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: 08-27-2005
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:02am

Because people are nearly always contagious for at least 24-48 hours before symptoms appear. Unless a parent is psychic, it often happens that a child is sent to school/dc while contagious but not yet apparently ill.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2005
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:04am

Away from their own beds rooms and "toys?" That's quite surprising.

So, are you saying the majority of children would actually prefer to be with grandparents when sick then with their mother? Otherwise, I don't know why you (or Lauren) bothered to raise the issue.




Edited 11/9/2005 11:05 am ET by tinderbox3
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2000
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:07am

You do realize that with most illnesses, a child is contagious before he/she actually shows signs that he/she is sick?

I know there are people who send their kids to daycare and school sick (I think I mentioned here about my pediatrician friend who took her son to daycare just minutes after he puked in the sink b/c she couldn't take the day off). But that doesn't mean that the majority of illnesses that children catch are from kids whose parents sent them to daycare.

My 8 m/o just had roseola. I'm certain she caught it at the gym daycare. She had been at the gym daycare for the four days leading up to the day I noticed her fever. I didn't realize she had a fever until late in the afternoon that Friday, just hours after we spent the morning at my son's preschool Halloween party. I figured it was a passing bug, and just kept her home for the next three days. When she wasn't better that Monday, I took her to the ped thinking she might have an ear infection. When I undressed her, we both noticed the rash and he immediately realized it was roseola. He told me that she was no longer contagious, and that the most contagious part was before she even came down with the fever. So I'm sure I unknowingly exposed some kids at the gym daycare, and did tell the workers the next time I went back. And I never would have knowingly taken her there had I known she was about to be sick.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2005
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:07am
So as soon as symptoms appear, all parents using dc are able to keep their children home? That's great.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-27-2005
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:08am

If one parent has a ton of sick leave available for use for when children are sick and the other parent has to take vacation/PTO to care for a sick child it seems pretty logical to me that the parent with the sick leave covers most of the sick child issues. That leaves more vacation time for the whole family to enjoy each other. I never had an issue with dh staying at home with sick kids, nor did they. Is caring for a sick child really supposed to be exclusively the mother's job?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2005
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:10am

Like I said, I have TPTB on my mind!

<>

Why would I even care and why waste a moment of time on something that isn't even an issue?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-27-2005
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:15am

I've heard rumours about "covering up the symptoms" but I've never actually seen it happen. The rare occasions when a stomach bug swept through the dc (the kind that hits very suddenly with no pre-warning in the way of fever or other symptoms), the kids were immediately isolated, the parents called and the children picked up within a half-hour or so. Many cold viruses are actually more contagious pre-symptom than when a child is clearly sick. In Sweden, at least, leave for care of sick children is so generous that I've simply never heard of anyone leaving a sick kid in dc/school.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2005
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:16am

Whaaa? Have you read any of my posts? You don't think I have a rather bloated ego? LOL.

No, self-perception or defining myself and my personal worth or image hasn't been an issue since I was a teen.

<> It's not a sacrifice. It's a fact. A sahm's brain turns to oatmeal during those months when sleep-deprived and having little free time. It all comes back though. What's the big deal? Why do you even suggest sacrifice is involved? Weren't you sleep-deprived and limited in your free time for a few months??

Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:16am

I would never "force the issue" by requiring my infant to go three days without fluids. I wouldn't risk my child's physical or emotional health that way.

Childcare costs are certainly an issue for part-timers with babies and toddlers. That's another logistical advantage to waiting until the kids are in school. When I went back, my older dd was in school all day, and my younger dd was in preschool, so I only had to pay for one child on a pt basis. Now that they are both in school, I don't have any childcare costs. My mom watches them for me after school two days a week, but if she weren't able to do that, I could hire a babysitter or use the afterschool program for a fraction of what childcare would have cost when my kids were little.

Yes, our approach to parenting sounds very different.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-20-2003
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:22am

You clipped judiciously, as you left out the immediate next sentence which reads:
'This has little (I think) about the value I place on SAH parent or how hard their job is (it scares the heck out of me - I doubt I am up to the task).'

Grammar mistakes at midnight aside (it should have said this has little TO DO WITH the value I place on SAH parentS...), I made it fairly clear that my perspective on 'equality' in the marriage was different for 'outside looking in' on other people, versus my own marriage. I do not think couples who decide that one should SAH *should* see that person as unequal, nor do I think my DH would view me that way, nor would I view him that way. But if I did SAH, I would struggle personally because of the intensity of my desire to have financial independence.

Perhaps it has its roots in my own upbringing - my mother was a divorced single parent after being out of the work force for nearly 25 years (I was a late in life baby and she was single with a 7 year old and a 21 year old.) She had no job experience, few skills, and we struggled - a lot. I also watched her make some poor choices about relationships primarily so she could get someone else to contribute to family incomes. I think that drove me to be almost pathological about wanting financial independence. I have no intention of divorce, it's not even something I ever fear, but I cannot *not* feel as though I could support my family on my income alone at the drop of the hat. I have no issue at ALL with others who do not feel the same way. But it would keep me up at night.

Pages