Working Mother

What are the things your friends and family never told you about life as a Working Parent? Kristin Maschka, the past president and national spokesperson for Mothers & More, answers that question while addressing the myths and traditions associated with motherhood, parenting, and work in her new book, This Is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood To Get The Lives We Want Today (Berkley Trade). She spoke to me about her revelations as a working mom.

The title of your new book is “This Is Not How I Thought It Would Be…” which begs the question: How did you envision motherhood?
The title is literally what I found myself saying or thinking to myself over and over after we had our daughter! This is NOT how I thought it would be.

Like many mothers I found there was a big disconnect between the way I thought motherhood in the 21st century would be and the way it turned out to be. My modern egalitarian marriage turned into something out of “Ozzie and Harriet” or “Leave it to Beaver.”

My previously successful career literally came to an abrupt and unexpected halt, which meant I lost colleagues, a paycheck, a big part of my identity. While I kept my name when I got married, when we had our daughter I suddenly lost it and became “Kate’s mom.”

Frankly nothing was how I thought it would be and no one seemed to be able to tell me why or what to do about it. So I wrote This is Not How I Thought It Would Be to explain what I learned about why that happens and to provide mothers with the simple tools they need to remodel motherhood to get the lives they want today.

Who is the “happiest” working mom you know? Why? And who is the “happiest” working dad?
What makes any employed mother or employed father happy is being able to find an employment situation that fits his or her own needs and the needs of their family, and that can be reasonably adapted as things change. Unfortunately, that’s harder than it should be.

Jobs and workplace culture still reflect an old assumption that a worker is a man with a wife at home, leaving both mothers and fathers today feeling like square pegs trying to fit into a round hole.

How can our employers help us be better parents?
I think employers can help us be better parents, lead better lives AND be more productive by confronting the reality that one-size-fits-all jobs just don’t work anymore for mothers or fathers.

Given the convergence of several trends – colleges graduating more women than men, the retirement of the Baby Boomers, and an increasing high school drop-out rate - employers and our economy will eventually face a labor shortage again. Those companies that figure out how to customize jobs, for example like Deloitte does , will be better positioned to attract and keep good employees.

What was your most eye-opening “remodeling” experience as a parent?
My most eye-opening moment, and a turning point in my remodeling project, was realizing that perhaps the biggest barrier to having the life I wanted was that my husband couldn’t figure out how to get the life he wanted either. Remodeling is a project mothers and fathers have to tackle together.

While many of the dilemmas mothers face combining employment and family haven’t changed much in the last twenty-five years, research tells us that the experience of fathers – and mothers’ expectations of fathers – has changed dramatically in that same time. Fathers are doing more family work than ever and feeling more conflict between family and employment than ever. We really are more in the same boat that we often realize.

The Families & Work Institute just published a study that shows the recession is taking a terrible toll on workers—1 in 3 is showing signs of depression, 1 in 4 smoke, and most don’t exercise or take enough vacation time. Any tips for these stressed-out Working Parents on “remodeling” their mental and physical state while staying employed?
It is important to remember that managing your energy is more important than managing your time. A great tip from some friends of mine. Have each spouse make a list of three things he or she needs each week to stay sane and energized. Trade lists and work together to figure out how to make at least one or more of those happen for each other.

For the couple who gave me this tip, she wanted to sleep in one weekend morning, and he wanted one chance each week to workout for as long as he wanted. Mothers and fathers need to look at time as a shared family resource and plan together for investing that time to keep everyone healthy mentally and physically.

For more about Kristin, check out her blog.

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Surgeons these days are worried about the decreasing numbers of medical school graduates that choose surgery as a specialty. At the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, outgoing president Dr. Gregory Jurkovich blamed lifestyle decisions. Today’s medical students, he told the meeting, would rather go into specialties with controllable hours, such as dermatology, in order to avoid emergencies and on-call duty.

Several surveys back up his observation, such as a 2003 study that found that “controllable lifestyle” decisions explained 55% of the shift in medical students’ specialty choices from 1996 to 2002. During that time, the percentage of students who chose dermatology rose from 0.2% to 2.3%, while those who selected general surgery fell from 10.4% to 7.6%.

The medical blog EMGN: Notes From The Road had an interesting reaction to the speech:

This idea of “controllable lifestyle”… got me wondering how much of a role lifestyle plays in anyone’s decision about a career. I had always assumed that people ended up in their career path in one of four ways.
(a) “I always wanted to be a ——.”
(b) “I followed my interests and hoped it would work out.”
(c)”I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I picked business.”
(d) “I just sort of ended up doing this.”

When I came of age, longer ago than I will admit here, I don’t know of anyone who sought a “controllable lifestyle,” except for those who wanted to lead a lifestyle where they suffered under as little control as possible (ski bum, beach bum, waiter writing a great novel on the side, etc). The rest of us fell into EMGN’s four categories. I was definitely an A. I decided to become a reporter at age 11, after reading a biography of Nellie Bly, gal reporter, in sixth grade. I grew up in a small, farming community where the women who worked were teachers, nurses, shop clerks or factory workers. Bly, who lived from 1864 to 1922, lead a life of adventure that sounded far more exciting, and that was it for me–I too would travel the globe and write daring stories that would change the world. For the most part, I haven’t regretted that choice, even though it certainly hasn’t given me a controllable lifestyle.

Now my 11-year-old daughter wants to be a dancer, a ballet dancer to be precise, a choice that I admit I’m not keen on (I see a lot of waitressing in her future if she sticks to it). I assume she will likely change her mind in a few years, even though I never changed my 11-year-old goal. I suppose we hope that our children do end up with controllable lifestyles or at least lifestyles where they can support themselves in a fashion that won’t make us shudder when we walk into their first apartment.

So readers, Let me ask you: What made you choose your career? Any regrets? And what reasons would you like your children to use when choosing theirs? Should they follow their dreams, no matter how impractical? Put lifestyle first? Think about the long haul–family responsibilities, retirement, financial security? Play it as it comes?
Looking forward to hearing your responses.

If you want to read about one recent college grad’s choice, read my earlier post Off the Treadmill, Into Telluride. Another controversy simmering in the medical world is whether or not the rising number of women doctors is contributing to a medical shortage because they want to work shorter hours; read Women Doctors: Waste of Money? for more on that issue.

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So what goes through your mind when you see a wheelchair-bound child with cerebral palsy, an adolescent with the social short-circuiting of Asbergers, or a kid whose speech isn’t as quick and facile as his peers? Few of us are as candid as my friend Dan Habib about the prejudice he once held against kids and adults with disabilities. “When I saw people who couldn’t walk or talk … It’s painful to admit, but I often saw them as less smart, less capable, and not worth getting to know.”

That was a lifetime ago. Specifically, the life of Dan’s son, Samuel, a fourth grader with cerebral palsy whose odysseys and those of four others with disabilities are chronicled in Dan’s award-winning documentary, Including Samuel. The film chronicles the efforts of Dan, his wife, Betsy, and their older son, Isaiah, to involve Samuel in every part of their lives and in the public schools in their hometown of Concord, N.H. When I first blogged about the film in May it had just been featured on the likes of Good Morning America and NPR’s All Things Considered and was catching on among advocates of inclusion, as Dan says, “giving all individuals equal opportunity to learn and engage with their peers.” The film has since spanned the globe with screenings from Iraq to Belgium and the country with showings and discussions at universities, school districts, and disability rights conferences. And Samuel, whom I first met when he was a baby at a Thanksgiving dinner shared by our two extended families, has since developed fascinations held not so long ago by my sixth-grade son: the Titanic and all things related to it, the deafening roar of a throng of boys cheering their wooden race cars over the finish line in that annual Cub Scout ritual, the pinewood derby.

With National Disability Employment Awareness Month (October) around the corner, the Habibs have taken the film and their campaign for inclusion up a few more levels: Including Samuel is about to air across the nation on PBS broadcasts supported by the National Inclusion Project and CVS Caremark All Kids Can, a CVS program to help kids with disabilities. Isaiah has helped put together a “teen movie party toolkit,” encouraging kids to set up their own screenings of the film with their friends and posing questions only an 8th grader like himself could ask: “Have you ever seen kids in wheelchairs being pushed down the hall of your school by someone that looks like they’re thinking about retirement?” And Dan, once a national award-winning photographer for the Concord Monitor and a Pulitzer Prize jurist this year, now supports his work and family as the filmmaker in residence at the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire.

But in this economy, just how much enthusiasm is Dan getting for inclusion? Not everyone is a fan—not by a long shot, judging by some of the comments on my blog last May. “Why do we even bother paying for education for these kids?,” wrote a commenter named Lilly. “Their parents chose to have kids and now their disability and special needs amount to a rise in taxes. Their parents just get a lawyer and fight and fight until the school district ends up paying for special programs. Why? Why not divert the funds for gifted and talented students instead of kids who will need societal support their whole life.”

Lilly’s anger about how taxpayers’ money is spent is not so uncommon. How many of us have heard the same complaint in our own school districts? And how many Lillys does Dan run into on his?

I pitched that question to him by e-mail, and he replied with a list of “myths and realities” about inclusion. One myth, he says, is the notion that taxpayers are throwing away money by educating kids with disabilities. His response: “How can Lilly or anyone else predict which child will contribute to our society? Would Lilly really argue that Bernie Madoff … added more to the world than the physicist Stephen Hawking (who wrote his greatest work after he was severely disabled by ALS)? How about Albert Einstein (widely thought to have had Asperger Syndrome), Helen Keller (blind, deaf, and unable to speak) and Vincent Van Gogh (mentally ill)? People are not limited by their disability, they are limited by a lack of opportunity.”

Another complaint? “Inclusion just stresses out teachers and takes away from the education of the ‘other’ kids.” Says Dan: “Nearly every teacher I have met in my travels has told me that teaching kids of varying abilities and learning styles has made them a better teacher. Inclusion has reinforced the importance of cutting-edge teaching methods.”

What about it, readers? If you attended a school that included disabled kids, what was your experience? Have your attitudes about disabled kids changed over the years? Do students with disabilities in your schools learn along with their peers? Are your schools strained or strengthened by them?

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Want to get kids interested in science? Show them how they can use it to better the world they live in. Take Jathan Kron, Justin Roth and Brennan Nelson, three middle school students from West Branch, Iowa. Jathan, age 12, was helping his father sweep out his auto repair shop, and noticed that he was throwing away all these lead wheel weights that are attached to tires for stabilization. The weights fall off cars all the time, making them one of the biggest sources of lead released into the environment.

Jathan and his two friends, under the tutelage of their science teacher, Hector Ibarra, discovered that the lead weights are completely unregulated and started measuring how much of the lead is leached into the environment.

Using this data they began a campaign to replace the lead weights with steel. Three bills banning the weights have been introduced in the Iowa legislature and the Environmental Protection Agency is considering a similar ban. To top it all off, the boys won the grand prize in the inaugural year of the We Can Change The World Challenge, sponsored by the Siemens Foundation in partnership with Discovery Education and the National Science Teachers Association.

Over 2000 middle school students from across the US entered the challenge last year; this year it has been expanded to include elementary school students, and in 2010 high schoolers can enter. The contest requires teams of two to three students under the mentorship of a teacher or other adult to identify an environmental issue in their community, research the issue using scientific investigation, and create a replicable green solution. The winners receive a $5000 savings bond, an appearance on the Planet Green cable network and the chance to present their findings to a panel of United Nations environmentalists.

Second place for the 2009 prize went to three girls from St, Philip the Apostle School in Addison, Ill., Angel Lozzio (13), Maggie O’Brien (12) and Data Gattone (13). “We started because we wanted to make a difference,” says Maggie, and their solution was to figure out how to get their town and school to recycle. The dropped off flyers and handed out recycling bins, carefully monitored the response, and discovered that recycling participation started to soar. “We were really amazed that we could make this much of a change,” says Angel.

The enthusiasm these kids feel about their projects is infectious, and makes me feel a little better about the future. For all the wailing about the state of our schools, the declining science and math skills of our students, the fixation on TV and video games over books and larger world, the fact is it seems like plenty of America’s children are engaged, industrious and full of ideas. We adults just have to figure out how to harness that energy, and keep the enthusiasm flowing. If a friendly competition is what it takes, then kudos to the Siemens Foundation (which also sponsors the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math Science and Technology).

Year two of the Siemens Change The World Challenge kicked off on Aug. 19. Entries can be downloaded at www.wecanchange.com.

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If you don’t want your kids to use drugs, have dinner with them on Monday, September 28.

Monday is National Family Day, a day when families are encouraged to sit down at the table together and enjoy dinner as a family unit. It’s a lovely idea, particularly for stressed-out employees who are working longer hours these days and have less time to focus on family.

This video will explain more about the magic of family dinners. But the idea behind it is research that shows teens who have frequent family dinners are less likely to use drugs. (The event is sponsored by the The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.)

In my home, it always feels special when we do all sit down as a family for a meal, although it’s not every week night…not even close. One resource that’s helped me become a better after-work chef is TheSixO’ClockScramble, which I’ve been using for the past year. It features healthy, kid-friendly and simple recipes. It’s helped me break out of a recipe rut. And I no longer have a fear of overcooking fish.

Do you plan to celebrate National Family Day? If so, why…and what’s on the menu?

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Frigidaire just announced Jennifer Garner as their new celebrity ambassador! This afternoon Jennifer will introduce Frigidaire’s new line of appliances, designed with features that help us Moms save time in our busy schedules, and challenge us to pledge a bit…
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So much for work-life balance…work-life fit…work-life integration.

Whatever you want to call it, it isn’t “working.”

The recession is taking a very scary toll on the health of U.S. workers. According to The State of Health in the American Workforce report from the Families & Work Institute released today (which I heavily Tweeted), U.S. workers aren’t taking good care of themselves.

In fact, work seems to be decimating their physical and mental health. Just 28% of employees report that their overall health is “excellent,” down from 34% just six years ago, the study shows.

Some other disturbing findings:

1 in 3 workers have experienced one or more symptoms of clinical depression.

1 in 5 employees has trouble falling asleep very often or fairly often while 31% awaken too early and have trouble falling back to sleep.

49% of U.S. workers haven’t exercised in the last 30 days.

1 in 4 smokes.

39% of employees don’t use all of their vacation time while just 24% take 5 or less days for “big” vacation.

Companies have been hyping so-called wellness programs for the past few years, and there have been some interesting results, but I’m personally getting stressed out reading FWI’s findings.

What do you think? How has the recession impacted you physically and mentally? And what can corporations do to improve our physical and mental health?

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This post was written by Darren Manley (pictured here), who is a blogger and author of the forthcoming book, Growing Up Old.

My father retired in 1990 from the Southern California Edison Company after thirty-nine years of service. He was 63. I was five and had just gone into kindergarten. I tugged at his bathrobe when he didn’t put on a shirt and tie that first Monday morning.

“Aren’t you going to work, daddy?”

“I’m not going to work anymore.”

“Were you fired?” I had just learned this word.

A laugh. “No, not fired. Retired…”

You might think it ironic that a 25-year-old who grew up with a retired father would be contributing to a blog called “Working Parents.” Because of his age, my dad couldn’t do many of the things other dads did; he rarely fulfilled the traditional role of the breadwinner who comes home from a long day to play a game of catch with his boy.

Yet, in their Golden Years, he and my mother still managed to give me a sound, beautiful understanding of what it takes to succeed in life – monetarily and otherwise. They sacrificed their retirement to take on the most difficult and rewarding of jobs – parenting – and crystallized for me some hard truths that our nation as a whole is just coming to grips with.

Growing up with a mother and father who had survived the Great Depression and World War II meant that we did things differently in our house, especially when it came to money. We never used a dishwasher. In the backyard, the clothes hung from the line, drying in the lazy afternoon sun. Instead of buying new clothes, mom sewed up the holes in my old ones on her ancient Singer.

And when the Tooth Fairy came around, I was always told that she had run out of money to stuff under pillows, but had tucked some away for me in “a faraway land I could not yet reach” (the bank). Not to mention the “ration stamps” I was given in second grade to teach me the art of deferred gratification. (I could never quite amass enough of them to earn a Coke every night of the week.)

Their old-world philosophy led to a pronounced and difficult rebellion as I searched for my identity during the vibrant 80s and 90s – a search very similar to the one boomers endured decades before. But as I matured and my parents’ voices became weaker, I came to see that so many of their simple truths rang true. The frugality they learned during their tough childhoods became a way of life; one that can still be lived to an extent in our modern world.

With the economy postponing so many retirements and older parenting a rising trend, I figured the time was right to use my own voice and honor my parents and all older parents who work to give their children everything they never had.

In a May 2007 post here, Lauren Young posed the question: “How old is too old” when it comes to parenting? It’s a tough issue that brings so many factors into play, but I would argue that from one angle, it’s never too late. The wisdom older parents have – far removed from the heady days of youth – is vast. The very decision to become a parent later in life illustrates the sagacity of age, because we are all called to pass down our knowledge to those who come after us.

Like the ebb and flow of an economy, older parents have long ago made their mistakes in life and finance and risen above them. They can teach their children in unique ways, and their timeless messages have the power to change society, parenting, and future generations for the better.

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Today’s Link: An intriguing podcast at Manic Mommies Why: These ladies consistently get good guests. This is with Caitlin Friedman, co-author of Happy at Work, Happy at Home: The Girls’ Guide to Being a Working Mom. A title that seems…
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This guest post was written by Fran Durekas, founder of Children’s Creative Learning Centers

As the demographics of the workforce changes, the needs of the workforce are also changing. The Society for Human Resource Management Workplace Forecast of 2004-2005 found that an increase in workers with elder care responsibilities and an increase in workers with both childcare and elder care responsibilities were the primary upcoming demographic trends in the workforce.

As I talk to my clients, this is indicative of a prominent dilemma these days – specifically the changing landscape of work-life balance for parents. Especially with the new economic environment, employees want to be visible, engaged and demonstrating value. So, employees worry, “How can I continue to show up to work every day, without worrying about my child care and/or elder care responsibilities?”

As a working mom growing my own business, I know first-hand how hard it can be to balance my work and my life at home. Employers today need to look at policies and benefits that will support the “sandwich generation” and allow them to maintain their skilled workers and their productivity.

Are You Willing to Make the Change?
Offering a spectrum of dependent care benefits that support the work/life balance of employees can produce a win-win solution resulting in loyal, satisfied employees that improve an organization’s overall productivity and reputation in the market. By supporting retention of employees, and solutions that tend to lower family-related absenteeism and subsequently increase productivity, these programs also generate a substantial return on investment.

One of my clients puts it this way:
“We know employees have lives outside of work,” says Pamela Faccone, manager, Health and Wellness at Prudential Financial. “And we’re committed to helping them succeed both professionally and personally. Our employees have access to an excellent network of in-home, on-site and near-site child care providers, adult care services, flexible work arrangements, wellness programs and a variety of other work/life programs all designed to create a highly supportive and productive workplace.”

Other employers are starting to respond to this change as well by adjusting their benefits offerings to meet current employee needs. According to the Families & Work Institute’s 2008 National Study of Employers, 79% of employers now offer employees some level of flexibility. Child care assistance benefits have remained stable over the years even through the down economy and assistance accessing information on elder care services is offered by more employers today (29%) than in previous years.

The Future of the Benefits Package
In the current economy, it is as important as ever to find and retain the best employees and to ensure that dollars spent on employee benefits are spent wisely. According to the 7th annual MetLife Annual Employee Trends Study, 54% of employers cited retention of employees as one of their top three benefits objectives for 2009 and close to a third of employers feel that offering work/life benefits is a key strategy to accomplish this goal. However, I find it concerning to see that the study reveals only 8% of employers feel the need to offer benefits that meet employees’ diverse needs, while 46% of employees would like to see this kind of customization of benefits.

As an employer, if you really want to ensure your dollars are spent effectively, you need to align your organization’s benefits offering with the specific needs of your workforce and offer your employees benefits packages that address their diverse needs.

Organizations that are willing to design this type of benefits package that will cover a range of employees’ diverse needs and simultaneously respond to the changing demographics of the workforce, such as dependent care access or financial assistance programs that cover both child care and elder care are the ones that will ride out the wave as the economy ebbs and flows. They will see direct benefits through lowering turnover and absenteeism, increasing productivity and enhancing the corporate image as an employer of choice. In addition, offering employees benefits that meet their current needs will result in a more engaged, more loyal workforce and assist employers in the consistent, primary goal of employee retention.

Steps You Can Take to Create Customized Benefits Offerings

1) My recommended first step to evaluate the potential impact of any employee benefits option is to survey your employees.

2) Once the basic needs have been identified, organizations can gather information on ways to meet identified needs and research existing resources and programs in the market or industry.

3) Organizations will likely want to look into ways that other organizations meet similar needs in their employee populations, and analyze potential return on investment statistics where available.

For example, an organization is interested in examining the potential to provide dependent care assistance, but doesn’t know where to begin. Through a dependent care needs assessment survey, you can identify challenges and needs. Do your employees need help finding convenient, quality child care or elder care centers in the community? Is there a greater need for emergency care? Do workers need help in paying for quality care for their dependents? Are there resources in the market currently that can be leveraged to support these types of demands?

Once needs have been identified, you can evaluate options such as offering access to traditional dependent care facilities, such as on-site or near-site care or non-traditional options that are becoming more in demand as backup care, access programs, financial assistance programs or resource and referral programs.

A look at best practices offered both in the market and by other organizations to meet similar needs can help the organization narrow down their options, identify key issues to consider in the evaluation process and decide whether to design a new program or develop partnerships with existing providers.

Working with a benefits consultant or other third party resource can help you evaluate and research options appropriate for your organization and ensure that you are effectively aligning your organization with current best practices and providing employees with benefits that are both meaningful and relevant in today’s workforce.

Fran Durekas is Founder and Chief Development officer for CCLC. In this capacity, she provides executive leadership and support for new center openings, long-term strategy development for centers and client relations. She also assists with center design, construction and program recommendations.

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