On the day I dropped out of architecture school, just a few weeks shy of completing my second year, my professor turned to me with a knowing look and said: “I think it’s for the best. This is not a career that is particularly kind to women.” Those words have rung in my ears ever since. Initially, they offered a sense of comfort. At least I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t hack it. As time went on, my relief turned to resentment. The year was 2016 — was this seriously still the standard of treatment we were willing to accept in architecture, let alone any industry?
Like it or not, there is still an element of truth to this statement. Just 37.9 per cent of Canadian architects are women, and they continue to drop out of architectural education, and the profession, in disproportionate numbers. Whether because of unequal pay, slower rates of promotion, or the field’s notoriously problematic work culture, the reasons for doing so are numerous. Chief among them is the fact that the demands of this career path have historically been at odds with the equally onerous pursuit of becoming a parent.
Yet, nearly a decade later, the state of the profession gives me cause for optimism. The burgeoning architectural labour movement has opened an unprecedented dialogue about a variety of issues, and I have watched in amazement as women have broken through barriers I never imagined possible, paving the way for lasting change. One of them is Stephanie Hosein. Last fall, I stumbled across a post on LinkedIn and was taken by her candour: “As a woman in architecture, I felt I had to push off parenthood. I was determined to establish myself, or prove my worth, knowing that I would ‘lose’ a year to maternity leave. I’ve learned a lot on the path to parenthood. The impact on health, wellness and finances that can accompany the decision to become a parent are significant and are still taboo to discuss openly. Every step can bring immense challenges, and open dialogue can be invaluable,” she wrote. Her words accompanied an important announcement: Omar Gandhi Architects, the firm where she is an associate, had implemented a parental leave top-up program.
When Hosein got pregnant back in 2023, she began to worry about the financial implications of her impending maternity leave. “In Toronto, two salaries might not even be enough these days. The sort of thing I’d heard from female colleagues who had kids was like, ‘How much did you go into debt that first year?’” she tells me. She wanted to learn about the supports other firms were offering, but the information wasn’t easily accessible. So, over the course of a few months, she reached out to a handful of her connections, many formed through her involvement in Building Equity in Architecture Toronto (BEAT), which she helped co-found in 2016. She compiled the results — whether a top-up was offered, the percentage and for how long — in a master Google doc. Of the 17 firms Hosein reached out to, nine had some form of top-up, ranging from one or two weeks up to six months.
She approached Gandhi with an ask for the industry average, which she estimated to be 12 weeks, paid at 80 to 100 per cent of one’s income. “We were a young company and, at the time, I was the second woman to take a mat leave,” she recalls. “Knowing that we didn’t have a policy in place for somebody who had recently come back, I felt a lot of guilt.” Gandhi countered with 40 weeks at 70 per cent — and back-paid the employee who had recently returned. Hosein was floored: “It was so far and above and beyond what I had imagined.”
For Gandhi, the decision was a no-brainer. “I saw it as an opportunity,” he tells me. “It’s one thing to suggest that you’re promoting women in the profession, but you have to actually do it — by putting people in positions of power in the practice and supporting them over the long haul. I’m really hard on myself in terms of doing what you say and saying what you do.”
When Hosein approached her peers about their parental leave policies, she was disheartened by how many were nervous to share that information. She and Gandhi both saw the potential of their platform to promote more transparency. “In some ways, it’s inspiring others to take this on, and maybe in other ways, it’s pressuring people to make these changes. Regardless, we thought that was a positive thing,” Gandhi says. “If people go to their employers and say, well, Omar’s practice is doing it, that causes a bit of friction, but it forces people to have those discussions, and I’m okay to be the bad guy in that scenario.”
But how can a small firm, many of which already skate by on razor-thin margins, make a parental leave top-up work financially? Gandhi attests that it just became the cost of doing business: “I’m not focused on the nickels and dimes of the company, that’s not really how our practice works. It’s just a new monthly cost and you need to adjust things, whether it means bringing in a little bit more work or lowering your overhead in other ways. If you’re that close to the line financially, you’re that close to not having a business at all.”
In the US, a lack of universal maternity benefits puts the onus on employers to provide support. For Je Siqueira, a Project Architect at Bernheimer Architecture, the first private sector firm to unionize in decades, this has meant drastically different standards at different places of employment. “Back when I was working at SHoP, during the unionizing process, I was pregnant but still working crazy hours,” she tells me. “When I had my son, I took two months of maternity leave and spread the rest out over several weeks so that I could avoid getting a nanny as much as possible. When I got laid off, they didn’t care that I still had maternity leave to use. It didn’t matter to them that I had a baby to take care of.” When she joined Bernheimer, she wanted to ensure she never found herself in such a precarious situation again.
In addition to implementing just cause protections that safeguard against layoffs, the union was able to negotiate 13 weeks of paid family leave per year, which can be taken all at once or broken up into increments, plus six weeks of disability leave for the birthing parent’s recovery (A new state law also entitles workers to 20 hours of paid time for prenatal visits, including fertility treatments). This is supplemented by robust PTO, including wellness days, which allow time off to take care of family — especially helpful when viruses run rampant through daycare. The total package still amounts to far less than what is offered in Canada and much of Europe. Siqueira admits that it isn’t enough, but considering the industry standard in the US, the bargaining unit was pleased.
Of course, supporting mothers in the workplace cannot start and end with maternity leave. The transition back to work can often be the most challenging part of the process — something Timea Jakab, Studio Director of Gensler’s Toronto office, learned first-hand after having her first child. “When you come back after maternity leave, you feel fundamentally different,” she explains. “You’ve also been at a pace of not being around people all day, not being in business casual wear for eight hours a day, and your brain is frankly not on and clicked in. So, when you come back, people are like, Great, we’re so happy to see you — here’s a project. And you’re like, Oh, but I don’t remember how to log in. I don’t remember my employee ID.’” While this experience is not unique to the field of architecture, the long-term nature of projects means that while you may technically return to the same project, it may have changed significantly in your absence. The learning curve to get back up to speed can be steep.
After taking some time to reflect on her experience, Jakab reached out to Gensler’s office manager about implementing a system to help mothers reintegrate into the workspace. To her surprise, when she returned from her second maternity leave a few years later, things were much the same. So, she requested another meeting. “Our office manager was like, those things are actually super easy to implement — it was almost like table stakes of things we could be doing,” she tells me. Now, support begins the moment an employee announces their pregnancy, with a one-pager that explains the required government paperwork to claim maternity benefits (The company’s Canadian offices also offer a top-up of 55 per cent for up to 40 weeks, or 33 per cent for up to 69 weeks, to be shared between both parents if desired).
The reintroduction program starts with a welcome-back email, much like one that would introduce a new employee to the rest of the team. Then, the employee meets with the studio coordinator to walk through housekeeping tasks (where do I save my time sheets again?) and introduce them to new team members. It seems basic, but this simple act of reorientation signals that new mothers shouldn’t be expected to seamlessly pick up right where they left off. Even with these systems in place, learning to navigate the balance between career and parenthood can be isolating. With that in mind, Gensler built a community called G Parents, where people from various departments and studios meet for a casual lunch every other month — and have a Teams chat where they share everything from swim lesson signups to March Break programming. Still, Jakab acknowledges that they could always be doing more.
At OG Architects, a firm approximately a tenth the size of Gensler’s Toronto office, supporting new moms doesn’t necessarily require a written policy. Instead, it’s about leading with empathy and flexibility, treating employees as people first, and workers second — even while they are on leave. “The communication I had with Omar when I was on mat leave was not about work. It was him checking in on me and my son. That reinforced that I’m in the right place with the right group of people,” says Hosein.
“I care a lot about the people in my studio. Ultimately, you want people to stay and grow with the practice and enjoy their day-to-day, because their best work is produced in that environment,” says Gandhi. “Whether someone has to leave early or shuffle down to four days for a little while, I say yes to everything because I know the kind of personalities that work here. They’re going to be harder on themselves than I ever could be.”
For Hosein, and other employees, that trust has made all the difference. “People stick around at the company. There are a lot of parents now at the studio — at least half of our team have kids. That’s not just a result of Omar’s support, but the support of other team members. People were here to pick up work for me when I was out and I think that support has been equally important for them,” she explains.
Many employers treat the act of going on maternity leave as an inconvenience to the business. And yet, this completely disregards the breadth of skills and insights women develop during this time. Many attest that they return better architects than when they left. “It’s highlighted the importance of accessibility and given me new empathy for parents and other user groups,” Hosein explains. “When you’re out in public with a screaming baby and there’s nowhere to nurse him — it’s just like, Oh my gosh. How does this world not exist in a way that better supports parents?” And why would it? The lack of consideration for parents in the design of the built environment is a direct reflection of the industry’s support (or lack thereof) for mothers. While it would be easy to write this off as a natural consequence of the field’s demographic makeup, designing with parents in mind is a blind spot even for child-free female practitioners. After all, until you carry a stroller up a flight of stairs or change a baby on the bathroom floor, it is difficult to comprehend the barriers parents face in simply trying to live their lives.
Maternity leave doesn’t just make women more thoughtful designers — caring for small children also affords them an opportunity to hone critical leadership skills every single day. “The way I parent is reflected in how I lead and support my team,” says Jakab. “If someone needs to vent to you, just let them vent, validate the feeling, and then ask, Can I help you in this? Like TikTok parenting tips, how ever Dr. Becky would tell you to talk to children, you realize that this is actually relevant for anybody — it’s just how people like to be communicated with.” Whether we recognize these traits as leadership skills in a traditional sense, patience and empathy are virtues that have been largely missing in architectural work culture, where tough love is commonly used as a means of motivation. A more nurturing approach to management would be welcome by many, but in order to get there, women need a precedent to look towards. When asked about their female role models when coming up in the field, Hosein, Jakab and Siqueira could count those with children on one hand. Those who had kids were predominantly sole practitioners because this afforded them the flexibility required during the child-rearing years.
This will never change unless we address the barriers, both industry and structural, to balancing career and motherhood. In Ontario, for instance, the way the OAA approaches maternity leave, and leaves of absence in general, needs a rethink. “You’re only technically allowed to take two leaves of absence, so if you choose to have three kids, you need explicit permission,” Jakab tells me. Not only do architects need to pay a nominal fee and complete Con Ed hours while on parental leave, they also need to provide a definitive timeline for their return to work, which can be challenging for first-time moms. “There’s also certainly a lot of conversation that has to happen around the fact that we get licensed and start our careers during our ideal baby-making years. Those things are fundamentally at odds, and I don’t think that will really change. But how can we set up a better system to support that?” asks Jakab. It starts with ensuring that paid paternity leave and affordable and accessible daycare become the norm. After all, when the monthly cost of childcare nears that of one’s salary, the cost-benefit analysis of working long hours, often with unpaid overtime, rarely pans out in favour of remaining in the workforce.
The good news is that it’s relatively easy to provide the support that women are asking for. Siqueira cited Bernheimer’s work-from-home policy as a godsend, having allowed her to be close to her child during the early days of parenting. “It’s the best thing that you can do to help new mothers. Sometimes, I was breastfeeding while in a meeting. I don’t recommend it, but it had to happen, unfortunately, because we don’t have 12 months off,” she tells me. She also notes that having a private space to pump can go a long way to make offices more accessible, especially in the US where many moms return to work only a few weeks after giving birth.
Both Gensler and OG Architects operate primarily out of the office, but work from home can be accommodated on an as-needed basis, such as when caring for sick children. Both Jakab and Hosein agreed that having flexibility on one’s return date, including the option to return part-time, can be vital in helping moms transition back to work. This requires women to advocate for themselves, and for employers to foster an environment where open and honest communication is welcomed. “That discussion might feel taboo, but I think if more people do it, it’ll feel more commonplace — like top-ups, which are now becoming more and more part of the dialogue, but five years ago, they weren’t in our industry,” says Jakab. Hosein adds that while she wasn’t prepared to do so, it is important that women are given the option to work while on maternity leave should they wish to. (Canada’s EI system effectively penalizes mothers for working part-time by reducing eligibility for parental leave benefits based on the amount of income earned.)
So, can women in architecture really have it all? With the right support, balancing both career and motherhood is challenging, but possible. To do so, we first need to create opportunities for women to engage with community during the isolating postpartum period. “I tried to get out to industry events when I could, which was really helpful to stay connected, to get out of the house and remember that there is an architecture side of me, and not just a young parent side of me who’s not getting any sleep,” says Hosein.
Returning to work may also require an adjustment of expectations. While the industry as a whole needs to place less value on hours worked, and more value on the unique contributions their employees bring to the table, women also need to recognize that the decision to become a parent entails a degree of sacrifice. “It’s okay to be a bit conflicted about starting a family right before you’ve maybe thought you’re going to get that promotion,” says Jakab. “When you take a step back, I promise you won’t notice that these goals you had took two years longer — because they will. On maternity leave, it clicked for me that my ambition was not tied to not having a child.” Over time, Jakab has learned to make her schedule work for her, taking meetings over lunch and opting out of breakfasts or after-work drinks, enabling her to spend more time with her children.
Ensuring mothers are nurtured in the workforce is not just a woman’s problem. It is a shared responsibility that requires empathetic employers, and open dialogue. “I would encourage people to reach out to us, we’re happy to share whatever we’ve learned through this process. But us being in architecture is the least relevant aspect of this issue,” says Gandhi. “This discussion is happening in all professions. I think that there’s a push to change the culture, and it’s long overdue.”
We owe it to everyone, not just women, to create a more inclusive work environment for mothers in architecture — because a more supportive culture means more diverse perspectives that lead to better and more inclusive buildings, and we all stand to benefit from a public realm built on empathy. What might our world look like if it were designed with the care and tenderness only a mother can provide? I’d like to find out.
The post Parenthood to Practice: Building a Better Future for Mothers in Architecture appeared first on Azure Magazine.