As…

*Multiple friends who were former stay-at-home moms, accept positions that are 100% commission

*One woman, who has been a top sales person every year in her career, accepts a full-time position paying 40% less than her previous part-time position

*Another, who has undergrad and post-grad degrees, accepts a position that doesn’t require a college degree

*And countless friends with undergrad degrees, MBA’s, law degrees and other advanced degrees from top schools, give up the job hunt and turn to pursuing volunteer positions and interesting hobbies…

I thought it was worth it to revisit the column below, about the challenge the Motherhood Gap presents on resumes, which I wrote for The News & Observer. Many of the former stay at home moms I refer to above, didn’t step out of the marketplace for long, some as little as a few years.

Regardless, their step out of a career and into full-time motherhood didn’t go unnoticed by employers. Each were rewarded with much lower tier opportunities and far less money – if she even got a job.

As one writer, whose name I would love to credit, said about women failing to find work after staying at home with their children, “The punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime.”

It appears there isn’t much difference between a stay-at-home mom trying to reenter the work force and someone who is newly released from prison. Both have challenges even getting an interview. Both, if offered a job, will be working at a much lower pay scale and title.

And yet, over and over again, throughout this entire weekend, we will all hear how important the role of Mother is. If she is so important, why can’t she get a job?

This isn’t a problem perpetuated only by men. Women too are in positions to hire. A director of a preschool I know had an open position. It was for a “floater.” The person would go from room to room, supporting the teachers and helping where necessary. I told her I was going to tell a friend about the job.

The friend was a former stay-at-home mom who wanted to return to work. This director explained that she doesn’t like to hire former stay at home moms. She felt they couldn’t get used to full-time work.

This friend eventually did get a job as a teacher’s assistant. The school has loved having her, and she has adjusted quite well and really enjoys working with the kids. 

It’s fine if we don’t value the role of mother, and it’s a career killer, but can we have the integrity to stop espousing the message of mothers being so valuable? If we look at the marketplace, and we take away all the Hallmark card platitudes, we see moms are pretty much as valuable as ex-con’s, and there is something deeply sad about that.

News & Observer 2017

We get together, and we always have the same talk. Do we give in and apply at the mall for a job, or do we keep trying to establish ourselves in a career? This is our dilemma. We are the now empty nester moms who came of age after the Women’s Movement, when women were told we could be anything and major in anything. We were no longer relegated to the roles of secretary, nurse, social worker or teacher. We got MBA’s and law degrees and had jobs formerly reserved for men.

We were granted access into offices and careers that were beyond the imagination of most of the women who preceded us. What the workplace didn’t adapt for, didn’t acknowledge or chose to ignore, was the fact that women continue to remain the only portals by which little human beings entered the earth. Once we became mothers, there was no offer to go part-time, job share or have a flexible schedule.

While we were told we could be anything, we were forced to choose, motherhood or career. There was no opportunity for both.

When our husbands were offered promotions that required a move, we went with them. We gave up our careers and stayed home with the children, allowing our spouses the freedom to travel for work, while we maintained the carpools, doctor appointments and daily calendar of children’s activities.

So, now retired of our roles as full-time mothers, we are rendered useless to the world. What we find most remarkable, is that staying home with our children has stripped us of our degrees. When we are offered a chance to interview, it is for a job a recent college graduate wouldn’t entertain. We can be receptionists, store clerks or baristas.

Who knew that as we were working to increase our children’s value in the world by driving them to tutors, sports, teaching them manners and helping them study for tests, we were at the same time, decreasing our own value in the marketplace?

We have all heard about the concept of returnships, a term trademarked by Goldman Sachs, where they offer former homemakers a chance to learn skills in their offices, but they offer no jobs. Alas, in this hub of innovation and technology in which we live, no such opportunities exist.

Had we stayed in the towns and cities where we worked, we could call upon our old network, those who could vouch for our work ethic, our talents and abilities, but we have moved. To anyone here, we are the PTA moms, the room mothers and the ladies who ran the book fair.

Our husbands insist that if we got before someone who could recognize talent, we would easily get jobs. The problem is, your resume has to beat an algorithm to get an interview. A ten, fifteen or even twenty-year gap in employment will never get past those pesky algorithms. It is hard to not feel we are being punished for our choice to stay at home with our children.

It is shocking that given all the talk about the rising cost of healthcare, some smart company hasn’t tapped into this tremendous talent of stay at home moms who would appreciate the opportunity to work part-time and forgo having benefits.

There is a vast pool of talent, anxious to use their minds, work towards goals and spend the day with adults. They would probably be the happiest employees in any office. You’ll never know them though, because they chose the most important job in the world, or at least that is what they are told every second Sunday in May. They didn’t know that in taking it, this most important job would leave them unemployable.