The myth of work-life balance with a neurodivergent child

Laura Mayer opens up about the challenges of balancing an ambitious career with the nagging feeling that she needed more space for her neurodivergent daughter. 

She shares the gut-wrenching moments of juggling long hours and the many to-dos that come along with a new diagnosis. In the end, trusting herself led to bold choices. They not only reshaped her priorities but led her to a career shift that worked better for her and her family.

• Read: Interoception and sensory processing challenges

• Listen: Self-care tips for parents navigating a child’s diagnosis

Laura Mayer: And so I said to a new boss that I'd had, you know, I haven't been home to see my daughter before she goes to sleep or before the process of coaxing her to go to sleep begins in like two weeks. Can I go home and take the meeting from there? And this other person said to me, "Laura, I didn't know you were such a trad wife." Wow.

Jessica Shaw: That's my guest today, Laura Mayer. You may not know her name, but you've probably heard some of her work. She worked at New York Public Radio and later founded her own podcast studio that was acquired by Sony. A few years ago she landed a job at ABC News running their entire podcast division. She's the woman behind ABC's successful slate of true crime podcasts, and she'd be the first one to tell you she lived at her desk.

Meanwhile at home, she was observing little things about her toddler daughter Joanna. Some parents dismissed her concerns, and some colleagues actually mocked her desire to be with her child. She made a fundamental change in her life. Laura quit, quite publicly too. She even posted about all the comments she got about "Laura, you're so brave to prioritize parenting," and it made her wonder, should she not have been so open about being a parent in the corporate world?

Welcome to "Everyone Gets a Juice Box." I'm Jessica Shaw, and today on the show we find out what led Laura to that breaking point.

Laura: The first year I was working there, my daughter had a step-up ceremony in her twos program, which is when they put like the four kids in front and they have to sing a song and she flipped. And there was something about that moment and some things I'd noticed around there where I was like, something's going on here. Because I lived at the desk.

I didn't really see her compared with other kids. I had sort of fully done that thing they always say don't do, which is don't compare your kid to other kids.

Jessica: Isn't it so impossible?

Laura: It's impossible unless you literally can't. In which case, I should start an online course and charge people for how to do it because I just didn't have that same kind of access. I saw her with older kids, like family members, but not with her peers. And on that particular day, there were three other kids in her class who were like down to go along with the plan of, you know, standing in the front of the room and singing, I think it was a song from "Moana," a text I was not yet familiar with.

Jessica: And now you could recite front to end, yes?

Laura: We're working on it. I'm trying to get out of — we're — it's a five-year plan of getting out of "Frozen." But I saw her just freeze up, shut down, and meltdown in this way that was so different from — one of the other kids was crying, another one didn't want to go up, but she was this immovable object, which I was aware of because I'd seen her, despite the fact I lived at the desk, you know, I was as involved as I possibly could be.

And there was something about that moment combined with these bits and pieces that I'd been picking up on, you know, with my own perhaps hypervigilant spider senses, that it kind of all sort of crystallized together, which is like — she's experiencing her brain's different. Her nervous system is different. I don't know what that means, but I know that as her mother.

Jessica: And at that point, what did that feel like for you to be sitting there, watching that, having that moment of, oh, okay, I now see something?

Laura: There was the realities of the moment, which is I was sad for her because she was sad. And then there — for me I just jumped into action mode and I also, which is like varying levels of self-denial, whatever, like you got to keep it moving and work for the boss.

(04:31) How developmental challenges prompted a deep dive into research and a shift in career priorities.

Laura: But I remember I was running off to do like a greenlight meeting for a slate of shows that we were putting together at ABC with the president of the network. And so I was like — I don't even know — I was just like I was the only parent leaving and I was like running to the train and I had immediately started being like, "Alright, I've been on Reddit a lot about these sorts of things because of stuff I noticed. Now's the time to start getting into it."

And smash cut to the last year of the contract and then also her 3K year of school. I ended up just on this quest to figure out ways to get her services as soon as possible, OT and speech, spent all of the money I was earning at the venerable news organization in the process because the waitlists were so long she would just be being seen now.

And then over the summer she got an autism diagnosis from a neuropsych.

Jessica: When she's two at this point?

Laura: By the summer she had been four. Also right around that time she sort of stopped talking expressively. And I was like, I've been holding this together, I've been making the spreadsheets. My husband, who was the primary caretaker at the time, which makes my daughter sound like a lawn, was doing the kind of executing.

Jessica: The emotional mowing?

Laura: The emotional mowing. I was, I guess, speaking to the topiary people on the phone. But it was really around the time when she started stopping talking expressively in the same way where I was like, I cannot continue with living at desk and returning at bed and — I needed to get in there to the lawn directly.

Jessica: So you're trying to at this point, like, go to meet with the president of a network, I have to now be a producer at home and figure out — just figure out, period, exclamation point, what's going on.

Laura: Right. And I will say my husband has since — now we are very much on the same page — but there was also that element of convincing him of the things that I had seen that were squishy.

Jessica: I love that word that you use, squishy, because that's exactly — I had the same thing. I felt like I was always kind of noticing things and my husband kind of, you know, more sort of facts-based. And I was like, "But you know, you have your gut feeling about things," and then there'll be people that say, "Oh, she's two or she's three," and then it's like, do I trust myself? Do I — I mean, it's really there are so many stimuli coming in.

Laura: Absolutely. And in my work position too, I felt really isolated from other parents that were like — knew Joanna, my daughter. And so there were also people who had kids at the same age, same school, who were going to my husband and being like, "Laura, I don't know, Joanna seems fine to me. This is what you should do, this is what you should do."

And who am I, except for her mother? To — like they had seen her more in social environments with other kids than I had. And so that introduces this self-doubt on top of this kind of central knowing that then, at least for me, it became this sort of hot-cold cycle of "I know, oh I don't know, I'm right, I hope I'm wrong."

Jessica: What else did you notice that you thought, "Oh, filing that one away in my brain"?

Laura: Potty training was a whole thing and which it is for everybody. And then it seems like it happens and then you talk to someone like five years out and they're like, "I don't know what happened," and I'm like, "Thanks, love that." Like frankly, I'd probably still be wearing a diaper if it were socially acceptable. It'd be so much more efficient.

Jessica: We'll all get there.

Laura: Some of us sooner than later. We'll see how my life turns out. I take that back. So anyway, I remember it was just such a struggle and we were getting a lot of pressure from in-laws, other parents. "I'll take your kid for a weekend, it'll be no big deal." And I'm like, "No everybody, like — it's not like that." And there was a lot of pressure on her.

It's the first sort of socialized thing anyone has learned how to do that isn't like innate, like you use the toilet for this. And I remember we were — and this was before the step-up ceremony, the kind of point of realization — and again, I was alone with her in a room and she just turned to me and she said, "I can't feel it." And I remember thinking, "Huh." Later learned that's interoception, however you pronounce that thing.

(09:56) Interoception and how it relates to sensory awareness in children with autism and ADHD

Jessica: Interoception. Just in case I'm not the only person who had never heard that word, interoception is sometimes known as the eighth sense. Basically, it's the sense in your body that lets you know if you're hungry, thirsty, hot, cold, have to use the bathroom — you get the picture.

Interoception is also common among kids with autism, sensory processing challenges, and ADHD. Laura has ADHD herself, and she suspects Joanna will get a diagnosis too once she's old enough. But even as Joanna was having interoception challenges with using the bathroom, she was doing well socially. Back to Joanna in preschool.

Laura: Joanna got a scooter for her third birthday, otherwise known as a child's Lamborghini. She loved that scooter. And the little boy at one point touched her scooter and she had a meltdown that — I was there for this, I must have been working from home that day — that was just totally unlike any other that I had seen of touching this physical thing and this idea of — which, you know, kids don't like sharing — but it was sort of like exponential. And it took her a long time, like a 15, 20 minutes to calm down from it and to get out of the cycle that she had been in.

Jessica: How was it — Joanna was a real baby when you started, as you said. What was the workplace like? Tell me about that, what the workplace was like, because that is so much — led to so many things for you.

Laura: So I'll start with the positive, which is my closest coworker had a kid about six months after I started. And so we sat next — we shared an office for a while and then we sat next to each other and so like lots of use of "little girl," lots of "kid talk."

But then as it got to the kind of my boss level, anyone who had a kid, you did not hear of this child. Except for that one day where everyone brought their kids when camps were closed but school hadn't started and suddenly I'm like, "Everyone's got these kids! When did this happen?"

And there was also this sense of — part of the reason why I did that thing on LinkedIn is I was getting kind of lightly made fun of for me being — again, this is something I shouldn't have said and I don't generally say this, any future employers — but this job was not for me, whatever.

But at one point I shut my computer and said, "Well," it was a Friday, "I think I've sent enough emails to send my kid to college someday maybe, so I'm leaving." It was 4:30. And my boss heard it. She didn't have a kid and she sort of started making fun of me about that.

Jessica: Making fun of you like —?

Laura: The fact that I would talk about presence of child and being involved with child's life. And it got to the point where it became this sort of ribby joke, not just with her but with others as this sort of spread.

Jessica: What did they say? What did people say?

Laura: Well, here's the most significant example of that. The thing about podcasts is they're on demand. If you have breaking news, if you have a radio and a television network, that's where you can put the breaking news. But there was this period of time last summer where there was a bunch of trial coverage with the Ghislaine Maxwell case, for example.

And trial was out at a certain time, but then there would be like after-briefings, etc., and we were doing a twice-a-week trial podcast. There was some meeting, not essential meeting, certainly not essential for me to be waiting around in SoHo for like the hour and 15 it takes me to get back to where I live in Flatbush.

And I was like sitting at some round table — I don't remember why it was round, I just remember thinking like I don't like round tables, I like a corner, that's separate issue — and waiting to be summoned for this meeting that like — the TV people don't want the podcast person there, I'm not going to be able to add anything, I don't need to be here.

And so I said to a new boss that I'd had, "You know, I haven't been home to see my daughter before she goes to sleep or before the process of coaxing her to go to sleep begins in like two weeks. Can I go home and take the meeting from there?" And this other person said to me, "Laura, I didn't know you were such a trad wife." Wow.

Now, it's a "wow" for two reasons. Number one, that's not what "trad wife" means. And I just sort of — I tucked that away. That was a little balm for me. Number two, it's like, I am so sorry, what year is this? And am I supposed to laugh? I just — it's just in that — and I was just kind of like, I think I said to that person, "I really got to drink some unpasteurized milk, so I'm going to go," and then I just left. Because again, I was just hoping someone would fire me. Not really, but kind of, so I wouldn't have to make the hard decision.

Jessica: I mean, that's a shocking and frankly disgusting thing, misogynistic thing to say.

Laura: It's disgusting, misogynistic, not funny, and illegal probably.

Jessica: Yes.

Laura: And wrong, like it's incorrect! From a fact-checking perspective, if you're going to insult someone you have to come like with the correct facts. Be precise, everybody, you're journalists. But yeah, no, I didn't like that.

Jessica: And was that kind of — so was that one of the final straws, I imagine, before you felt like — how, I guess, how did you decide? What was the moment that you said, "Okay, I am leaving this job. This does not work with other parts of my life"?

Laura: So a year before I successfully quit, I quit. And then my boss, not the "trad wife" person, someone else at the time, convinced me to stay. And we worked out sort of an arrangement where I would be able to take my daughter to OT and speech twice a week.

Jessica: At this point does she have a diagnosis or —?

Laura: No, she didn't have a diagnosis. But we'd gotten her an OT evaluation and the speech evaluation and we'd put her into private services with money I had made from previous life as a record executive. We don't need to get into that. Perfect.

We were throwing money that we probably should not have thrown at trying to figure what was going on.

Jessica: Because you're grasping! There's that point where it's like, "I will give anything, record executive salary and otherwise, to just figure out." And as you said earlier, there are these kind of squishy things and people have different opinions and it's like, "Can I buy an understanding?"

Laura: Yeah! Like yeah, "Can I buy a vowel?" Like let me buy anything! And it's funny because you're like, money doesn't exist — the concept of money doesn't exist anymore — because it was just going out the door.

Jessica: So when was the moment that you thought, "I am leaving"?

Laura: Well, so I kept lying to myself or attempting to about the job. Because I have this sense that I've since realized is just not going to be me, that "I'm a big girl now, work can exist over there and I can exist as a human here." And I tried to quit my job a year before, failed, and worked out the sort of unofficial schedule where I could spend more time with my daughter.

Then true crime all the time happened and "trad wife," etc., I was reading scripts about children getting murdered after my daughter went to sleep and I've like — I've done this to myself. It was like I was trying — it was like I was planting little seeds where I would have no choice.

And there was something about how stupid the "trad wife" insult was that like really was motivating where I was just like, "Okay cool, I got to leave." Then I made Halloween my last day as a little treat joke to myself. And then, yeah, I was like, "I guess we'll focus on kindergarten."

Jessica: And what was it like being home? How was that for you when you go from having this job that you're working a gazillion hours a day?

Laura: So it was interesting because she had sort of stopped or regressed a lot with expressive language, and she talked pretty early and was meeting all of those milestones, and then it sort of became this — she's kind of stopped and it seemed like she didn't — I don't know, I'm not in her brain — but like she wasn't asking, answering any of the W questions.

And this had been going on for a few months. And I'm not saying that this has to do with me being around more, but it just so happened that around the time that I was around more, she started talking again. And it was incredible.

So in addition to seeing her, I felt like I was able to see her and know her in a way that I was so desperate to for the almost a year that she wasn't able to express herself in the same way. And then I got to thinking of like, what would Joanna — what's going to be fun? Because like the playfulness is how I think most kids engage. I certainly am engaged with anything — it's got to be fun. And I figured, Joanna's generally down to clown, so let's try that.

(20:01) Using gossip to connect and rebuild communication skills

Laura: And so this is perhaps not good parenting, but it was effective in this point. At this point, I told her what gossip meant. And what I said was, "Gossip is when you get together with someone and you tell them what someone else did." And we had this routine that she would participate in like with her body but wouldn't really engage in verbally, where we in the mornings would — it was like a whole thing — I taught her to cross her arms, go like this.

And then I'd be like, "I have some gossip for you." And I would say things like, "Daddy, you'll never believe it. Ate a turkey sandwich yesterday." And she'd laugh. But it was a lot of like one-way gossip about Nona went to PetSmart.

Jessica: So you're showing her sharing and connecting.

Laura: And bringing in my love of shows such as "The Real Housewives," etc., to hopefully prime for future watching together.

Jessica: Plant the seeds.

Laura: I plant the seeds. But like with Joanna, there's this opportunity I get to just be — to just indulge in like the silly nonsense. We call — there's "Cat Theater," which are two elderly cats and our "one youth," as my daughter says, have very rich inner lives and jobs. And so there's ongoing stories that we talk about, like I get to do "Cat Theater."

And just other — like I'm setting up the Joanna Winter Olympics for when she gets home because we're trying to — she's been doing this run stim for years, but it's become — I get the sense that she's running for like two hours and I get the sense she's looking for something that she gets from it, but she's not getting it that effectively.

Jessica: Another sensory seeking —?

Laura: A sensory seeking thing. And so after doing some research thinking about it, I designed the Joanna Olympics, which is a — which is kind of an organized obstacle course involving her trampoline, jumping into the sectional of the bed, and then I have to race her up and down our small apartment hallway. And I'm excited about that because it will be fun, because she will be having a good time.

Jessica: And if she medals?

Laura: If she medals, right! And I don't like to lose.

Jessica: That was Laura Mayer, podcast executive, Olympic course-making mom. This may surprise you, but Laura went back to work less than six months after quitting her job at ABC. Where she ended up may not be as well known as her previous gig, but she gets to keep doing what she loves, making podcasts, and more importantly, her new job allows her to spend more time with her daughter.

It really resonated with me how Laura knew in her gut that something was going on, even at that two-year-old moving up ceremony. As I told her, I remember so clearly those moments of comparing my kid to other kids in her class, wondering why things were so different for her than for so many of her peers, and trying to hold my ground even as everyone around me told me I was overreacting. As Laura said, who am I, except the mother? Who are we? We're the parents, and more often than not, we know. See you next time.

Thanks for listening to "Everyone Gets a Juice Box." Our show is hosted by me, Jessica Shaw. It's produced by Cody Nelson, and video is produced by Calvin Knee and edited by Jesse DiMartino. Briana Berry is our production director, and Neal Drumming is our editorial director.

If you have any questions for us or ideas for future episodes, write me an email or send a voice memo to podcast@understood.org. This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.