Butt-Kicking Work

Judging from its event description, the AIANY Women in Architecture Forum Panel: Practice and Motherhood was meant to be uplifting. Ten women panelists were to explain how they balanced a notoriously demanding job with the practice of architecture. And because remote work and new office flexibility have changed workplaces for the better, career advancement no longer must come at the expense of, say, missing bathtime routines.

But the tone of the actual discussion was noticeably more mixed—perhaps best summed up by the testimony of Annelise Pitts, an associate at Shepley Bulfinch who had just returned from an extended maternity leave. “Despite having run a working group all about making architecture a more equitable place for women and mothers, being a mom kicked my butt anyways,” she said.

The panelists, each representing a different family structure and level of professional experience, shared numerous stress points. In a field where many women have children on the later end, expensive, often grueling fertility treatments come into play, as the young mothers on th…