Moms Getting Back on Track

Former Stay-At-Homes Weigh Options for Returning to Work

By Alison O’Leary Murray

Kids will pack their lunches and books this month to go back to school. Many moms will follow, trading in the jeans and sandals of stay-at-homes for business attire. September seems to be the month of choice for mothers to return to the structured world of work, or at least the time to start looking for work.

Statistics show that nearly 70 percent of women with children under age 18 work outside of the home, and almost half of the 10 million women with very young children (under age 3) also hold jobs.

But making the switch from working to staying at home, or vice-versa, can be nerve-wracking. Moms in the midst of the process suggest:

• turning stay-at-home skills into opportunities,

• remembering that the first job you find might not be the best fit, and

• to ask potential employers for the flexibility you need.

At the Starting Gate

Lucinda Linde of Westwood is one taking the plunge this fall. Her sons, ages 9 and almost 11, have encouraged her to return to a structured schedule after the years she has spent on projects like volunteering to create a science fair at their school.

“I’m kind of at the point where I want to do part-time work,” she said. “I’m trying to leverage the connections I’ve made through working on projects the last several years.”

Linde’s projects haven’t been limited to the science fair and school bake sales. Like a lot of stay-at-home moms, she has stayed active in her professional field, engineering, and even branched out to dabble in other areas like management consulting and investing in start-up companies while raising her children.

“I’ve always had a couple fingers in [active work], which kind of made me feel like an imposter because I was not doing a 60-to-80 hour workweek. I was at simmer mode, not a full boil,” she said.

Keeping skills sharp and developing networks through volunteering or part-time project work is a tactic that several working moms recommend to others who are either considering a return to work or considering leaving their jobs to raise children.

Linde said that helping at your child’s school could put you in touch with people who can help you find a job later.

An Improving Outlook

The ever-growing number of women in the workforce have pushed some employers to offer more flexible schedules, but those perks aren’t always advertised. Much depends on the industry, said Meghan McCarthy, founder of the Detours and Onramps conferences for women weighing work options.

“You have to be realistic,” she said. “Flextime is unlikely at Goldman Sachs, so maybe you’ll work at a smaller business to fill your resume. You can have it all, just not all at the same time.”

McCarthy’s own work experience in the field of financial services has included many variations on flexible scheduling, consulting and working from home while raising her three children, but she acknowledges that rather than formal arrangements, most nontraditional schedules that back-to-work moms may seek are individually negotiated.

A trend McCarthy sees is women planning for their time away from the office. At a conference she held in New York last fall, several attendees were seeking guidance to plan for time off before they had children.

Finding a family-friendly company to work for is a little easier thanks to the work of the Boston College Center for Work and Family, which offers companies an opportunity to share information on flexible scheduling of employees, and retaining employees through alternative schedules. Danielle Hartmann, Director of Corporate Partnerships at the center, said that new technologies and globalization of companies are helping to bend the rigid 9-to-5 corporate structure so it better accommodates flexible work arrangements that parents may need.

“A lot more companies are receptive to telecommuting,” Hartmann said. “They’re making their flexibility public because they want to get the best and the brightest men and women who are taking time off for their families.”

Finding a Fit

Kim Noel Kennedy, another Westwood mom and public relations professional, used her professional network and alma mater to find work-at-home projects to do when her three sons were very young. Now that they’re between 4 and 9 years old, she’s returned to a full-time schedule despite some bumps along the way.

“You have to find the right fit for you,” she said after leaving a job that offered the flexibility of three 10-hour days a week. “At that job I literally would not see my children Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and there was a little voice in my head saying ‘I cannot keep doing this’.”

She counts on a very supportive husband and a “book group” of other working women as the network that helps her get through the rigors of juggling work and children. And she feels that working is the right choice for her.

“It’s good for the kids to see -- especially having three boys – I want them to know it’s OK for a woman to work, to make the choices she wants to make.”

Alison O’Leary Murray is an editor for GateHouse Media New England.

Resources & upcoming events

Back to Business Women’s Workshop will be held at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough on Sept. 18 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. www.backtobusiness.org

Life Meets Work is clearinghouse for news and information on flexible work arrangements of all kinds. www.lifemeetswork.com  

Detours and Onramps returns to Babson College on November 4. www.onrampsforum.com.

Boston College’s Center for Work and Family offers some programs that are open to the public. www.bc.edu/centers/cwf/rt.html

Moms Next Move, launched by Monica Samuels, educates women on how to successfully leave and then return to the workforce. www.MomsNextMove.com

Employ Momsprovides New England moms the opportunity to work for top tier companies that understand mothers need flexible hours. www.employmoms.com