💌 Weekly: Maybe baby

WHAT’S ON DECK

• Tell Me More: “I never really had an opinion on children. I just assumed that I would have them because ‘that's what people do.’”

• FQ Leaders Spotlight: Priyanka Jain, Co-Founder and CEO, EVVY

• Inside Track: Leaders on the move

• Dear FQ: My team is burned out. How do I push back on aggressive goals?

• Poll the Pack: This meeting could have been an email

TELL ME MORE

All that she wants is (the choice to have) another baby…yeah 🎶 

To mother or not to mother. That is the question that many millennial women find themselves pondering, between what we want, what we were taught to want, and what’s possible. For decades, the script was to grow up, get married, and have kids. It’s so ingrained, but many women are asking a more uncomfortable question: Is this my desire, or just my default?

That tension isn’t new. In fact, the book The Baby Decision: How to Make the Most Important Choice of Your Life was published in 1981, the same year the first millennials were born. At the time, the idea that motherhood was optional felt radical. Today, it feels necessary.

Millennials didn’t come of age in stable conditions. This generation has straddled the analog and digital worlds, witnessed 9/11, entered the workforce during the Great Recession, lived through economic instability, a global pandemic, and rising costs across every category of life. Often called “the unluckiest generation,” their lived experience is vastly different than previous generations and because of that, they’re approaching life differently. The “traditional” timeline has drastically shifted.

Nearly half of millennial women are opting out of the “expected” sequence of marriage, house, kids. More than a quarter are delaying children to prioritize their careers. And for many, the decision comes down to something very real: money.

In a report by Lending Tree, to raise a child until the age of 18 costs a whopping $303,418. In the U.S., childcare alone can run $17,000 a year. Financial planner Ashley Feinstein Gerstley says, "What makes it especially hard is that paychecks have not kept pace with the rising costs. When the cost of the essentials rises faster than income, there is less room in the budget for everything else. And with higher inflation over the last few years, almost everything else got more expensive too, so we are really feeling the squeeze.”

So while the question may feel personal, the context is anything but. And yet, despite all of this, the loudest voices are often still the most familiar: you’ll change your mind. But women are pushing back by choosing differently, by speaking honestly, and by refusing to treat this decision as a foregone conclusion.

The truth is, there’s no single right answer, only the right answer for you. The FQ community had a lot to say on the topic:

Zoë Noble, founder of We are Childfree says, “We live in a pro-natalist society that teaches us all that the only way to live, the only path to fulfillment, is to have children. We’re led to believe that parenthood is such a universal and unassailably positive experience that we don’t even need to talk about it, even think about it, or acknowledge any alternatives.” Millennial women are considering other options and whatever they choose should not only be respected, but celebrated. 

Every morning, we wake up and we get to make choices. Ones that are personal to us, ones that support the goals we’re working toward, and ones that are no one’s business but our own. A path to motherhood or a child-free journey are both options that can hold so much joy and meaning. Let’s respect women’s decisions that are uniquely right for them. Take this as your sign to build your life exactly the way you want to, without society's unrealistic expectations of what it should be.

Forget the narrative that AI is replacing designers. The teams getting the most from design-to-code are using it to strengthen collaboration. The result is a faster path from idea to prototype and more space for the craft behind great digital experiences. Learn more.

FQ LEADERS SPOTLIGHT

Troublemakers who don’t fit the mold, and don’t try to

Priyanka Jain is changing the game for women’s health. She is the Co-Founder and CEO of EVVY, an AI precision medicine platform for women. They are focused on one of the most ignored but important biomarkers for women, the vaginal microbiome. The vaginal microbiome is a complex ecosystem that plays a pivotal role in not only women’s reproductive health, but overall health. When it’s imbalanced, it can lead to discomfort, infertility, pregnancy complications, STI’s, and cancer. The company’s goal is to close the gender health gap. In addition to her work at EVVY, Priyanka is a spokesperson for the United Nations Foundation’s Girl Up Campaign, Chair of the Acumen Fund’s Junior Council, and on the Innovation Board for the XPrize Foundation. In 2022, she was selected by Forbes Magazine as a 30 Under 30 honoree.

What was it really like starting out for you as a founder?

I think that some people glamorize the early stages of starting a company as this magical, fun time. In reality, starting EVVY was one of the hardest moments of my professional career. I knew I wanted to focus on data and women's health, but I hadn't landed on the specific product that I was building. It was a very lonely time. While I was a part of a mission that I loved and had a wonderful team, after a full day of work, I would wonder, “Was I productive today?” Looking back, that uncertainty wasn’t a sign I was doing something wrong, it was a sign I was building something new.

What’s the best piece of non-obvious career advice you’ve gotten?

Before I left my job to start EVVY, I thought I would figure out my product idea while at my previous job. Someone told me that I shouldn’t make one of the most important decisions of my life with only 5% of my brain. And they were right; that wasn’t how I was going to get to the next stage of my career. I’m the type of person that if I'm working, I'm giving 100% of myself. I realized I needed to leave my role and use my full brain power to decide what kind of product I was going to build.

What was a heartbeat moment for you in your career?

When I was explaining our idea for an at-home vaginal microbiome test, it was challenged by multiple people. My heartbeat moment occurred when I was on the phone with 3 male venture capitalists who told me that it was too small of a market, people don't care about it, and no one was going to pay for it. They even questioned if there was science behind it. (There is!) 

I didn’t have the perfect Total Addressable Market analysis numbers that assured me this was the right opportunity, but I felt it in my bones. My co-founder has this saying, “Your intuition is your body putting together a pattern before your brain does.” My body had recognized this pattern and knew there was a market for this.

Who is one person you’d love to give flowers to from your career that influenced your journey? What advice or lesson did you learn from them?

I would give flowers to Margot Georgiadis, who was the first investor in EVVY. She’s a legendary leader who was the CEO of Ancestry, CEO of Mattel, and President of Google America. I told her I was building EVVY, and she immediately understood the consumer and data opportunity. She took us seriously and believed in us, which helped us believe in ourselves. We still ask the questions she posed to us when we had only 10 patients. Now we have 75,000, and her voice is always in our heads.

Where have you caused some good trouble in your career?

It would be in the number of boardrooms or investment committees where I’ve pitched EVVY to all men, and I’ve gotten them to say the word “vagina” out loud. It’s so funny how they’ll try to avoid it. 

But it makes sense given our gendered history in science and innovation. Women were not included in clinical research until 1993, and to this day, on average, we’re diagnosed 4 years later than men across over 700 of the same diseases. My greatest feelings of success are when I start a meeting explaining EVVY and everybody awkwardly shrinks away, but by the end, they’re astonished at how the vaginal microbiome can predict fertility. That makes me proud.

Want to nominate a “Troublemaker” you admire? You can do so here.

INSIDE TRACK

Leaders on the move

• Heidi Browning has been appointed the National Hockey League (NHL)’s first-ever SEVP, Chief Digital Officer

• Hope Frank has stepped into the role of Chief Marketing Officer at Wand AI

DEAR FQ

Your burning career questions answered

Amanda Hickman of The Female Quotient weighs in:

This is a tough spot to be in. Burnout isn’t good for anyone, including the quality of your team’s work, the outcomes you’re trying to achieve, and individual team members’ overall well-being.

First, sit down with your team. Discuss strategies, division of work, and maintaining a work-life balance. While it might seem small, creating a non-judgmental, open dialogue is crucial. According to research, having this type of communication leads to a 62% reduction in burnout.

When work is assigned, it’s imperative to set clear timelines and be transparent about team capacity and what is actually feasible. Be communicative throughout the process and provide updates as needed. If your team’s workload is increasing or becoming difficult to manage, it’s fair to ask how priorities should shift to accommodate the added work.

Even recognizing that your team is in this position shows that you are a leader who pays attention to not only the output, but the people behind it. Being clear on expectations and maintaining realistic timelines will build trust with upper management and show that you’re focused on long-term, sustainable performance. Demonstrating leadership with empathy to your team shows that you are looking out for their best interest, both at work and beyond.

P.S. Got a burning career question? Serve it up here to Dear FQ to score advice from a powerhouse leader in our network.

POLL THE PACK

Why your meetings aren’t working

Meetings have a reputation problem. A study by Microsoft showed that 69% of employees found meetings to be a waste of time. They also found that meetings have tripled since 2020, while attention spans…have not.

One of the great annoyances at work is leaving a meeting thinking, “This could have been an email.” People want team meetings to be efficient and worthwhile. And right now, they’re not. When that becomes a habit, productivity and interest plummet.

People don’t hate meetings. They hate bad meetings. So what do people want in a meeting? Brevity, actionable takeaways, open dialogue, and clear objectives. In other words, respect people’s time and their voice.

This is an opportunity for leaders to rethink the meeting entirely:

• Start with a purpose (if there isn’t one, cancel it)

• Share an agenda (yes, really)

• Create space for real dialogue, not just updates

• End with decisions, not “let’s circle back”

When you do that, your meeting can meet the moment.

💡 Let’s respect women’s decisions that are uniquely right for them.

Xo,

The FQ

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