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10 more minutes per day? What to do . . . what to do . . .
New research commissioned by Microsoft found that 90 percent of moms would be happier if they had 10 more minutes in their day. Clearly I wasn’t asked to participate in the study, because if asked, I would have answered that I’d be happy with 10 fewer minutes in my day. Make it an hour or two less and I’d be downright ecstatic.
The Microsoft study also said moms would give up sex, alcohol, TV or chocolate to get that extra time. What I wonder is if they’re giving up everything pleasurable, then what, exactly, do they want the extra time for? Folding more onesies? Picking up Legos?
Give me 10 more minutes and that just means I have 10 more minutes of stuff to do. (And by “stuff” I definitely don’t mean eat chocolate, have sex, watch TV or drink alcohol.)
One of the biggest challenges for many a stay-at-home-mom? It’s not the day to day work it takes to raise a family, it’s not the constant car pools, cooking, and cleaning, it’s making that big transition from SAHM to working woman.
Now, first it should be pointed out that being a mom is pretty much the hardest job out there. But when starting to try to rejoin the ‘work force’ after taking years off to attend to their family, it can be a very intimidating process for many a woman, one that seems incredibly foreign from diaper changes, story time and making lunches. But there are places out there to help. One that many utilize is Career Builder, a online job search company that has special resources just for working moms. Continue reading »
Work life balance is easier for parents at these companies.
One of the major goals of today’s working mother is to gain work life balance. For many if us, it seems unattainable. I wrote a post a few weeks ago in which I said enabling mothers to work part time with benefits would not only help moms get a better hold on work and family life so we didn’t always feel that we were shortchanging one or the other, I believe it would also benefit companies. Another thing that would help is if companies were more supportive of family life in general. I came across an interesting piece on Huffington Post that outlines the creative, new benefits that some companies are now offering to their employees, and I was happily surprised.
I have to say some of these fringe benefits would help new parents adjust better and some are just plain and simply wonderful for anyone. I’ve never even come close to receiving of these benefits but I am so very happy to see that they do exist.
Here are some of the better ones that left an impression:
Stay at home moms are economically vulnerable
A few months after her controversial Salon article, Regrets Of A Stay At Home Mom, was published, Katy Read hasn’t changed her tune. She was on NPR today telling Robin Young of Here & Now that she’d warn any young woman contemplating becoming a stay-at-home mom to rethink her position.
Katy’s reasoning is primarily financial. She quotes Ann Crittenden saying that having a child costs the average college-educated woman a million dollars in lifetime income. Those tender afternoons at the playground may seem priceless, but is staying home with your kid really worth a million dollars?
About 5 million moms (and 150,000 dads) have decided that being a stay-at-home parent is worth the costs. But do they know what those costs really are? Katy says no, and I think she’s right.
Is being a mom the most important thing about you?
A few days ago, I read with interest my colleague Monica’s take on a recent study that said parents exaggerate their happiness to validate their choice to have children. Like Monica, I agree that parenting certainly is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it also the greatest thing in my life. I’m not afraid to say it.
While I’m not the type that will talk incessantly about my kids or post daily Facebook pictures of everything we do, there is nothing in my life that even comes close to the joy (and fear) that I receive from being a mother. I feel nothing less than honored that I have these three people in my life, not to train, but to share life with and watch them as they blossom into young adults.
While many speculate on how difficult parenting is and the recent study suggests parents exaggerate their joy in parenting, I have encountered countless moms that downplay the joy they get from motherhood.
Every day is a balancing act for working moms.
Work life balance is so overwhelming on most days that I think most moms would rather achieve a contented balance than do most anything else. The endless list of things that have to get done, coupled with the demands from a boss and needs of your kids (not to mention yourself) at any given time of day can feel crushing.
I’ve fooled around with work balance issues ever since my first child was born. You name it, I’ve done it: full-time stay-at-home mom, full-time in office worker, full-time with flex time, part-time in office, part-time from home, and finally freelance from home. I use the term fooled around because I don’t think I’ve found any one solution that worked best. Each worked over a certain time, depending on what was going on in our lives, where we lived, and how many kids we had at the time.
Even before she was born, I knew I couldn't bear to leave my daughter's sweet face to go to work every day
“You can’t have it all,” my mother warned when I was pregnant with my daughter. “No woman ever really does.”
Eh, I thought. I’ll show her.
One of the most distressing things at that time was trying to figure out how I’d continue working after the baby was born and keep her out of daycare at the same time. I know many kids who have thrived outside of the home from the time of their infancy, but it wasn’t a choice for my child that sat well with me. Not working was not an option, and the dearth of solutions kept me up at night.
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