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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You know, I will never understand the idea of measuring commitment to work in hours. I'm sure you don't measure your commitment to parenthood that way, and you would undoubtedly bristle if some sahm said she was a more committed parent (or a more "ambitious" parent) than you are simply because she spends more time at it.
I seriously doubt that most women can afford to work pt their whole lives, but if they can, I say more power to them. I prefer to work pt because I want to be able to pick my kids up every day after school, coach their teams, and volunteer in their classrooms. When I no longer need/want to do those things, I'll work ft. I don't find that very unusual.
So this other woman feels she has more balance when she gets some personal time one day a week. That hardly seems odd to me. If she doesn't need the money, who cares?
At one point you did say to me, directly, did I not remember my Laura Ingalls Wilder books when it came to supporting your children without money -- aka using one's ingenuity to keep one's self and one's family alive.
I responded to you that I have read those books. Backwards and forwards. I've been reading them since I was in 4th grade. I know them by heart. I also visited the Almanzo Wilder Homestead in upstate NY.
One, it did take money to sustain the family. And too, it took a great deal of time. And heartache. Once I visited the Wilder farm, I "got it." No heat. No running water. A small house. The parents' bedroom was a closet-like room off the parlor -- yes, that fancy parlor described so well. The girls' bedroom doubled as Mother Wilder's workroom during the day.
When I have to work at night or on weekends, I often think about Father Wilder sorting his 500 bushels of potatoes -- by candlelight. In the middle of winter. Down cellar. With no heat. And I know I would never be able to live like that.
I have ingenuity and gumption and guts which I've proved by making my business a success. But no way am I silly enough to think I could make a go of it at farming. Or support my child with it. Or that I could buy some chickens and make a living of them on my property.
If something happened to my DH, I would be back at work FT as a corporate cog if that is what it took to support DS.
mom_writer
I wasn't really talking about the p-timers. I'm talking about the generic f-t sahm/lawyer whose kids are all finally in full-day school. What did you mean when you said, <> HOW are you being less supportive on a day-to-day basis? Do you snub them in the coffee room? Not include them on important e-mails, assignments?
Also, what about a situation where you have to take off 1 or 2 yrs to sah for family illness? Should you be treated differently upon your return there or elsewhere as though you were less ambitious? Would it be OK for co-workers to be less than "supportive?"
<>
I think there's a problem when a co-worker's homelife may become relevant to how you treat her and IMO it may be factoring into your questioning <> If the part-timer were a man returning to work, could you care less about his reasons for returning to work?
That's why I say, I don't think sahms rtw need you to be supportive of them, but they don't need you to be their enemy. There must be some middle ground. I wonder if men are a little better at that.
<>
Well, how about their work product then? Isn't that all that's important to you as their superior or colleague? If their work product is as good as another subordinate or even co-worker who never left the workplace, then isn't that all that matters?
Why does their homelife bother you so much? Shouldn't you trust that if the mentor you respect so highly has faith in the qualifications of whomever she hires, then you should too? Because you are not their employer and not responsible for hiring them, their qualifications should be nearly irrelevant to you. But since you're their colleague or co-worker, their work product is all that should concern you.
Do you scrutinize wohms who are outside counsel this closesly? Sounds very exhausting.
Edited 11/2/2005 7:15 am ET by tinderbox3
At the time I quit, the bigger firms didn't really allow p-t or wah. However, I've known two attorneys from big firms within the recent past who worked p-t, but again, it turned into about 75% pay for 100% of the hours, so they both quit to sah f-t because of that disparity and for other reasons.
I'm willing to accept that criminal and civil litigation don't lend themselves to less than f-t hours. I also think it's a buyer's market where litigators are concerned and this ensures that the bigger firms can feel they don't need to accomodate even skilled litigators' desire for p-t hours. I bet job-sharing would lend itself to litigation though.
Thank goodness your mentor doesn't share your sentiments! If a sahm is qualified, then she's entitled to be paid what everyone else her year or level is being paid.
I doubt a sahm could jump back into your Fortune 300 company as full-time employee on the day her children are all finally in school. She'd have to get her feet wet somewhere else first. But if she's worked toward building up a recent resume such that she is now "qualified" to work there, then she's entitled to full pay.
She's either qualified or she's not.
Yours is discrimination, but not unlawful discrimination. You're protecting the glass ceiling and the marked wage disparity between men and women in one fell swoop. I think you get bonus points for that.
I don't need to look up subsistence farming. You are the one obsessed about it, not me.
This is a debate board where I come for entertainment purposes and to practice my communication skills. If you want to continue to take a handful of sentences I wrote while trying to debunk the "Money is the only way to provide children with food and a roof" statement to try to describe my whole philosophy regarding work, feel free. (It looks like you already have.) It won't accurately reflect much about me and my life.
Yes, that's it. I'm obsessed with subsistence farming. I stay up all night thinking about different varieties of carrots, and wondering which soils are the most appropriate for beets.
Most people come to debate boards to debate. Or at least they expect that their posts will be debated. If you honestly think you can post that subsistence farming is a way to provide your children with *anything* other than sickness and illiteracy, especially to a group of women who are out there working, many of us *literally* to prevent things like sickness and illiteracy in our children (really, really -- no exaggeration), again, I am surprised at your surprise that you're being debated on this. Your posts are not only insulting to working mothers and fathers, but also to people who actually do live in poverty, a state I imagine is less charming and picturesque than you make it out to be.
You are making it personal because you can't (or won't) defend your position on subsistence farming versus WOH. Your personal goals for coming here are none of my concern. I'm sorry if actually being debated is less than entertaining for you, but please.
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