When I was a kid my parents worked weekends. My dad at his second job and my mom worked nights in a hospital. They worked their schedules out so that every other weekend my two younger sisters and I spent the weekend with my grandma. This allowed my grandmother to have a lot of influence on me. She tried to convince my younger sister and I that our beloved cousins in San Antonio never fought; unlike us who held championship matches almost every day. But the one lesson that stuck with me, even if I didn’t live it, was this – Boys can wait, education first, get a job, and then find a boyfriend.

Michelle Obama certainly lead her life with this mantra, that is until she met Barack. “Michelle was full of plans that day, on the fast track, with no time, she told me, for distractions — especially men.” He has freely admitted that Michelle is the one who put her career on a mommy-track (not that her career looks anything like the typical mommy-track, mind you, just next to Barack’s career) for the kids sake, for his career sake. And now she is to be the next First Lady.

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The high points of my childhood are now the bane of my existence – School holidays.

As a mom who works outside the home full-time, a day off is a fate worse than hell some days and I’m a lucky one. I work at a university in an office where I can bring the kid in and plop her down with crayons and homework. My partner’s office isn’t as fit for having a kindergartner hanging out for the day – It’s just too busy. When I do stop to grumble, like right now, I force myself to think about the moms and dads who work in factories, retail, restaurants, and other places that aren’t appropriate for kids.

Add to this my questioning of celebrating a day like Columbus Day where kids still learn about Christopher Columbus and the world he discovered. Thus the idea that the kids are off in celebration of a myth (Chris didn’t make it to North America) more than the history. I am moving towards the idea that we should keep kids in school for Columbus and MLK Jr. Day so that an entire day can be devoted to what they mean to us today and what their legacy really is.

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This site is called “Work it, Mom!” and the tag line says, “a place where working moms connect/de-stress/share advise/find support.” Does that mean that we are only a place for 40-hour working outside the home moms? I say no.

After joining this community, I’ve had a few conversations with other moms about whether or not they would be welcome here. Moms who use to work full-time in an office but are not staying home, but also working freelance. Moms who never worked after they had their children but sell something in the evenings (make-up, jewelry, kitchen ware, etc.). Women who aren’t moms, but feel a kinship to their mommy friends.

My verdict? Everyone is welcome to this site and I’ll tell you why.

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I know this is a site for working moms, but since Father’s Day is this weekend, I thought we could turn our attention to our (mostly) better halves. I’ve always found it interesting that in all the debates about mommy wars and mommy guilt, little has been said or discussed about how dads feel about working and family. This week, however, I did run across this survey put out by CareerBuilder.com which states an interesting fact about dads surveyed.

More than a third of working dads (37 percent) said they would leave their job if their spouse or significant other’s income could comfortably support the entire family, similar to last year’s findings.

Wow, who knew? Some dads want to stay home too? I’m only being half-serious here. Some people may be surprised by these results, but I’m not. Almost on a weekly basis my husband tells me he’d happily stay at home with our son if I was willing to work and support our family. Sometimes, I think he should be the one to stay at home full time. His instincts are flawless when it comes to taking care of our son.

But I so don’t have what it takes to be a full-time working mom with a high-pressure career that brings fulfillment and the bacon.

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The basis for tome’s like Linda Hirshman‘s Get To Work and Lisa Bennett’s Feminine Mistake may appear to be nothing more than telling women what to do but if you can ignore the horrible presentation, the real issue is that Hirshman, Bennett and others are seriously tired of seeing women make up the majority of those living in poverty. Not just making up a large percentage, but that women end up there because we take time out of work to care for our family members.

* Women comprise 56% of Americans over 18 who live in poverty. [cite]
* In 2004, 28.4 percent of households headed by single women were poor. [cite]
* Nearly two-thirds of white women who are poor in old age have not been poor in the earlier years. This demonstrates an increased risk or a newly emerging risk of poverty for many white women. [cite]
* Old age poverty for African-American women reflects economic disadvantages in their earlier years compared with white women. [cite]
* In the United States, the share of elderly women living in poverty is highest among divorced or separated women (37 percent), followed by widowed women (28 percent), never-married women (22 percent), and married women (10 percent). [cite]

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I am not shy when it comes to stating that I am an ambitious woman. My goal is to be the executive director of a non-profit organization that works on behalf of girls and/or women. I also would love to have my own op-ed column syndicated in newspapers…or whatever people are reading in the future. In order to do those two kinda related things, I work my butt off on learning how to run an organization and on my writing. This also means that I put in an eight-hour work day and then put in another 2-3 hours at home on my other activities (mostly writing and reading). I also know that I married an equally ambitious man. Luckily his current job is far more 9-5 than mine and his extracurricular activities are not as numerous as mine (he is much better at saying no than I am).

When we graduated from college we decided that whomever found a job first, that’s what we would do. My husband won and we stayed in Chicago. Since then we’ve both made enough friends and contacts that Chicago, where we were born & raised, has become OUR home. Yet I know that as we progress in our careers a job in another state might land in my lap or a more high powered position will come knocking on his door. If I were to take a job that moved us to Seattle, I think many people would applaud my husband for being the “trailing” partner aka the partner who moves for the benefit of the other partner. But would they do the same for me if he was offered an amazing job that required me to pull back from work, community work, or heck, even quit my job? Given the reaction that Michelle Obama received when she resigned from her high powered job to campaign for her husband, I highly doubt it.

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I have a confession - I was a finalist for the 2006 Swiffer Amazing Woman of the Year. The call went out for nominations and many thought it was stereotypical for a cleaning product to name amazing women. Of course I went directly to the fine print and rules. No where did it say that the amazing woman had to keep a clean house. This was important because I’m a lucky gal in that my husband is the one who keeps us from living in a pit of dirty dishes and laundry. If we were to tally up the hours each of us spends on chores I believe it would be at least a 60/40 split (some weeks far more towards the 80/20 end) with my husband on the losing end. I know we’re a rare pair, but among our hetero-couple friends, it’s fairly common for them to be engaged in an egalitarian relationship when it comes to chores and raising the kids. Obviously I didn’t win and it was pretty embarrassing asking co-workers to vote for me on the internet for a chance to spend the summer promoting Swiffers. But I really did want to promote the idea of egalitarian relationships - Maybe that doomed me, eh? I also wanted the cash prize $5,000 for a nonprofit of my choice.

Whether you work in a cubicle downtown or in your fuzzy slippers during nap time, all working moms have to manage housework on top of our paid work. According to a new study by lead researcher Frank Stafford, an economist at University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, when women get married, the amount of housework we do goes up. It goes up again once we have kids (that’s a no brainer, eh?).

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I’ve been keeping tabs on a new trend deemed to make the lives of working parents easier: some companies are providing parents the ability and opportunity to bring their babies to work. According to USA Today,

More than 80 companies across the nation allow babies in the workplace, according to Parenting in the Workplace Institute in Framingham, Mass., which says that number is likely to be low.

I know our country is seriously lacking in the flexible and affordable child care department, but I’m not sure bringing your baby to work is the answer to our needs.

There are some serious pros to the argument, as a study reported byTime suggests.

But even naysayers may be surprised by the results of research conducted by Mary Secret, a social-work professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her 2005 analysis of 55 businesses with baby-friendly policies found that people often anticipate disaster but there is rarely a negative effect on co-workers or productivity. What’s more, she learned that having babies around can boost morale among colleagues.

Having a baby around may make people feel all warm in fuzzy inside, but does warm and fuzzy really get the work done?

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A former boss of mine liked to comment on every decision she made in my presence because she sincerely felt that as a mentor she needed to explain it all to me. One of the trueisms was that you have to manage and make rules according to the lowest denominator. My concern that day happened to be that we didn’t get access to our sick days until after six months of employment. As a new mom, I knew how valuable sick days were, especially when we also had no access to vacation days until that magical six months.

I return to her advise when I hear story after story of mothers or pregnant women being discriminated against. On the surface I can understand how a supervisor “burned” by a new mom who picks up and leaves for stay-at-home-paradise would hold a grudge against other women. Women like Linda Hirshman would say that this proves that women “opting out” is ruining it for the rest of us hearty women who stay in the workplace. Of course, I’m never that eager to blame other women, but would rather look at the system to see what could change.

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Welcome to Moms on Issues! As Veronica mentioned, on this new blog, Veronica and I are going to be tackling political and social issues facing working moms today. From moms in the media to caring for our elders and our kids, we’ve got it covered.

We’re thrilled to be a part of the WIM team and hope you enjoy our points of view. We promise to speak our minds so be sure to speak yours as well. Anyway, here goes…
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Whether you’re a mom who works outside of the home or from home or doesn’t work at all, I’m sure at one time or another you’ve found yourself hitting that proverbial brick wall. Being a mom is tiring - even after you get your kid to sleep through the night (and sometimes even achieving that is a challenge). So if someone offered me a pill to feel more energized and focused throughout the day I’d leap at the chance to take it. Wouldn’t you?

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