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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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2005
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 4:07pm

I have no bias against wohms who, as soon as they give birth, become clockwatchers. Unlike you and the other militants here, I acknowledge and I observed that this happens to many, many women, and so it blows to bits your theory that because a wohm has no gap in her resume, she necessarily is as ambitious and hard-working as ever - or equally as ambitious as the returning-to-work full-time sahm.

Ooops, look at the time. I guess I'll get a response tomorrow.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 4:12pm

"That's where PNJ and I disagree - she apparently gets bothered by what women do with their free time and their home lives."


The burden of proof is on any applicant wanting an upwardly mobile position to demonstrate how ambitious he or she is to take their career to the next level.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 4:15pm

If a statement is true, does it always mean the converse is false?


Define "clockwatcher."

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2005
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 4:16pm

I think PNJ's just slamming you left and right here. FTR, I would love, love to teach legal writing. Ask any litigation partner, it is truly THE most important class in law school. So many attorneys cannot write WELL. It's truly a skill you should be proud of. (Ooops, a preposition at the end of that sentence. Dang!)

Further, it's just fallacious to even argue that the ambitious employees will most assuredly be around 5 yrs from now. Ask any group of women or men how many jobs they've had in the past 10 years and many will say they've had several. Staying put in a dead-end job is not even arguably ambitious.

You were a sahm? Are you planning to quit in 5 yrs to start a second brood of babies? Such an indefensible argument. I would hope you'd give it an "F!"

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 4:18pm
I made no personal allegations whatsoever about her.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2005
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 4:25pm

That's a specious argument. Your mentor is the employer, not you. She has hired returning-to-work sahms because they are qualified for the job. End of story. Whether she sah to travel the world with a married man or to be with her children now becomes wholly irrelevant to you, if it ever was even arguably any of your business.

On the job, if they are applying for as you say an "upwardly mobile promotion" more commonly known as a "promotion," then your mentor looks at the woman's work product, hours, likeability, workplace ethics, etc. Thank God it sounds like she doesn't scrutinize the woman's homelife.

Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 8:16pm
So now I've never been ambitious because I never became a partner at my firm? Yet you, who left private practice before you were even eligible for partnership, are ambitious? I can think of lots of reasons why someone would leave private practice after less than 6 years for a cushy 45-hr/wk in-house counsel job where she might someday become a dept head, but none of them have anything to do with ambition. Again, if you are so ambitious, why didn't you stick around and try to make partner?
Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 8:29pm

Well, at 46, it will be kind of hard for me to start that second brood. ;) Maybe I'm not too old to adopt?

I agree with you about legal writing. Students love to complain about how much work it is, but after their first summer job, they come back with an entirely different attitude.

And hey, that rule about not ending a sentence with a preposition is kind of outdated anyway. ;)

Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 8:31pm
Really? What about the part when you said I've never been ambitious because I wasn't a partner at my old firm?
Avatar for mom34101
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 11-03-2005 - 8:48pm

I sense some envy here too. I really think PNJ's first post that I responded to sums up the attitude you're talking about. That's the one in which she asked why she should be supportive of sahms returning to the workforce and expressed concern that they might somehow get some advantage over her.

Until women start supporting other women and their choices, and stop competing with each other, I agree with you that women will have a hard time getting ahead in the workplace. But I think there's hope. Neither of the two women in this thread who have the most prejudices against sahms returning to the workplace are actually in a position to hire and fire. So maybe once women get where they're going, they become a bit more practical and a bit less competitive. I know that my boss, who's always been a wohm, is very supportive of women who have made choices different from her own. That's real leadership, in my opinion, which is probably one reason she's in the position she's in--and perhaps one reason these other posters are not.

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