The Hidden Cost Of Climbing: Why 57% Of Working Mothers Delay Children For Career Success – Essence

Am I a mother? No. Do I wish to become, and have thought about motherhood? Absolutely.

In fact, it’s one of the hottest daily topics in the weekly group chat (especially for my girlfriends who are, in fact, mothers). I love hearing the musings from my mom friends about parenthood, and all the cutesy things their children do. But, I also know and understand the other side of the motherhood-plus-career thing because they share those realities too.

And if I hadn’t already heard it from my friends directly, the stats also tell a story that many of us have already suspected.

So when I saw that 57% of working moms actually delayed having kids for their careers, I wasn’t shocked. I was thinking, “Yeah, that tracks.”

These exact numbers come from this Motherhood & Work report by Zety, which surveyed about a thousand working mothers. And while the report doesn’t break this down by race specifically, we need to talk about what this means for Black women in particular.

We’ve always worked. Always. Black women have historically maintained higher workforce participation rates than pretty much any other group of women. What is worth examining, though, is how this plays out when career ambitions collide with family planning. Because we all know the workplace was not designed with mothers in mind. And it definitely wasn’t designed with Black mothers in mind. 

The report found that 76% of women received explicit advice to delay having children until they were more “established” professionally. Even worse, 82% were flat-out warned that having children would damage their careers. 

For Black women, these warnings are even more substantial. We’re already navigating workplaces where we face both gender and racial bias, as well as the “twice as good” pressure (I hear Papa Pope’s monologue from Scandal in the back of my head almost daily) . Motherhood just adds another layer to that struggle. The report says 85% of working mothers feel they must work harder than non-parents to prove their commitment at work. Now imagine adding racial dynamics on top of that.

Then there’s money. Federal Reserve data shows that the typical white family has about eight times the wealth of the typical Black family. With less generational wealth and smaller financial safety nets, career interruptions can be devastating for Black households.

Among mothers surveyed, 59% changed careers entirely after having children. Another 87% reported that motherhood negatively impacted their advancement opportunities. Add the motherhood wage penalty to this (while fathers often get pay bumps), and you see why so many Black women are doing this careful calculation before deciding when—or if—to have children.

This conversation takes on different dimensions in Black communities because it’s no longer about individual career trajectories, but instead, financial stability for extended family and building wealth that can be passed down. The stakes around these decisions feel particularly high given historical and ongoing economic disparities.

That’s why policy discussions about paid family leave, affordable childcare, and flexible work deserve particular attention from Black communities. These aren’t just nice workplace perks. They’re economic justice issues that directly impact our ability to build families without sacrificing financial stability.

In the context of what’s going on in the world right now, diversity and inclusion are sitting at center stage (and we see who’s really putting their money where their mouth is), but as we all know, real inclusion means creating workplaces where Black motherhood and career ambition can coexist. And it also means recognizing that forcing women to delay childbearing for jobs represents a profound failure of workplace culture.