Care, Education, and Equity: Jan Tinetti’s Vision for Working Families

Despite progress in workplace policy, modern mothers still face a pervasive culture that minimises their professional capabilities, limits career progression, and leaves them carrying the default parenting load.

The systemic barriers facing working parents aren't just financial, they're deeply embedded in cultural expectations of who does the caring.

In this episode, Emma is joined by former Minister for Women and current Labour MP Hon Jan Tinetti. Drawing from her personal journey as a school principal, cancer survivor, and mother navigating high-pressure careers while supporting a sick partner, Jan offers a raw, lived perspective on the stigma attached to working mothers.

She and Emma explore how central government can lead systemic change, why the first 2,000 days of a child's life should be the ultimate focal point for public investment, and why early childhood education must be treated as a transparent public good rather than a corporate profit engine.

Emma and Jan unpack what it takes to shift society's perception of caregiving, the necessity of paid partner leave, and how community-led initiatives are already leading the way.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• The Stigma of the Working Mother: Jan shares her powerful personal experience of community pushback while working as a principal during a family health crisis.
• Disrupting Default Roles: How shifting primary caregiving responsibilities to partners challenges entrenched gender stereotypes (and the social friction that comes with it).
• Rethinking Early Childhood Education: Why transparency in ECE funding matters, and how to balance affordability, quality, and public investment.
• The Family Hub Model: Looking to international examples like the UK to build wraparound support systems for parents from maternity onward.
• Community-Led Solutions: Highlighting local initiatives like Safari Playgroups in Auckland that empower migrant and refugee mothers through connection, education, and belonging.
• The Magic Wand System Lever: Reorganising government funding and social strategy around the first 2,000 days of a child's life to support both the child and the parent.

Community Feature: Learn more about the work of Safari Playgroups in Henderson, supporting migrant and refugee mothers in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland: https://www.belong.org.nz/safari-playgroups-1

Connect with Emma

This podcast was funded and created by Emma Mclean, the founder of Works for Everyone. Emma Mclean is a mum of three and founder of Works for Everyone, a professional development business that partners with NZ's leading corporates to help them retain and grow their working parent talent. She does this through innovative leadership programmes, executive coaching and keynote speaking. She founded her business in 2019 following a 20-year career in corporate strategy where she experienced first-hand how hard it was to have a career and a family. As an impatient optimist when it comes to system change, she launched her successful podcast "How to Smash the Motherhood Penalty" in 2023 where she talks to humans who are actively working to change the system that creates financial penalties that only mothers pay. And in 2024 she launched the first NZ Part Time Power List, to shine a light on those senior roles in NZ that are career building, not side stepping.

To work with Emma or enquire about speaking: emma@worksforeveryone.co.nz

www.worksforeveryone.co.nz

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