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There has been much discussion raised about "Why are women leaving Architecture? and more broadly, Why is the profession losing key talent?"  Both women and men practitioners are disillusioned by the myth of work/life balance: Women are grappling with "have it all" expectations of juggling family time with the demands of full-time work.  Men are struggling to support their families solely on an architect's salary and fall back on asking spouses to maintain their jobs. The lack of affordable childcare and high cost of living only magnifies the challenges.  How did we end up in this modern family dilemma? What can we do to improve the situation?

A Husband/Archimom's Everyday Moments of Truth: Jared Banks, AIA

As with so many wonderful initiatives to improve the lives of architects, The Missing 32% came out of AIA San Francisco. If you aren’t familiar with their research, goals, etc., here’s their mission statement:

The Missing 32% Project is a call to action for both women and men to help realize the goal of equitable practice to advance architecture, sustain the profession and communicate the value of design to society. Our mission is to understand the pinch points and promote the strategic execution of best practices in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of our profession’s best talent at every level of architectural practice.

This week on their blog they launched a series featuring #Archimom stories: the adventures of architecting and parenting. Good friend and Shoegnome guest blogger, Alicia Liebel Berg has already shared her story of impending archimomhood, along with a growing list of others. From the moment I saw the first tweet about this, I knew I had to share my experiences. Because while I have never explicitly stated this, behind everything I do with Shoegnome is the bizarrely 21st Century truth that I am a husband to an incredible and successful woman, a mom to two wacky and precocious daughters, and also an architect.

(For full story, click through to Shoegnome Blog)


Would you like to see more Archimom Stories? See who else has dropped in to share.