ThirdPath Institute

ThirdPath Institute "We really shouldn't have to choose between career aspirations and family aspirations. There's no one way to do this!

We need to continue to push for more flexible organizations, supportive public policy, and progressive conversations at home."—Jessica DeGroot This page is for anyone looking for a "third path" to create time for work and for life: for rewarding careers, for family, and/or for other personal pursuits. Too often we imagine an "either-or" scenario: Either we work and outsource more care than we'd li

ke—for children or other loved ones, or we sharply divide the labor of childcare and outside employment between two partners. ThirdPath is interested in re-inventing the standard ways we structure time: for work, for family, for life. This space isn't for deciding a parenting/professional ideal. It's meant for generating ideas, rethinking assumptions, sharing information about how to spend our time that's most in line with our values. If you have discovered a solution that works for you then please let us know. We would love to hear your story and maybe share your wisdom with the wider ThirdPath community.

After listening to “Work-Life Integration for Diverse Families,” reflect on this: where does your workplace still assume...
06/04/2026

After listening to “Work-Life Integration for Diverse Families,” reflect on this: where does your workplace still assume one kind of family, one kind of schedule, or one kind of caregiver? Real inclusion shows up in the details: leave policies, meeting times, benefits, flexibility, language, and who gets believed when they say, “I need support.”

What would change if every family structure was treated as real from the start?

Throwback Thursday with Taking Your Third Path: “Work-Life Integration for Diverse Families.” This conversation highligh...
06/04/2026

Throwback Thursday with Taking Your Third Path: “Work-Life Integration for Diverse Families.” This conversation highlights how work-life integration looks different across LGBTQ+ families, single parents, multigenerational households, and other real-life caregiving structures. The core message still matters: support systems should be designed around the lives people actually live.

Listen or watch here: https://lnkd.in/eqdt56A8

06/03/2026

The summer plan you made in May may already need editing in June. That does not mean you failed. It means real life arrived with more variables than the spreadsheet could hold. Work-life integration is not about creating the perfect plan and protecting it at all costs. It is about noticing what is not working, naming the pressure, and redesigning with care.

What has already shifted in your summer plan?

06/02/2026

The first week of June is a good time to stop asking, “Do we have a summer plan?” and start asking, “Is the plan actually working?” A ThirdPath approach treats summer logistics as a shared system, not a private burden. Check transportation, meals, work coverage, downtime, screen time, and backup care. Then ask: what needs to be adjusted before resentment builds?

Save this as a midweek reset for your home or team.

06/01/2026

Pride Month reminds us that families have always been more expansive than narrow definitions allow. Care happens in q***r families, single-parent families, chosen families, multigenerational homes, co-parenting arrangements, kinship networks, and communities of support. Work-life integration must be designed for all of us, not just for one family model.

This month, let’s ask a better question: whose care is being recognized, supported, and protected?

05/29/2026

May asked a lot. What did you learn about your capacity, your needs, and your systems? And what will you take into June?

05/27/2026

What happens when one parent becomes the “flexible one” by default?

The one who always adjusts?
The one who always leaves work early?
The one who tracks the appointments, the school forms, the sick days, the shifting schedules, the invisible details.

At first, it may feel like the arrangement is working…until flexibility starts to become a strain and capacity runs out. Then resentment quietly enters the room.

In our May episode of Taking Your Third Path, Jessica talks with Kate Mangino, author of Equal Partners, about one-parent-flex families, greedy jobs, shared care, communication, and what it takes to build a more sustainable approach to work and family.

This conversation is for parents, partners, managers, and anyone who has ever wondered:

How do we make work and family feel less like one person is holding it all together?

Burnout is not just about too much work. It's about too little support.It's what happens when people are asked to keep s...
05/27/2026

Burnout is not just about too much work. It's about too little support.

It's what happens when people are asked to keep showing up, producing, caregiving, leading, parenting, managing, and holding everything together without enough room to be human.

At ThirdPath, we believe well-being cannot depend on individual endurance alone. It has to be built into the way we work, the way we lead, and the way we care for one another.

Because when the only answer to burnout is “try harder,” we have already missed the point.

People do not need more pressure to be resilient.
They need workplaces, families, teams, and communities that make resilience possible.

So today, ask yourself:

Where are people carrying too much alone?
Where could support be made visible, practical, and shared?
Where can we stop treating exhaustion as normal?

Work-life integration begins when we stop asking people to survive broken systems and start building systems that support whole lives.

Join us in reimagining work, care, and well-being for everyone.

Making time is not about finding it.It is about choosing it.We often talk about time as if it were hiding somewhere. As ...
05/26/2026

Making time is not about finding it.
It is about choosing it.

We often talk about time as if it were hiding somewhere. As if one day we will finally “find the time” for rest, caregiving, connection, movement, reflection, or the work that matters most.

But time is shaped by choices. And in organizations, those choices are shaped by culture. When leaders treat every meeting as urgent, every email as immediate, and every calendar as endlessly available, people learn that their lives come second.

But when leaders model protected time, transparent priorities, real flexibility, and respect for caregiving, they create something different.

They create permission.

Work-life integration does not happen because people magically become better at time management. It happens when individuals, teams, and organizations make intentional choices about what matters, what can wait, and what deserves space.

Making time is leadership.
Making time is culture.
Making time is care in action.

05/25/2026

Today, let's pause. Not just for remembrance, but for reflection on what matters. What do we want our time to stand for?

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