Why Leslie Cohen Is Putting Her Career on Pause Now

Leslie Cohen spent roughly two decades in Boston-area commercial real estate development and operations, eventually becoming chief operating officer. This summer, at 52, she stepped away from that career. Her sons are 21 and nearly 20: one is about to start his junior year of college, and the other is preparing to enter college.

Her earlier leave choices looked very different. With her first son, Cohen spread three months of paid leave across six months to stay involved in a major company transaction. She took three weeks off, then returned two days a week before adding days. Her second son was born 14 months later. After being told the company was short-staffed, she went back 10 days after giving birth, on a four-day schedule with a company-paid night nanny. She said that support was essential because the baby had colic and she could not have returned without sleep.

Her husband, now retired, was working as a dentist and teacher and did not take paternity leave, which Cohen said was not really available at the time. She now recalls a colleague with teenage children who worked part-time and said many people can hold a baby, but complex teenage problems are harder to hand off. Cohen sees her college-age sons as needing a listener and adviser more than ever.

She described a recent Wednesday after back-to-back eye appointments: she and her younger son sat in a nearby café for an hour and a half at 10:30 a.m. and talked about his feelings about starting college. Cohen plans to announce a more flexible next chapter soon. She said paid leave has broadened over 20 years, and she has implemented more progressive leave programs at her own workplaces.

The Leave Trade-Offs Behind Leslie Cohen's Decision

Why Early Leave Decisions Still Shape Mid-Career Choices

Cohen's two maternity leaves were negotiated, not simply taken. In both cases, she traded continuous time off for arrangements that protected her standing during a big deal or an understaffed period. That pattern helps explain why, two decades later, she frames a full pause as a different kind of trade: using accumulated professional standing to buy flexibility during her children's college years.

The Parenting Assumption Her Story Challenges

The essay pushes back on the idea that parental leave and hands-on support matter most when children are infants. For Cohen, infancy was the period she could partly cover with negotiated scheduling and a night nanny. The college transition, by contrast, involves emotional and practical questions that feel harder to schedule around a work calendar — a view she supports with her own café conversation rather than data.

What This Says About Workplace Flexibility

Cohen's account does not offer a broad study of leave policy, but it illustrates a persistent gap: formal paid leave can expand while day-to-day decisions still depend on staffing pressure, deal timing and individual negotiation. Her experience also shows how flexibility is often bought through specific concessions rather than guaranteed by policy alone.