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

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Avatar for laurenmom2boys
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 6:38pm

<> I don't buy that. When people are trying to insult WOH, it's the old "I'm doing it for the kids, not for myself" line. I know many SAHs that do it for themselves. And when you say your SAH has helped your kids "bond," you really don't know how they would have bonded had you WOH.

I just have to laugh if anyone here thinks WOH is all about SOL and material posessions. But, again, that's what I consider a militant SAHM response and that one surely won't die because of anything I say.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 6:51pm

"Are those WOHMS really 100% committed to working, or do they need to work, or are they conflicted or waffling?" I think I have friends in all of those categories. Most have made their peace with WOH, though, or so I thought. I figure unless they are my very close friends, I might not know that information.

"I'm not honestly sure what Peter's chronic asthma has to do with my attitude." What I get out of it is that if you have a child who has needed to be cared for more when sick more than is usual, you may develop an attitude of "Let's do what needs to be done" and be far less emotional about it. I have pretty healthy kids and to see my children unhealthy is such a shock and so emotional, I can't really detach enough to see how it would be a good idea to let someone else take over. (My kids ask for me when they are sick, hurt, have a bad dream, or are otherwise miserable.) I am thinking of a friend of mine who never left the hospital once when her three year old was going through chemo the first time. She met parents who were such old hats at the hospital thing, they just checked in once a day for a visit and went back to their regular lives the rest of the time. It was unimaginable for my friend in the beginning but she started to understand it as time went on.

"Like what?" I have to say it never occured to me that people with nannies didn't take the day off work to stay home with a sick child, at least for one day or the first day of an illness when a child is young. (I'm assuming there aren't that many people in the world living the life of Eloise.) I must have thought you'd stay home with the child and send the nanny out to do some errands or give her a half day off. There are other things I can think of that I would feel would be things a parent would prefer to do with a child rather than have the nanny do. Like attend a sports try-out, attend a major competition, drop off at a special party, catch the bus on the first day of school, attend a first swimming lesson, skating lesson, Cub Scout meeting, etc. In our suburbs there is a way to "outsource" just about anything you can think of with a child--from playing catch to teaching sewing and cooking and good manners to tutoring and homework. It happens to be a sort of trend right now, I suppose, since time is at such a premium for many parents. I think it makes the definition of parenting kind of tricky. If you WOH to provide sewing lessons, tutoring, and a nanny to read stories at bedtime and tuck the kids in, is that parenting or parenting by proxy or is it not parenting at all?

Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 7:26pm

Yes, I did. My dh tried, my mil tried, and my sister tried--many, many times. I wasn't even home when they tried to bottle-feed her.

There are some babies who just won't take a bottle once they've been breastfed. My second child was one of them.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2004
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 9:08pm

My ds was 16 at the time and I'm sure he could have made a phone call if he had been home alone. Could he have handled it if he was 12 or 13 or 14, I'm not so sure. Illness, fevers in particular, often progress very quickly in children. I would not leave a child younger than 15 or 16, depending on their maturity level, home alone when they are ill.

Robin

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 9:22pm
Me too!! I love your Gran!
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 9:36pm
Staying home with your sick kid and not using othercare when you otherwise would use othercare doesn't make you maternal, either. Since when is childrearing all about making sure the kids' preferences are respected all the time? I think 80 to 90% of the time is good enough. Maybe when they're sick can be one of those times they have to tough it out with someone they don't prefer.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-10-2005 - 8:40am
The baby went three days without fluids the week prior to mom starting back to work.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-10-2005 - 8:46am

I have a friend who's of counsel at a large DC large firm.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-10-2005 - 8:48am
No and no.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-10-2005 - 8:50am

"She couldnt have run home or to dc on her lunch hour to nurse?"


Teachers don't get lunch hours off premises, and she could only afford to live 70 miles from the school where she taught.

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