Comeback Moms Part 1

Comeback Moms.

How to leave work, raise children, and jumpstart your career even if you haven't worked in years.

by Monica Samuels.

Acknowledgments.

Without these people and their patience and graciousness, we wouldn't have a book: Helen Mobley, Dr. Dave Streicher, Suzanne Standerfer, Sara Fox, Dee Dee Benkie, Kelly McBrayer, Dr. JoAnn McMillan, Ann Howard, Anne Heiligenstein, Michael Mack, The Wednesday Morning Group, Robin Gilchrist, Sonia Medina, Craig Beskid, Judy Potter, Bill Miller, our agent, Kathleen Anderson, and the editors and staff at Morgan Books: Amy Hertz, Marc Haeringer, and Nate Brown.

We'd also like to thank our families: Marc, Jared, Chase, Larry Leiter, Lisa Morris, Dana Corbett, Stanley Farrer, Dr. Elizabete Santos, Dr. Jeremy Conklin, Dr. Richard Conklin, Dr. Jan Conklin, C. J. Hernandez, and Kimble Ross.

Introduction.

ARE YOU TOAST?.

We're undergoing a sea change in this country-millions of women are quitting their jobs to stay home and raise their children.

That would never be you, right? That's what we thought and boy, were we wrong. Hear us out. Once you have a baby, your life changes in ways you'd never imagine. We don't just mean hallucinating and talking to yourself after several months of sleep deprivation. You have no idea how much you'll love that little baby. It makes you a little crazy-crazy enough to leave a six-figure salary and paid vacations to stay home with said baby.

Before you storm into your boss's office and tell her she won't be seeing you around anymore, read this book. There's more to quitting than saying the words. There's strategy involved.

Think about it. You're most likely cutting your household income in half, sending yourself on an extended time-out from adult contact, and putting your ego in a pinata that some patronizing people will whack at will: "How can you stand to be home with your children all day? So why did you even become a lawyer/doctor/teacher?" Not to mention that in a few years you'll probably want to go back to work and, without laying some groundwork now, your choices aren't gonna be pretty later. It's not easy out there even when you don't take time off.

Trust us, Monica and the women we talked to for this book are doing what you're contemplating. We know what we're talking about. True, we don't have all the answers-but we have a lot of experience and we've stockpiled stories of epic errors that we don't want you to make.

This book is for women who think they might have children someday, are bent over with morning sickness all day, have a little baby in day care, have another child on the way, or might have a child if their husband really, really wants one someday. In short, it's for every woman of childbearing age, and their mothers too because, well, your mom can tell you what we left out.

The reality is we women compete in the workplace with men who, although they may be great fathers, aren't mothers-and there's a whole lot more work to do as a mother. Mothers typically are the ones managing child-care arrangements, staying home with sick children, and convulsing with guilt when they miss a soccer game. They are also, by large numbers-we're talking millions-the parent who opts to stay home with the children. What this means is that women who take time off are competing with men who don't. Is that an equal playing field? Does changing diapers for two years spell career advancement?

If you take a couple years off to raise your children is your career toast?

One boss we talked to laughed when we asked him that question and said we should t.i.tle the book Hopeless Hopeless, because that's exactly what the woman wanting to get back into the workforce after time off will be.

He's right. Let us modify that: he's right for some women. Those who give up easily, like at the first sign of failure, aren't going to make it. Those who take no for an answer won't get farther than the first closed door. Those who don't plan for their future won't have more than the next day to look forward to.

If you do it right you can reposition yourself professionally, perhaps becoming something you never thought possible. You can get back on the same track, s.h.i.+ft gears, accelerate, make sharp turns, or change careers entirely. You can start your own business.

The time you take off to spend with your kids and away from the jobsite could not only be the most gratifying personal decision you could make, it might also be the best professional move you could make, if you look at it a little farther downstream. It's all about the planning. This book is your time machine. You can fast forward and see your future through the eyes of those women who have been there and done that.

Let us show you how to strategize step by step how to leave the office so that you'll be able to come back, or if you've been gone for a while, we can show you how to get back into a successful second career.

We know women who have done it. It is possible. You have to learn how to keep your hand in the game. Keeping your hand in can mean taking on all sorts of activities including volunteering to help the cultural exchange program at your son's school, becoming active in local politics, or becoming so frustrated at your child's artistic tendencies with mashed potatoes and carrots in restaurants that you create a device that will clean up his mess easier.

WHY WE WROTE THIS BOOK.

Monica's Story It happened as I was standing in front of the salad bar at the Radisson Hotel restaurant in Orlando, Florida. When the smell of slightly curdled bleu cheese dressing was making me sick, I knew I couldn't go back to work.I was two months pregnant for the second time and working on a presidential campaign. If my candidate won, I'd win a brag-worthy job. It would be the culmination of all the hundreds of meetings I attended. And I couldn't do it.Up until that very moment, I appeared to be at the top of my game. Years earlier, amid a legal career and motherhood, my lifelong love of politics became more than a pa.s.sing interest. The Young Republican National Federation elected me their national chairwoman. That event introduced me to a world of elected officials, party leaders, and political operatives. Among the latter group was Karl Rove, who kindly invited me to join the 2000 Bush presidential campaign as a paid staffer. While working on the campaign in the final weeks, I found myself in this hotel standing in front of rubbery hard-boiled eggs ready to retch.Weeks before, my husband and I received the news that I was pregnant. While in most circles this is joyous news, it is not the sort of thing that one shares around the watercooler with the rest of the political team who are all working 24/7 and eating cold pizza until (they hope) Election Day. Consequently, I kept the news to myself.So there I was in Orlando, where the Coalitions Team sent me three weeks before the election to try to organize and mobilize young voters, gripped by morning sickness (which in my case lasted all day) and thus barely able to mobilize myself, much less anyone else.Slowly, I lifted the plastic salad bar tongs and tried to select something that looked halfway edible to a woman whose hormones were in the spin cycle. As I picked through the olives, carrots, and sliced cuc.u.mbers, waves of nausea and lightheadedness flooded over me. Soon the only thing I could smell were leaves. Yuck. Leaves. No way could I eat leaves in this condition. I searched desperately for anything to keep me going. Finally, I spotted it. The answer to my prayers...saltine crackers. Carefully, I removed a bag of crackers from the basket and, feeling faint, slowly walked to my a.s.signed table in the restaurant.Taking my seat, I opened the bag and bit into the first of two crackers. Sitting there, I slowly chewed the saltine like a centurion whose dentures were missing, contemplated my life, and reached a conclusion. Despite what I continually tried to tell myself, I really didn't have it all together.As I sat there it dawned on me, At this very moment, while I'm dining alone and contemplating a trip later in the day to the nearest emergency room, our nanny is home with my four-year-old son, feeding and dressing him, hearing about his day, and comforting him at night when his newly acquired fear of the dark kicks in at bedtime. At this very moment, while I'm dining alone and contemplating a trip later in the day to the nearest emergency room, our nanny is home with my four-year-old son, feeding and dressing him, hearing about his day, and comforting him at night when his newly acquired fear of the dark kicks in at bedtime.Despite my eagerness to conquer the world, it occurred to me that I really was failing at the one thing I regarded as the most important role I had-being my son's mom. With another child on the way, I realized that if I continued down my current path, I would risk simply trying to fit yet another person into my crowded and busy life rather than having a deep meaningful relations.h.i.+p with someone who should be of utmost importance to me-my child. I made a decision.No matter what happens in this election, I thought, my next job will be full-time mom.Coming to this conclusion wasn't easy. Few people ever get the chance to work on a presidential campaign. For the staffers of a successful campaign, the victor's move to residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue comes with exciting job opportunities for many of those hardy souls who toiled to get him there. Making this decision meant giving up a chance to move up the career ladder while doing something truly exciting that I loved. More important, though, it meant coming to grips with reality. I simply couldn't do everything well, so I finally needed to choose.As things were, if everything went perfectly, I could be at best a pretty good attorney and a pretty good mom. Since things are rarely ever perfect, achieving a rating of "pretty good" probably wasn't likely on either score. I really couldn't be great at either job. Between the two options, I concluded that motherhood meant more to me, and I'm glad I did.

J.C.'s Story I'm not a mother yet. I want to be one, but the truth is it scares the h.e.l.l out of me. I see working mothers who would kill for six straight hours of sleep. I talk to stay-at-home mothers who mourn the loss of their careers because they were so intertwined with their work that it defined who they were. The loss of their jobs stripped them of their sense of self. The loss frequently resulted in resentment, compromising the very thing for which they had sacrificed. I talk to working mothers who struggle with the guilt of missing events in their children's lives. I remember my own mother slipping into the back of the auditorium well after the school play had started, hoping no one would notice.Even from my vicarious distance, I understand it's hard. I also know from painful, firsthand experience that women are sometimes the harshest critics of other women. I have talked to working mothers who said they would never hire another working mother because they know her loyalties would be split between her job and her children. Other women have told me that they were so worried about appearing weak to their colleagues and supervisors that days after giving birth they were back on conference calls. One even held a meeting in her living room while she breastfed her four-day-old infant.I know there must be a better balance than what I've seen. There must be a way to raise your kids and have a career. That's why I wanted to write this book. I wanted to find out what the pioneers of this movement have experienced. By pioneers, I mean the women who have figured out a way to do this without going insane. Pioneers are the women who will change what it's like for all of us to be mothers. After hundreds of hours of conversations and interviews, a pattern, even a philosophy, seems to have emerged from their struggles. These women started out trying to do it all and found if they continued that path they'd go insane. They gave themselves permission to put candles on a storebought birthday cake for their children. They stopped marking professional accomplishments on a precise mental calendar. They came to terms with a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and a vacuum cleaner that is rarely turned on. One woman said to me when I asked how she managed her children and career, "I don't. If I have a good day at work, I have a not so good day with my kids and vice versa. I accept that when I go to bed at night I don't feel a hundred percent about one part of my life." I've nicknamed the phenomenon the seesaw effect: women's lives will dip back and forth between work and home. We won't feel a hundred percent about either of them at the same time, but that's okay.To me, these women are the new women's liberationists. They're saying we don't have to work like men to be successful. We can do this on our own terms, and truth be told, I've talked to several men who are envious of what women have invented and to other women who are angry with them for doing it. Their c.u.mulative experiences have given me hope that motherhood and career are not mutually exclusive, that there's more out there than stress and sleep deprivation. There's opportunity to become something else, something new-a mother who knows she doesn't have to do it all, all at once.

1.

Quitting.

When Is the Best Time to Cut the Cord?

Maybe you just got the news that you're expecting or maybe you're a veteran mom with middle schoolaged kids at home, it doesn't matter where you are on the mom continuum, at some point you'll be confronted with the burning question: Should you stay home with your children? Should you leave a job you love to stay home with your children who you love?

That question avalanches into a blizzard of other worries. If you quit to a.s.sume this new role at home, will your career be over? Will you ever work again and if you do will it be in a job you find fulfilling or will it be in a position for which you'll memorize three words: "paper or plastic?"

You stay up late with your friends and debate whether or not you can have it all-career and family. And, like a lot of us, you find that you can't. At least not all at once.

SUBVERTING THE GUILT PARADIGM.

There are basically two reasons mothers decide to quit their jobs-guilt and love.

We visit the day-care facilities we'll be leaving our newborns in. We see row upon row of cribs decorated with a few items from home-sort of the way inmates adorn their prison cells. We see the babies sleeping or staring at the ceiling but not doing much else until their number comes up for a diaper change or bottle.

We see this and we think-not our babies. We're not going to do that to our babies. So we quit to diaper and feed them ourselves.

Or we tough it out for a few years and one day we catch ourselves staring at our computer screens thinking, What am I doing here at What am I doing here at www.anythingtolookbusy.com while my children see me just a couple of hours each evening and on weekends while my children see me just a couple of hours each evening and on weekends? This isn't worth it. So we quit.

WAIT! WHY DO YOU REALLY REALLY WANT TO STAY HOME? WANT TO STAY HOME?.

This may seem obvious. You want to quit because you want to nurture your baby. Just like we said, right? You want to watch your child learn to crawl and walk. But, before you even think about quitting, let's make sure that's what's going on.

Our friend, Darcy, is a good example of why not to quit your job.

Darcy didn't just hate her job, she loathed being a physical therapist. She moved from office to office until she ran out of places to go and she realized it wasn't the people, it was the work; she abhorred the tedious insurance forms. Because she hated her job, her husband and two children were miserable. n.o.body wanted to be within one hundred feet of Mommy when she returned from work each day for fear of finding out that once again she had a bad day at the office.

At lunch one day, we noticed Darcy wasn't her normal tense self. She told us that she and her husband were considering her quitting her job to stay home with their kids.

"We know it will be tough," Darcy explained between bites of Caesar salad, "but we think it's the right thing to do."

Two months later, Darcy made the big move. Rather than leave quietly, she made sure that all the other therapists knew that she hated the place and was glad to be going. Her departing remark was something along the lines of, "Good luck, suckers."

A week after her departure, we lunched while her kids were in school. She was happy and full of plans.

"We definitely need to do a spa day," she told us excitedly. "And maybe we could all get together for drinks one night a week. I'm also thinking a girls' trip to Hawaii might be nice."

We looked across the table at each other, and it was clear we were both thinking the same thing. Alarm bells were sounding over Darcy's head.

She thinks she's on vacation!

A month later she shared her itinerary with us. The children were out of school for the summer, so she had lots of time to spend with them. Darcy said she had taken the children shopping, swimming, golfing, and to some of the better restaurants in town. She had also seen almost every movie playing. Her elementary schoolaged children saw R-rated movies with her. On a whim, she got a tattoo. We're not sure if the kids went along for that field trip.

When school started, Darcy's vacation abruptly ended. Her husband gave her an ultimatum. The spending had to stop or she had to go back to work. She chose to budget.

With Darcy on a budget and the children in school, she had to find other activities to occupy her time. She started volunteering at her children's school. Soon she was chairing every carnival and fund-raiser it hosted. She was working like she was trying to make partner.

The demands of her volunteer activities spilled over into her evenings and weekends. She had to hire a part-time babysitter because she was away so much. Within a few months, she was bitterly complaining.

"I had it easier when I was working, and I was paid for it," she groaned.

Once Darcy's initial euphoria over leaving the job she hated and her mini-vacation ended, she was dissatisfied with her life. She didn't like all the cleaning and cooking she had to do. She didn't see her children as much as she thought she would because they were occupied with school, sports, and dance cla.s.ses. Plus she was busy with fund-raisers, which she didn't enjoy all that much because the other volunteers weren't as "professional" as she was.

"They don't take their duties seriously. Some don't even show up when they're supposed to," she complained. She questioned her place in the world. After months of swinging back and forth on the pendulum of depression and denial, she realized she needed a new profession. After a year of saving the money for tuition, she's now studying to become a psychologist.

We're not saying that you shouldn't enjoy yourself when you're at home with your child. For a lot of us staying home is more stressful than working outside the home. We need relaxation and down time. We should never feel guilty about taking that time or a spa day.

Be clear about why you're quitting. Don't simply make your children an excuse for leaving an unpleasant work situation. If you realize you hate your job then make sure you know that's why you're leaving. Make a list of all your reasons for choosing to stay home. Be honest with yourself. Is there more to your decision than just wanting to take care of your children? If most of the items on your list relate to problems at work, consider the possibility that what you really need to do is find a new job. And, if you're still sure you want to quit and stay at home, knowing what is motivating you to leave your job now will help you figure out what job you would like when and if you decide to go back into the workforce later.

WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS?.

In addition to a.n.a.lyzing why you're really quitting, think carefully about what your expectations are when you do quit. Make sure that you aren't expecting too much from the experience, because if you do and you're disappointed, your family will suffer.

An a.n.a.logy can be drawn to psychologists who interview patients undergoing organ transplants or gastric bypa.s.s surgery before clearing them for these procedures. The psychologist will ask a morbidly obese woman, for example, what she expects from a gastric bypa.s.s operation. If she says she expects it to completely change her life for the better, she isn't cleared for the operation, because while the surgery can improve her life, it isn't a panacea for all her problems. Instead, she's sent for counseling until the psychologist feels her expectations square with reality.

While your decision to stay home certainly doesn't fall in the same category as major surgery, the psychology is the same. If your expectations for the experience don't fit the reality of what's about to happen, you and your children will pay the price. For you, this may mean dealing with a period of disappointment and perhaps even depression later. For your children, it may result in them becoming anxious and acting out.

Carolyn is a woman who thrives on external motivators. She craves accolades from others, winning awards at work, and getting promotions. Before deciding to stay home with the kids, she had to take a long hard look at the reality of the situation.

"It dawned on me one day that I wouldn't have the same things that motivated me at work keeping me going at home," she said. "Clearly, my son wasn't ever going to heap praise on me for the exciting way I read him a bedtime story, and my daughter wasn't likely to present me with an award for driving her around town all week."

In the end, Carolyn decided to stay home, but she is careful to do it in a way that still meets her own needs for fulfillment. While her kids are in school, Carolyn partic.i.p.ates in civic groups and community projects where she can still get a pat on the back every once in awhile and perhaps even win an award. By taking this approach, she is dealing with the reality of staying at home in a way that best fits her personality and is realistic as to her needs. Had she not taken this good hard look at herself in advance, she likely would have simply quit and been extremely disappointed with her life. Now Carolyn can plan her return to work at her own pace rather than desperately running back to work after a bad experience at home.

CUTTING THE CORD.

Okay, so you've really thought about it and you definitely want to quit. The most important thing to know now is when is the best time to cut the cord.

When You're Pregnant for the First Time Never act rashly during pregnancy because you don't know if it's the hormones talking or you. Spur of the moment is out. Slow down. Think it over for a week. At the end of the week, think it over for another week. If you still want to quit, don't. At least not right away. You have to devise a game plan.

Why would we say something so awful when you're absolutely sure leaving your job in two weeks is the absolute best thing for you and the baby? Because it's the hormones talking, unless you're in the absolute job from h.e.l.l and you report directly to Satan or one of his agents on earth. But, if that's the case, why didn't you quit before? Yep, it's probably the hormones.

We say try to make it to the eighth month of pregnancy at least.

We say that for several reasons:

* You'll be bored out of your mind.* You'll probably feel better with or need the extra money.* You won't have any other mothers around you all day to talk to about the weird little stuff like your sense of smell going all wonky.* It'll give you time to sh.o.r.e up things like the current information of important contacts for when you want to go back to work.* You'll still have health, life, and disability insurance policies.

All those work hours can be useful for something other than work. Plus, you don't eat as much in the office as you do at home, so it's a built-in weight management program to boot.

Once you're resigned to showing up at work through swollen ankles and an itchy stomach, you have to figure out what you want to do after your pregnancy.

When You Already Have Children It's a little easier to decide to quit after you've already had children. You know what it's like to balance work and family. You cried the first time you left your baby to show up at the morning meeting. You've done it.

When's the best time to leave? Never leave during the busy season. Give a month's notice. Do all the bending over backward necessary to make a good impression.

You have another advantage over pregnant women. You've proven you can work after you gave birth. People will know that when you want to go back to your job you'll be able to handle your family and career. That helps with the transition back to the working world.

When You Said, "I'll Be Back"

The stickiest situation of all is when you take maternity leave and you're absolutely or pretty darn sure you'll be back, but then you don't want to come back, or after a week back on the job you realize working isn't for you right now.

What do you do?

It depends.

If you're already back at work, tell your boss right away you don't think you'll be staying too long. Also tell her you'll stick it out for a couple months. Wait until the busy season is over. The holidays have pa.s.sed. You've caught up on all the work that piled up while you were away and paid back a couple favors to colleagues who took on your load. Once a respectable period has elapsed-it could be a few weeks or a couple months-then tell your boss your time is up. Tell her you'll help find and train your replacement. Offer to work part time on projects if she needs help. a.s.sure her that no matter how long it takes to find someone you'll stick it out. Do all this with a smile.

Leaving before you've paid your dues isn't pleasant. Take it from Dana.

Dana was absolutely positive that she'd bound back to work after giving birth. She was a financial a.n.a.lyst for a top investment firm and she loved what she did. She worked in a group of five people a.n.a.lyzing the retail sector. Each person in the group had a specialized area of expertise so there wasn't any overlap of duties. When Dana came back from eight weeks of maternity leave, the work was piled up because no one else in her team could do her job. As a result, many projects the team was responsible for were delayed until Dana caught up.

Dana had about sixty hours of overtime ahead of her in the next three weeks. On top of that she had fallen in love with her baby. She didn't want to go back to work, but she didn't want to disappoint her colleagues either. Her first week back she trudged into the office and hoped her conflicted feelings would evaporate. They didn't. To make matters worse, her colleagues, even the women on her team, were angry with her for being such a "girl." She needed to tough it out, they said.

She tried. In order to catch up on her backlog of work, she would nurse the baby at 3:00 A.M., go to work at 4:00 A.M., hotfoot it back home at 7:00 A.M. for another breastfeeding and shower, and hightail it back to the office by 9:00 A.M. This schedule allowed for about four hours of sporadic sleep a night. By the end of the week, Dana was dying. She pushed through the weekend, spending almost all her waking hours in the office. On Sunday night, when her breast pump stopped working and it didn't look like she had moved more than a couple inches of paper off of the mountain of files on her desk, she cracked. She decided that no job was this important. Monday she didn't go in. She slept late and turned off her cell phone. She quit. She's never talked to her former coworkers again, which closed off a large part of her networking pool. When she wants to go back to work, she knows she won't be able to call the people she worked with for the last three years of her professional life.

Granted, Dana's story is extreme, but it also could've been handled a little better. If she was a little more upfront with her bosses and got more help before her maternity leave, her meltdown might have been prevented. If she had gotten someone to fill in, she wouldn't have been so backlogged. If she had told her colleagues in person she wasn't returning, she might have salvaged a couple of relations.h.i.+ps.

If you're not back at work yet and it isn't really an option to go back, be honest with your employer. Don't wait for your maternity leave to expire. Think of the position you're putting her in. She's most likely doling your work out to other employees and possibly doing some of it herself. When you quit, that will trigger a weeks-to months-long search for a replacement. She'll have to pore over resumes and spend a lot of time interviewing. It's best if you give her as much time as possible to prepare.

Talk to her in person. Tell her that you had every intention of coming back but as soon as that bundle of joy was put into your arms you knew you couldn't go back to work and put your child in someone else's arms. She'll understand or will in time, if you're upfront.