A Priceless Birthday Gift for the "Enginerd" Mom

Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted by the author on her LinkedIn page. It has been slightly edited for context.

For my birthday this year, I received the most amazing gift from my 9-year-old daughter. It was a book where she filled out things she loved and appreciated about me. As I went through the book, it struck me that more than a few of the positive things she highlighted in my gift were tied to my engineering career, in one way or another.

Your job, to a varying degree and depending on the person, is often tied to you as a part of your identity. It’s common when you meet someone for the first time, one of the first things asked is “What do you do?” For those of you that know me personally, you know that I am a highly driven, ambitious person who has always been very passionate about working in the water and civil engineering field. Through the ups, downs, and hairpin turns in my career, I have always loved being an engineer.

Nine years ago, once I become a parent, my priorities changed. If I were being honest, I will admit it took some time to get my priorities balanced in the right way for our family. With a (demanding and colicky) newborn, I quickly realized how much of my identity had been tied to having a successful career as an engineer. More than I would like to admit, I had to step back and re-evaluate where I was spending my time and energy.

I am at a place in my life where I whole-heartedly can say that put my family first and my work-life balance is in check. But I think it is extremely important to show our families, children, and friends that it’s OK to work hard at something and be great at your career, as long as it doesn’t consume your life and identity. Of the 30 pages that my daughter filled out for my birthday book, two or three can directly be tied to my engineering career.

For me, that was an amazing confirmation that the choices I have made about work-life balance have landed me where I want to be.

While I want to keep many of my daughter’s kind and thoughtful responses private, here are the engineering career pages and a hilarious one that I am proud to share:

  • Because of you, I believe I can BUILD (#3 in photo above). (Let your kids, safely and with supervision, use power tools! Let them help you with home projects and explore building on their own!)

  • If I had to describe you in one word, it would be COOL-ISH (#24 in photo above). (Enginerd all the way! The honesty of kids is amazing and this one made me laugh out loud!)

  • You’re the most incredible ENGINEER in the world (#29 in the photo above). (My heart melts that she’s proud of her engineering mom)


About the Author: Lindsay Swain, P.E., is a water manager at Meta and on the American Society of Civil Engineers Board of Directors.