Changing Perspectives... 
on Parenthood

We started The Village because we were angry and frustrated.

For more than two decades, we’d watched brilliant people across Australia’s media industry reach one particular career milestone – becoming a parent – and then slowly disappear.

Not overnight.

Quietly.

They’d step back from leadership opportunities. Decline promotions. Move industries altogether. Or leave the workforce entirely.

For years, we accepted the story we’d all been told: parenthood changes priorities.

But after living it ourselves and listening to hundreds of other parents, we no longer believe that’s the full story. We’ve come to believe something much harder to admit:

The problem isn’t becoming a parent. It’s the system we ask parents to return to.

When we launched The Village – an organisation set up to support, connect and advocate for working parents in the Australian media industry – our ambition was to create a place where working parents could find connection and support. What we didn’t anticipate was that, in creating that space, we’d gain a window into experiences many leaders never see.

We’ve now spoken to hundreds of parents across Australia’s media and marketing industry. Different organisations. Different life stages. Different family structures. Yet the same themes surface again and again.

The mother who comes back from parental leave feeling she has to prove she’s still ambitious.

The father who wants to take extended leave but worries what his colleagues will think.

The parent who leaves work at 4:30pm for daycare pick-up, only to log back on after bedtime because visibility still matters.

The leader who genuinely wants to support flexibility but has never experienced the invisible mental load of coordinating childcare, school holidays, appointments and careers at the same time.

None of these stories are dramatic. That’s what makes them so easy to miss. They’re made up of thousands of small moments that, over time, can leave someone questioning whether they still belong.

The data tells the same story.

In The Village’s first industry survey, 80% of working parents told us they had considered leaving the media industry altogether.

That isn’t a parenting problem. It's a retention problem. And one our industry can’t afford to ignore.

The biggest lesson The Village has taught us is that while flexibility is essential, it isn’t enough. Policies don’t create inclusion. Culture does.

A flexible work policy has little value if people worry they’ll be judged for using it. Parental leave doesn’t change outcomes if employees return feeling they have to rebuild their credibility from scratch. Hybrid work isn’t equitable if career-defining conversations still happen after hours or in rooms some people can’t access. The gap between policy and lived experience is where talent is lost.

The good news?

Culture isn’t changed by one organisation or one initiative.

It’s changed every time a manager asks a better question. Every time a leader shares their own caregiving reality. Every time we stop seeing working parents as needing accommodation and start recognising them as talent worth retaining. When we started The Village, we hoped to create a community.

What we didn’t expect was that the community would change us.

It shifted our perspective from asking, “How do we help working parents?” to a much more important question:

How do we advocate to build an industry where becoming a parent is no longer a reason to leave?

Because changing that perspective doesn’t just benefit parents. It benefits every organisation that wants to keep its best people.