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Moms Quit Jobs to Help Kids Get Ahead
After working hard to earn advanced degrees and build successful careers, many moms are opting out of the workplace. It’s not because they are burned out or tired of hitting their heads on the glass ceiling. These educated and intelligent women are stepping off their hard-earned career tracks so that their children might someday step on.
Unlike the typical stay at home mom, these mothers chose to work when their children were young. They paid their dues in the workplace and through years of hard work and sacrifice, earned that corner office. But as their kids enter their final years of high school, many working moms are realizing their skills are needed at home. They are quitting their jobs to manage the business of getting their kids into college.
There are no statistics to back this up, but college counselors are reporting seeing more highly educated, professional women who’ve made navigating the college admissions process their full-time jobs. Hilary Levey, a fellow at Harvard University who specializes in family studies, agrees. She says for many working moms, the teen years bring about a shift in priorities.
“Raising the child sometimes becomes a career in itself. Instead of getting a promotion and measuring progress in professional sense, a way to measure how well you are doing is how well your child is doing.”
I think all mothers, working and non, use that same measuring stick. And I understand the desire to spend more time with your children as they enter their final years of high school and prepare to leave the nest. But I am perplexed by the idea that these obviously intelligent teens on the path to college need their mothers to help them get there.
Is all this really necessary? Or is this just a new breed of helicopter parent?
Image: howtogetit.com
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[...] Moms Quit Jobs to Help Kids Get Ahead [...]
Baby Swimmers Have Better Balance | Strollerderby commented on Apr 28 10 at 6:04 pm[...] Moms Quit Jobs to Help Kids Get Ahead [...]
Ladies, Can We Lighten Up a Little? | Strollerderby commented on May 04 10 at 11:07 amGtothemfckinP commented on Apr 28 10 at 1:14 pmasinine!
Laure68 commented on Apr 28 10 at 3:09 pmI always think it is sketchy to cite a few instances of something happening with no stats to back it up. There have always been overprotective parents, and I’m sure we could have always found isolated instances of these types of things happening. That does not necessarily mean this is a trend.
PlumbLucky commented on Apr 29 10 at 8:02 amI’m calling BS. Would I attempt to find a way to limit my work hours in the afternoon with a high schooler? Yes. But that’s because he’s a high schooler…NOT because I need the time to help him navigate the college admission process. If he’s going away to college…HE does most of the work to get there, not me. College admissions and applications were all on the student (I have not been out THAT long) and I’m not even sure I had to have a parents’ signature on the application. Am I going to lean over his shoulder and help him write his essay? Am I going to help him fill out the part about his grade point and activities? Am I going to call his teachers and coaches to get letters of recommendation? Um, no. He can do all that, and should.
ann05 commented on Apr 29 10 at 8:13 amWhat Laure68 said. This seems to me like another fake story that gives employers grounds to hire less women, since even “successful” ones are apparently prone to throwing their careers away because Junior needs someone to write his college essay. How much time could the college application process possibly take anyway? I don’t remember it being particularly onerous.
Latesha Sochan commented on Apr 04 11 at 12:13 pmThere’s absolutely nothing at all like strolling on a great mountain bike on a mountain path – particularly in the spring time. I cannot think of anything at all I’d rather be doing – well, maybe ONE thing .. ;-)
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