Shay Chan Hodges

Lean On and Lead, Mothering and Work in the 21st Century Economy, is a multi-layered, interactive, and robust collection of first person narratives that provide a deep and personal portrayal of what it takes to significantly participate in the 21st century economy while raising children.

By including over thirty candid interviews with working women, mothers, and fathers from around the world, and integrating embedded widgets in the Apple iBooks platform, Lean On and Lead addresses the personal, economic, and cultural issues that impact parents. The interactive ebook includes perspectives from women and parents working in a variety of fields, and includes medical and health care professionals, media executives, educators from middle school through college, an attorney, a software CEO, a transit worker, a venture capitalist, engineers, an inventor, women in biotech and renewable energy, the managing director of a social venture startup, a union organizer, a campus abstinence advocate, a student/entrepreneur, and elected officials.

Lean On and Lead (1.2) also introduces Family-Centered Design (SM) -- a conceptual framework for designing as much of our society and economy as possible around the real needs of families like those whose stories are told in the ebook. Author Chan Hodges is working to apply Family-Centered Design thinking to the reshaping of institutions, companies, services, products, infrastructures and education to fit the needs of the family rather than the other way around.

Interview Excerpts:

“I have been very fortunate. I didn’t ask about maternity benefits or part-time work or if any other accommodations might be possible when I first got hired. I was twenty-eight years old and I knew that I wanted to have children in the not-too-distant future, but it wasn’t something that I asked about...at some level, it may have been in the back of my mind that this would not be something that would be very helpful to bring up in a job interview." -- Rebecca, Attorney

Stories are complemented by more than one hundred interactive widgets and links, including slideshows, interactive graphics, charts, video interviews, current economic studies, and information on ongoing legislation.