Hitting the "Mommy Wall"

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-19-2003
Hitting the "Mommy Wall"
1585
Mon, 10-24-2005 - 11:19am

I am surprised that this actually comes as a surprise to women trying to re-enter the workforce after taking time off to SAH. *Anyone* taking a not-so-brief hiatus from their career should expect the same treatment IMO . . . you're not going to be able to pick up right where you left off.

BTW - "hi" everyone! I've missed it here! :)

Women raise kids, lose careers

By TENISHA MERCER
THE DETROIT NEWS

Veronica Golubovic spent more than 20 years on the runways of Paris, Italy and New York as a designer for some of the most powerful names in fashion -- Yves Saint Laurent, Donna Karan and Perry Ellis.

But it was a three-year gap on her resume -- the hiatus she took after the births of her two children -- that garnered the most attention from prospective employers four years ago when Golubovic tried to resume her career.

She hasn't forgotten one recruiter's look of discomfort when she explained she was a stay-at-home mom. Or the way a top official at a retailer dismissed her during an interview with, "Oh, so now you don't know if you want to be a stay-at-home mommy."

"I came here thinking I've done so much, but it was very difficult," said Golubovic, 45, who eventually opened a designer clothing store in Birmingham, Mich., earlier this year. "I didn't think people would be hung up on it, but it was shocking and surprising. I couldn't believe their reactions."

Thirty years after women began joining the work force in large numbers, many are hitting the "mommy wall" when they try to return to work after having children.

They find it difficult -- if not impossible -- to return to the same positions they left, according to a recent study by the Forte Foundation in New York and the Wharton Center for Leadership and Change at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Unprepared for the obstacles they face on their return, many opt out of traditional corporate jobs and move to smaller companies. Experts dub the trend the "female brain drain" and say the exodus is coming just as businesses need talented, experienced workers to fill the gap as baby boomers prepare to retire en masse, leaving the biggest labor shortage in history in their wake.

"This is a defining issue for women," said Monica McGrath, an assistant professor at Wharton, who spearheaded the study. "Women who leave as vice presidents are not coming back as vice presidents. Now is not the time for corporations to squander billions of dollars in talent and enthusiasm at their fingertips. This is a talent pool that organizations need. We have a voice at the table, and I would hate to see us lose that."

The study found that half of working mothers who returned to work felt discouraged by their employer. Eighty-three percent ended up accepting a comparable or lower-level position, while 61 percent changed industries. About 45 percent of the women surveyed started their own businesses, and 59 percent went to work at smaller companies. The study is based on interviews with 200 women, most of them with MBA degrees.

The results add more fuel to the debate about whether and how women can blend careers and family. Even as women are graduating from law, business and medical schools at almost the same rates as men, they find their careers shifting in very different directions from their male colleagues once they have children.

"They want to spend time with their children, and it can be very time-consuming," said New York-based Cindy Swensen, who coaches executive women on how to return to work after having children. "Volunteering at the bake sale is probably not going to help you re-enter the work force."

It's a strange phenomenon for a generation of women who were raised to break down barriers while "having it all" -- even if that meant delaying or postponing plans to have children to focus on their careers.

"We hear very few stories of people just stepping back in where they left off," said Joanne Brundage, executive director of Mothers & More, a Chicago-area support group for working women who postpone their careers to have children.

"Clearly, there is a price to be paid for not staying full-time, full-force in most professions," Brundage said. "I think women who are becoming mothers now have a different set of priorities than women did 15 to 20 years ago. Unfortunately, the message may change, but the environment stays the same."

It's a message Cynthia Aks wasn't prepared for. The first female surgeon to graduate from the residency program at Oakland General Hospital in Madison Heights, Mich., in 1990, Aks battled her share of discrimination from colleagues who didn't care to work with women surgeons, she said.

But after Aks, an emergency room surgeon, decided to have a family in her late 30s, she found it tough to regain the solid career footing she had before her triplets were born nearly 13 years ago. Forced to take seven months off for pregnancy complications, her contract was not renewed, she said, because the hospital didn't know how to deal with a female surgeon with children.

Aks resumed her career as a specialty surgeon, but at a huge cost: Her salary plummeted 60 percent.

"The perception is that you cannot juggle multiple hats effectively," said Aks, 49, who now owns a medical practice in Southgate, Mich. "I believe it's challenging, but you can. You can have high aspirations, be successful, have a family and still be involved. It's not equal for women, and I don't think it ever will be."

Southfield, Mich.-based accounting firm Plante & Moran offers tailored work arrangements such as seasonal work, telecommuting and contract employment to retain working mothers. The firm offers the options to management only.

"We want to accommodate people and their schedules," said Bill Bufe, partner and human resources director at the accounting firm. "We've had people who wanted to leave, but we wouldn't let them. We made things much more flexible for them and allowed them to continue to keep their toe in the water here and do what they needed to do in their family."

CHANGING FOCUS WHAT WOMEN CAN DO

WHAT WOMEN CAN DO

Tips for preparing to return to work:

Create a "re-entry" plan with specific goals

Foster a network for support while away from the work force

Volunteer while away and make sure that experience can be framed in business terms when you want to go back to work

Stay connected to colleagues

Maintain professional licenses and memberships and attend continuing education courses

Take classes to refresh knowledge and skills

Stay informed about the business implications of global and economic changes in your field

Secure contract work while away

Be realistic about how long it will take to re-enter the work force

Sources: Wharton Center for Leadership and Change, the Forte Foundation

CHANGING FOCUS

A survey of women returning to work after raising families found many shifted professional roles:

Accepted comparable or lower-level job: 83 percent

Changed industries: 61 percent

Changed functional role: 54 percent

Became self-employed: 45 percent

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-11-2005
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 7:42pm
omg! i can't believe i'm reading what you wrote again pnj.......would you consider it if *you* were paid for it.....paid time away from firm to be with sick child?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 8:07pm

I'm not really sure how Pnj can make that assumption-she has been fairly open with the fact that her dh does not contribute 50-50 to housework and childcare, and she has to really push to get him to do things in that regard.

dj

Dj

"Now when I need help, I look in the mirror" ~Kanye West~

Avatar for laurenmom2boys
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 8:08pm
No they're not.
Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 8:41pm
Ahhhh. I don't post here often enough to know that, but that certainly makes all this more ironic.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2004
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 8:44pm

There's sick, then there's SICK.


We've had months of more sick than not - going on at our home.

Mondo

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 10:03pm
Up until about 3 years ago, DH and I would have probably had to take off 10 days apiece to stay home with Peter when he had asthma related sick days.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 10:07pm

You have confused me again.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 10:11pm

"Your assumption seems to be that in families where both spouses have always worked, they split everything 50-50."


I work only 2.5 hours a week fewer than my DH and I make 47% of the total household earned income.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-20-2003
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 10:27pm

You know - I've been swamped and unable to visit until tonight - here I was preparing to respond to several of your responses to me, when I reached this one. Now I suppose I am too busy chuckling to do true justice to the responses....

So far, the summary of your responses appears to be (1) I agree with you whenever you say anything favorable about SAH parenting and (2) I immediately see a anti-SAH bias and 'agenda' whenever you say something favorable at WOH parenting. As my little sister would so elegantly put it, "What-Ever". Sure, the debate boards resound with posters that look for opportunities to opine withour requirement of rationale debate, but you're taking the whole paranoid, agenda-ridden, 'hey, let's use that feminism thing against them'stance a bit too far.

>>And you are who and in what postition to make such a judgement<<

Well, ummm, let's see.... Maybe I am the poster answering your little list of questions. The one where you asked for opinions. The one where you retroactively decided that you intentionally left the definition of context as an exercise for teh student. Yep - that would be me and my position.

As you point out - a person can look other places than work for intellectual challenge and discourse. But I don't think it is going to be surrounding these questions if this is the theme.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2000
Tue, 11-08-2005 - 10:41pm

Definitely the exception. I can also understand with an extended illness that the parent wouldn't necessarily want to be home the entire time if there was a nanny being paid to be there anyway. I'd probably want to stay home at least at the outset, when they are typically at their sickest point.

Patricia just had roseola a week ago. She had an extremely high temperature, and given my prior experience with two kids who had febrile seizures, I was really nervous she would have one also. She was also impossibly clingy and wanted to nurse all day long. I would not have felt comfortable going to work in that situation. Plus, I think, esp in my case, that when there is at least one other child in the home, it would be nice to have one person who can take care of the sick child, and another to either take the other child out of the house for most of the day, or at least, keep that child occupied and out of the hair of the one taking care of the sick child. That is how I would look at it in terms of paying the nanny - she wouldn't be getting a day off!

Pages