questions, and get guidance from Coleman-Fry and guest experts. She highlights three main areas for focus: “leveling up, loving your babies, and living abundantly.” For those who cannot make the conversations in real-time, recordings will be available afterward.
But if moms are so busy, how can they justify the time to have these chats?
Coleman-Fry is unwavering in her response: “You can’t do this mom thing alone. You need time to replenish, recharge, and get tips and tools that are going to make you a better mom when you see your kids later on.”
The next Women Work Well chat is at 8 a.m. on March 25. The chat is free, but registration is required. You can contact Desiree Coleman-Fry on social media @desireesoleman or through her website, desireescoleman.com.
