Wikipedia says migration “refers to directed regular or systematic movement of a group of objects, organisms or people…” This sounds kind of familiar to me, since I spend my days among a large number of women who were once professionals but who now focus most of their time and energy on raising children. We all migrated out of the working world, and some (but not all) of us want to migrate back. Of course, the landscape we find when we return will be different, and we will have changed too. After eight years in Mommyland, I am not the same person. I am older, truly wiser, and have been dealing with a completely different set of responsibilities than when I was a childless young adult. My husband and I have taken on a variety of more complicated investments and debts, for example, including mostly house and cars. But we also have two growing children and have tackled many issues surrounding the aging of our own parents, such as illness, broken bones, and unfortunately, death. I have gained and lost friends, family members, and weight, and grown in ways I never could have predicted. I found half of my biological family (I was adopted at birth), and have considered contacting the other half. When a person opts out of the working world, their growth is not stunted, but it changes its trajectory. If an individual stays home to care for a family member, young or old, family then inevitably becomes more of a focus in their life. One challenge in returning to work will be to uphold the expectations of those family members, or perhaps to manage those expectations, while migrating to a new focal point in my life.
My husband gave me a pep talk over lunch today, trying to allay my fears that everything I have built at home will fall apart when I am no longer around 24 hours a day. He is mostly concerned about how I will handle the challenges I face at work, while I have much less anxiety about actually doing a job than I do about how our kids (and we) will react to our new situation. Perhaps that is one of the most significant reasons why I have stayed away from work this long. Plenty of people, working and not, leave their kids with sitters all day, or for parts of days, and it works out. My girls will be better off if I can get over my fear of leaving them and feel confidence about the positive big picture, long-term effects of having a more intellectually fulfilled working Mom.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Eight (Years) is Enough
Eight years ago today, on September 9, 2002, I returned to work after giving birth to my first daughter. After a few months, I determined that 12-hour days away from her were unacceptable to me and everyone else involved (baby and husband). Two years later, a second daughter was born, and my short-term fate as a stay-at-home Mom was sealed. Two days ago, that second "baby" started school full time, and we all entered a new chapter in our lives. Over the summer, I was able to get a taste of the long days without my girls when they were in camp from 9-3 every day for six weeks. Although it was nice to have that freedom, there were definitely days when I was looking for entertainment, and other days when I couldn’t bear another ounce of laundry or cleaning out cupboards. Having several working friends, I am aware of some of the pitfalls of being a working Mom, including lack of sleep, guilt, strain on marriages, and having to manage the people who pick up the slack left behind (i.e. babysitters, husbands, friends). I know there are so many more trade-offs (and multiple benefits), but they will undoubtedly reveal themselves with fervor as this story unfolds.
To start, I would like to go back in time to 2002, when I decided to quit my job. I had been working in New York City for about ten years, first as a Legal Assistant Supervisor at a major corporate law firm, then during and after business school at Columbia, as a Corporate and Commercial Real Estate professional. The hours were long, the stress was high, but working gave me self-esteem and paid my huge student loans. Along the way, I made lifelong friends who are still with me today. And in every job, I was able to climb the corporate ladder fairly quickly, always seeming to attain a new and exciting challenge every 1-2 years as my supervisors put their trust in me and increased my role. I remember thinking many times, “Wow, I am a total fraud”, because I didn’t believe in myself as much as they did. Unfortunately, this is a very typical reaction for young women – to think that someone is going to “find them out”, whereas men tend more toward hubris, in general. (Note: I may from time-to-time make sweeping generalizations. I can do that, after all, because this is my blog). As I am learning in my middle age, self-confidence is the key to pretty much everything, and women struggle more than men in achieving the necessary levels to promote their careers. That does not mean that women cannot be as confident as men – it just means they have a harder time getting there. More on that later.
By the time I became a Mom, I was an Assistant Vice President at a large publishing company, focused exclusively on in-house Real Estate strategy and transactions. By design, after the baby was born, my days in the office started at 8:30, and ended at 5:30. However, adding in the commute I was away from my darling girl for almost 12 hours each weekday. When our first nanny decided to quit (it was not an ideal situation for any of us due to some other factors), I called up my husband one day and said, “I know the perfect person to be our new nanny!”, to which he answered, “Who?”. “Me!”, I said with glee, which he greeted with a long pause and then, “We’ll make it work.” Lucky me, to have such support at home.
My superiors at work were not so gleeful. My boss was deflated and never addressed my request for part-time or flexibility options. I believe he truly felt let down by my choice, even though he himself was a Dad of three small children with an at-home wife. His boss, the CFO of the company, basically ignored me for the final two weeks of my tenure. Years later, the same CFO sent me a LinkedIn request, and I accepted. No reason to burn bridges, but if I could do it all over again, I would have confronted him. At the time, my priorities had shifted and I didn’t care enough to do so, but as a mother of two daughters, I now realize it is my duty to stand up for myself (and other women). Of course, as I left that job, other colleagues were thrilled for me, and felt I was making a great decision for my family. And they came in droves to my office to tell me so!
Overall, staying home was the right decision for us, but I do realize that it is not the right (or POSSIBLE) decision for everyone. I am glad families have different choices, and I wish women would be less judgmental and more supportive of each other. Through the years, I have always encouraged others by saying, “Good workers can always find jobs.” Now, I will personally put that theory to the test. How will the unforgiving corporate world of 2002 measure up to the infinitely more electronic corporate world of 2010? With a completed resume and memberships to several job search sites, I think I am ready to find out!
To start, I would like to go back in time to 2002, when I decided to quit my job. I had been working in New York City for about ten years, first as a Legal Assistant Supervisor at a major corporate law firm, then during and after business school at Columbia, as a Corporate and Commercial Real Estate professional. The hours were long, the stress was high, but working gave me self-esteem and paid my huge student loans. Along the way, I made lifelong friends who are still with me today. And in every job, I was able to climb the corporate ladder fairly quickly, always seeming to attain a new and exciting challenge every 1-2 years as my supervisors put their trust in me and increased my role. I remember thinking many times, “Wow, I am a total fraud”, because I didn’t believe in myself as much as they did. Unfortunately, this is a very typical reaction for young women – to think that someone is going to “find them out”, whereas men tend more toward hubris, in general. (Note: I may from time-to-time make sweeping generalizations. I can do that, after all, because this is my blog). As I am learning in my middle age, self-confidence is the key to pretty much everything, and women struggle more than men in achieving the necessary levels to promote their careers. That does not mean that women cannot be as confident as men – it just means they have a harder time getting there. More on that later.
By the time I became a Mom, I was an Assistant Vice President at a large publishing company, focused exclusively on in-house Real Estate strategy and transactions. By design, after the baby was born, my days in the office started at 8:30, and ended at 5:30. However, adding in the commute I was away from my darling girl for almost 12 hours each weekday. When our first nanny decided to quit (it was not an ideal situation for any of us due to some other factors), I called up my husband one day and said, “I know the perfect person to be our new nanny!”, to which he answered, “Who?”. “Me!”, I said with glee, which he greeted with a long pause and then, “We’ll make it work.” Lucky me, to have such support at home.
My superiors at work were not so gleeful. My boss was deflated and never addressed my request for part-time or flexibility options. I believe he truly felt let down by my choice, even though he himself was a Dad of three small children with an at-home wife. His boss, the CFO of the company, basically ignored me for the final two weeks of my tenure. Years later, the same CFO sent me a LinkedIn request, and I accepted. No reason to burn bridges, but if I could do it all over again, I would have confronted him. At the time, my priorities had shifted and I didn’t care enough to do so, but as a mother of two daughters, I now realize it is my duty to stand up for myself (and other women). Of course, as I left that job, other colleagues were thrilled for me, and felt I was making a great decision for my family. And they came in droves to my office to tell me so!
Overall, staying home was the right decision for us, but I do realize that it is not the right (or POSSIBLE) decision for everyone. I am glad families have different choices, and I wish women would be less judgmental and more supportive of each other. Through the years, I have always encouraged others by saying, “Good workers can always find jobs.” Now, I will personally put that theory to the test. How will the unforgiving corporate world of 2002 measure up to the infinitely more electronic corporate world of 2010? With a completed resume and memberships to several job search sites, I think I am ready to find out!
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