Two in a Row!

I don't know if I've ever posted two days in a row, but this article in The Globe and Mail today was too good to ignore. The headline: For working moms, job takes backseat to baby after maternity leave.

As one commenter pointed out, that's going to make employers really eager to hire women of childbearing age, isn't it?

I have had an employer tell me that he doesn't know how working mothers do it, how they can possibly focus on their jobs properly given all of the distractions that come with raising children. His wife left her career to stay home with their children, if you can imagine.

There is not a mother out there who doesn't know that returning to work involves making some difficult choices. You need to be prepared that some days it will feel like you are being forced to choose between your family and your job and that neither choice will be the right one. Some days you will wonder if it's all worth it. As one mother has pointed out, your only job before 8:30 in the morning should be getting put of the house without tears (note: this is harder than it sounds).

What I think the article is trying to say is that employer flexibility is key to the success of most working parents. However, most employers are hardwired into the traditional mentality that facetime = commitment and headlines confirming their deepest fears about employees running off to pick up sick children don't help matters. We need to say to employers: Yes, I'm a mother, and yes, sometimes my parental responsibilities will be the focus of my attention, but I'm a good employee too. Now let's figure out how we can make this work. Any enlightened workplace will have that conversation. And the ones that won't? Well, maybe it wasn't as good of a workplace as you'd thought.