Mother’s Day took place on May 8, 2022, this year. Mothers and maternal figures play an integral role in all of our lives. The roots of Mother’s Day date to the early 1900s, when Anna Jarvis established Mother’s Day in 1908. It became an official holiday in 1914. Prior to this, there was the European tradition of “Mothering Sunday” on the fourth Sunday in Lent where people celebrated to their main “mother” church for a service.
In the United States, Mother’s Day has become commercialized by cards, restaurant specials, and gifts customized for the day. In Japan and Italy, mothers are given flowers; in Japan specifically, mothers are given white carnations. In the UK, the traditions are inspired by Mothering Sunday, and many churches distribute daffodils for children to give to their mothers. Regardless of how it is celebrated, Mother’s Day honors the mothers and maternal figures around the world for all their hard work in contributing to the growth of their children, whether they are their own biological children, foster children, adopted children, or others.
Dr. Naama Barnes-Goraly is a working mother, medical doctor, and founder of the Girltelligence app (www.girltelligence.com), which is available for free download on the App Store and Google Play is designed for girls and young women to talk about anything safely without being shamed, bullied, or judged. It also serves as a resource for girls and young women, where they can raise issues and discuss topics important to them. Dr. Barnes-Goraly says having a supportive community is one of the most important ways to improve the mental health and success of women and girls. I am honored to have been able to interview her.
Interview with Dr. Naama Barnes-Goraly, Founder of Girltelligence App
Can you tell me about your background?
I am an MD, and my clinical training is in child and adolescent psychiatry. I spent 15 years as a brain researcher at Stanford University, and these days I am the founder of a startup, Girltelligence.
What is your current position?
I am the founder of Girltelligence. It’s an app that is a safe and supportive community of self-identifying girls and women where they can talk about anything, get advice, access resources, and empower each other anonymously or not.
How has your career affected your ability to parent and vice versa?
My education and career experience happen to be directly related to parenting. I studied medicine, and a lot of psychology, child development, and parenting techniques as part of my training as a child and adolescent psychiatrist. I definitely feel that this knowledge helped me understand my own kids better and also allowed me to take things in perspective when things don’t go smoothly, as is bound to happen. I learned how to give parenting advice before I had kids, but I definitely feel that the experience of having children helped me better understand the parents of my patients. When it comes to Girltelligence, I am always aware that the app is for GenZ, and since this is not my generation, I recruited a very passionate advisory board to help us with development and all the decisions. In addition to the help of our amazing advisory board, I think it also helps that I am more aware of the challenges young people face because I have children and see how the world treats them.
What inspired you to create the Girltelligence app?
I created Girltelligence because growing up as a girl and later as a woman, some of my greatest sources of support and information were other women around me: friends and mentors. Nothing compares to getting support from others who understand your experience. I wanted to amplify this support and make it accessible on a larger scale so that every girl and woman has many thousands of “sisters” who can support her any time of day.
How has being a mother affected your career choices?
I don’t think motherhood has affected my career choices, but it’s hard to tell. I chose to study medicine, specialize in child and adolescent psychiatry, and go into brain research before I became a mother. I chose entrepreneurship because I wanted to build Girltelligence. When my children were younger I did try to minimize work-related travel as much as possible because both my husband and I work and it’s hard to do everything when one of us travels. It motivated me to think if a work trip is crucial or not. I probably would have traveled more for work if I didn’t have kids.
What advice would you give to young girls and women looking forward to parenting and a career?
I want to reflect on the fact that no one asks about advice people would give boys looking forward to parenting and having a career. It’s a given that men can have a career and a family with no issue. This is 2022, we should readjust our thinking. For families with two parents, kids are a shared joy as well as a shared responsibility, so the work-life balance should be shared too.
I would advise girls and women to first know that it is totally possible and very rewarding to have both a family and a career. I’d highly recommend finding a partner who sees you as an equal and shares 50% of the responsibilities. If you love kids and want to have kids it is seriously the best thing and I cannot imagine my life without them.
There is a lot of power in the community. It is very difficult to thrive in male-dominated fields and in the workplace in general, if you do not have a community that supports you. I suggest always finding other women, whether it is in your workplace or outside who you can connect and hear about their experiences. It’s almost impossible to navigate this on your own without support. Maybe in the future, as our audience gets older, we will expand Girltelligence so that it can provide that kind of support as well.
Words of wisdom?
We’ve been telling girls for decades that they can do anything, of course, they can, but we also need to help them deal with a world that may not be ready for them. Things are changing rapidly so I am hopeful for the future, but we need to continue with advocacy and visibility and to make sure every woman has the support she needs to thrive – that’s how we will eventually reach equality. No one can do this on her own. I think resources, inspiration, and a supportive community are crucial in this process.
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