One thing I've found in the change to being a parent is that I'm much more confident in saying, "No, I have this other important thing I have to do. If you want

One thing I've found in the change to being a parent is that I'm much more confident in saying, "No, I have this other important thing I have to do. If you want my contributions, it will have to be on these terms." Most employers that would accept that of parents would accept it of anyone. Most employers that wouldn't accept employees setting reasonable boundaries or making reasonable requests wouldn't accept them from parents, either. There are bound to be some that only accept boundary-setting from parents, but I assert that it's a very small percent of employers or managers. Maybe I'm wrong. What I'm proposing here is that most people are too afraid to ask for what they want. Parents have the benefit of having some of those expectations carved out beforehand, but I think that many of them also develop a newfound ability to say, "No, sorry, can't do that."