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(theme music)
Tiffany: So when I was growing up, I used to love
to hang out with my mom after school.
She'd make a yummy snack, we'd talk about the day
and then when I was around 7 or 8,
she went back to school to get her Phd and I was
super proud of her for going for her dream,
but it was hard for me.
I mean, she wasn't there after school anymore and
when I talk to her about it today, she would say
and I really struggled with that.
And when my husband Ken and I wanted to have children,
we really thought, "How do we create a life?'
"How do we create our schedules where we both do the"
"work that we love and are there for our children"
"during those important moments?"
and it's not like we're perfect, for sure,
but we give it our best shot.
I'm Tiffany Shlain. I'm a mother, filmmaker.
I founded the Webby Awards and this series is about how the
future doesn't start somewhere far off in the distance.
The future starts here.
(lively music)
Today with all the remix roles and new technologies,
there are new opportunities for women like me
who love being a mother and love contributing to society
in other ways, too.
And I realize I'm not necessarily talking about everyone's reality.
I feel incredibly grateful for my life and I've worked hard
to get here and I want to share this with you as a possiblity
because I always knew that fitting into the existing
corporate structure wasn't gonna work for me.
And now I get to use 21st century technology to
own my own schedule and have some control over
where I physically work and when I work,
if I don't let the technology own me
because really, it's all about time.
Voiceover: How do they do it?
Where do they find all that energy,
that seemingly inexhaustible store of pep and ginger?
Tiffany: Of course there are times when it's a struggle,
like when I have to be in two places at once.
But I think it's a big improvement to the choices
my mother had to make.
We're living in a very exciting time.
Work and parenting roles have evolved throughout history
and we have to keep pushing those boundaries
in the direction we want them to go.
I mean, being a working mother ... actually, let's get
one thing straight.
Mothers have worked since the beginning of time.
So I think we need to go back to the beginning of time,
way back to
the Stone Age.
Stone Mama. Cave mama with my little cave baby.
That would be cave keeping, gathering food and
surprisingly all of the cave dads were
very involved in childcare.
I mean, everyone today is talking about the Paleo Diet,
but let's talk about Paleo Parenting.
Or what if I was a mother in the Industrial Revolution
and my husband Ken would be working on machines
in the factory and I would be at home with the kids
and I would have loved to have been with the kids,
but that was also around the time of the birth of cinema,
so I would have wanted to be out there making the
first films and I wouldn't have wanted to be told
that I have to stay at home.
Now I do love making a home,
but I also love making things for the world.
Voiceover: Her job is to make a home, the American home.
Tiffany: Or what if I was a mother during world ...
Or what if I was a mother from ...
Or what if I was a mother during World War II?
The men would have all been off at war.
Me and Rosie the Riveter, we would have been
off in the factories working, but get this.
The U.S. government opened enough daycare centers
to support 1.6 million kids and then as soon as
the war was over, the men came home,
they dismantled all of those daycare centers
and men went back to work and women went back to the kitchen.
Don't get me wrong, I love to cook but I'd prefer it to be my choice.
Now let's jump ahead to the 70s.
Now I remember this one because I was a kid back then
and I would watch my mother and her friends
fighting for the right to be a mother and have their career.
And that all brought us back to the 80s.
I can't do that 'cause I don't know, am I dancing right for the 80s?
In the next few decades, women flooded the workplace,
but the workplace still wasn't totally ready for mothers.
I mean, just think about how much has changed
in just that one generation to today.
In the 90s I was in my twenties.
I worked about 100 hours a week running the Webby Awards
and I knew I couldn't do that and be a good mother.
So I changed my life and went back to my original
love of filmmaking and started my own film studio,
so that I could create my own hours.
My husband Ken and I both work full-time,
but to do that we have to work very early in the mornings
and obviously when the kids are at school and late nights
so we have more flexibility during the day.
So now I still have a full 100-hour week,
but that's filmmaking, that's being with my kids.
There have been so many powerful conversations
recently about being a working mother today
and I'm excited to add yet another perspective
that we can evolve our structures to be more in rhythm
with our lives,
where we have more control over our schedules
and where we get to redefine our roles
both at home and in society.
(lively music)
We're all participating and remixing what it means
to be a parent in today's world.
And then you add technology to that which allows me
to feel like one of my childhood heroes, The Bionic Woman.
Now while I can't run 60 miles an hour,
I can do 60 more things before my kids get up in the morning.
(clicks and beeps)
And with the flexibility of working at my film studio
or at home, it makes me feel like I can control time
by making my own schedule.
It might sound small, but to me it's the most important
super power of being a mother with a career.
And I think what if my mom had had the Internet
when she went back to school?
And I can only imagine what would the possibilites be
for my children and the next generation?
So every week I get to ask, "How do I want to shape my week?"
"How do I both contribute to society doing the work"
"that I love and be there for my kids to pick them up from school?"
And be there for my partner, can't forget that one.
While there are many things changing in the 21st century,
some things don't change.
(lively music)