Hitting the "Mommy Wall"
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| 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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I also thought so as well.
PumpkinAngel
I have a friend like that. She complains all the time when she *is* home with her kids and never seems like she enjoys being with them. Even when she was home on maternity leave with her second child, her older child went to daycare *all* day. Now I can understand sending kids to daycare during maternity leave, but she treated her maternity leave like a vacation and never ever picked her child up early from daycare unless the provider asked her to (which happened once). Instead, she relaxed at the pool while her newborn slept and her other child was literally in daycare from 7-5 every single day. She even grumbled when the provider was sick one day and had to close b/c it meant her child had to stay home with her.
I'm hoping that she just isn't a "baby and toddler" mom and that she will show more enthusiasm about spending time with her children when they are a little older.
<>
I don't have a beef with you. I have a beef with the testosterone thing. And the living off the land to avoid the horror of being a WOHM thing, with the "compensating for lack of beauty by working" thing. You abandoned those debates as soon as your militant SAHMism was noticed. It's an interesting question, really: can you be a militant SAHM if you write things so outrageously anti-WOH that no flyby MSAHM would dream of espousing them, but you can demonstrate that you know who Karl Rove is. My thesis is that, if you show, time and time again, that you believe REAL women don't work, you're a MSAHM. Shrug.
It's all quite topical, Suzy. It has nothing to do with you. Be what you want to be. Go for it. Sometimes your posts, like the one about your husband being the Michael Jordan of sales, are so ridiculous that I *don't* post. But sometimes I jump in, anyway.
And I absolutely did debate the issues you raised about working hard at work, long absences, reliance on one or two clients and its effect on loas, etc.. You are the one making this personal, not I. You are also the one who originally raised the idea that there are things one group can't possibly know about the other's experience, by virtue of, well, experience. Seems kinda hypocritical to complain about the same rule being applied to one's own lack of experience. Doesn't it?
I would only consider someone who had chosen to walk away from their career if I was desperate for a certain skill and didn't have another candidate. However, it is unlikely that someone who has beein out of the field would have what I'm looking for.
I don't base my decision on what their resume looks like. A resume is just a calling card and is designed for curb appeal. I base my decision on the interview, however, you don't get the interview if you can't present a decent resume. It's like buying a house. If there are holes in the roof, you're not likely to look inside. Maybe the roof is worth fixing for what is inside but a house that lacks curb appeal is a hard sell.
what?? sorry you've missed my discussions about dh losing his job, my hopes to move back to ohio or the latest reel about virginia and indiana too. with my wishes and possibilities came some give too on what it is i may have needed to consider doing. i should have known that you weren't following....the fact that you never replied to any of those very discussions speaks for itself i suppose.
oh and p.s. yes i am a happy sahm (who just happens to work a little..at hallmark). thanks for resurfacing that ;0)
I can think of one reason why a person with a gap in their resume would be more attractive than one with a continuous work history - I could pay them less.
I would (and have) considered candidates with gaps in their work histories, but I definitely would not pay them equivalently to someone with no gaps.
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