Does Moral Ambition Have to Be All or Nothing?

This past week The School for Moral Ambition fellows celebrated a milestone at the fellowship summit in Amsterdam, where we graduated! The Summit was a wonderful celebration of the work and dedication of the last 7 months, as well as a reminder of the inspiration we felt when taking the plunge to apply for the fellowships. To commemorate the occasion, From the Field held a panel discussion on what it meant to take the leap into the fellowship. There, the conversation turned to the complexities of balancing multiple priorities and responsibilities, and two of us reflected upon finding a way into Moral Ambition as Mothers. How can it work to jump head first into activism and fighting for the cause when we can't give it all? 

With the new fellowship applications now open we thought this was a good time to reflect upon this question and the balancing act of wanting to turn moral ambition into action, but still be home for dinner. Below we share two personal stories of how this transpired- how we made it work, and what it meant to juggle moral ambition and motherhood.

Elizabeth: A Meaningful Portion

I thought the interview had gone well. Right up until the moment I told Marit, SMA's Tobacco Free Futures programme manager, that quitting my job and moving to Brussels was not something I could do. My husband and two children were here in Malawi, where I've lived for the past 13 years. The business I'd run with my husband for the last decade was here. My son was still young enough to need a double reading of his favourite "Six Dinner Sid" picture book before he could sleep. I assumed that was the end of my journey with SMA.

Then Marit's email arrived: "we really want you in our cohort, and would like to propose the following..." - laying out a plan for me to join the fellowship part-time and remotely from my home in Lilongwe.

I hadn't known that was possible. I'd been operating under the assumption that moral ambition required the kind of all-consuming commitment showcased in Rutger Bregman's book. Uprooting your life. Going all in. That it wasn't open to someone like me.

"Moral Ambition" had found me at a particular moment in life: my children had emerged from the intensive baby stage, I had reached a point of confidence and credibility in my career, and I could finally raise my head and wonder what was next. But applying for the fellowship had felt self-indulgent. With so many people relying on me, could I justify spending time and energy on an external cause? Marit's email was an answer I hadn't thought to look for: the fellowship wasn't just for people who could give it everything, but could bend around a life already full of commitments.

I wasn't alone. Several other fellows are also parents, navigating complex childcare arrangements to be there. There's solidarity in that, and a shared understanding that when you've worked hard to carve out the time to think, plan, and act, you make the most of it.

The fellowship itself has been an eye-opener. After years working in international development, I'd grown used to a particular view of the world's problems - close up, operational, local. The fellowship pulled me back to the wide angle: global challenges like the tobacco epidemic and the protein transition, the mechanics of how policy is negotiated inside the EU, and a cohort of colleagues whose commitment has been genuinely inspiring. It has given me space, rare in the relentlessness of daily work and parenting, to zoom out and think seriously about how to make a difference.

It hasn't been easy. Scaling down my existing work to make time for the fellowship has been challenging. After putting the children to bed in the evening, I'm often back at my desk, trying to stay on top of things, while my husband picks up the slack I've left behind. I've also missed much of the social side of the fellowship - the networking drinks in Brussels, the community dinners - and I haven't been able to join some of the great in-person learning opportunities, like an EU lobby tour or networking events with the SMA community. I usually feel like I can't give enough to any one part of my life.

But I've stopped expecting otherwise. In a world that often frames ambition as all-or-nothing, I've found something more useful: the knowledge that I can give a meaningful portion of myself to having a broader impact - as long as, more often than not, I'm home in time for a double reading of "Six Dinner Sid".

Rachel: A Balancing Act

I didn't expect it to go anywhere, but I had been feeling a bit stuck at work and applying for the fellowship gave me some renewed energy. It was almost one year since my son had been born, and I had been back to work full time for about 4 months. I was struggling to bounce back- the only mode I've ever known at work is full steam ahead, but now I had… well, less steam. 

Most importantly though, having my son made me look more critically at my time. My time with him felt precious and any time away from him felt hard to justify. Every day at work was a day not with my son. It didn't help that the period back at work was a particularly challenging one, I was spending a lot of my time doing work like grant writing or teaching executives rather than working on the problems which made me dedicate my career to academia in the first place. So when I saw the fellowship call, it spoke to me. 

I have dedicated myself to work which I believe in some way, whether directly or indirectly, makes a difference. It sounds cliche and corny, but it is for me an absolute truth; I have made a conscious effort to make sure I design my life in a way that I can dedicate myself to meaningful and fulfilling work, and so that if I'm not doing that, I can pivot. But, pivoting is hard. Stability is safety, and never more so than when you have a baby to care for. So when to my surprise I found out I had been selected as a fellow, the fears and doubts rushed in immediately. There was absolutely no way I could do this. I had just become a mother, this wasn't the time to be throwing everything away and chasing some selfish dream. 

I sent an email declining the fellowship and immediately the fellowship director Barend was like hey, wait a minute. What can you dedicate to? Maybe we can find another way… and another way we did. I was equally shocked when my job supported it - you mean there is a way to re-engineer my current role to have more impact? To gain new skills, a network, work on meaningful change and still keep my stability and career? Impossible. But Barend was steadfast in his creativity for workarounds, I felt valued before I had even begun, and the dedication to finding a way to include me gave me the courage to find a way to take the leap, even if the leap looked a little bit different than originally thought.

As I watched my son growing, I needed the time I spent away from him to be justified. I wanted to make him proud, and when he got old enough to ask me why are you going to work again mama? I could tell him with full confidence that I was working to make the world a better place. The fellowship let me dive back into the idealism that drew me to this work and finally land in the policy space I’d been angling for my whole career. Doing this while fighting professionally for something which had always been a quiet private fight, reducing the suffering of animals, makes me feel proud. Now when I kiss my son goodbye and hop on the train to Brussels, I get to tell him “Mama is going to go help the animals, I'll be home later”.

Take the leap

We hope sharing our stories inspires others to take the leap, even if they have doubts. If you have that inner voice calling you for something different, to redirect your focus towards an impactful career, you might be surprised at where taking the first step leads you. We also recognize our extremely privileged position, to have options and the ability to choose the type of work we do, to have support at home in place to enable us to balance. But one thing we have learned throughout this journey is that Moral Ambition doesn't have to be all or nothing. Working on morally ambitious causes, even part-time, renewed our energy, restored our purpose and made the time away feel worth it. Having children upped the ante on the need to do morally ambitious work, to pave the way for a better future, but it doesn't mean we still can't make it home for a second reading of a beloved bedtime story at night. 

If you are interested in applying for the new round of fellowships, you can do so here.