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The media buzzed in recent years with reports of mothers opting out of the work force to raise their children. It turns out the revolution among mothers has been canceled -- and maybe never even started.
There is not a widespread trend of working moms trading paychecks for play dates, several economists report. In fact, the percentage of moms in the daily grind had been rising since the 1960s, before leveling off in recent years, they said.
Instead, as families celebrate the nation's 94th Mother's Day on Sunday, they are coping with a different set of trends -- a rising number of two-career families, growing cost of living, sagging home prices, mounting hours at work and a looming recession.
While mothers struggle to strike a balance in these shifting economic sands, anecdotal evidence is popping up around Seattle that a few bosses are noticing. There is a roving nanny at one Ballard mortgage brokerage, a moms support group at a downtown law firm and paid paternity leave at Microsoft Corp. While these changes are far from the rule, most are relatively new.
These new work-family tools reflect that 65 percent of mothers with preschoolers worked in 2006, up from 30 percent in 1970, according to a Stanford University study. Buried deeper in the data is that 71 percent of all moms were in the labor force that year, according to Labor Department data.
"Consistently what the data says is that women are not opting out," said Amy Richards, author of "Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself."
For some mothers, opting out or in is not even a true debate.
Lorraine Lewis Phillips never seriously considered leaving the courthouse life after having her first daughter three years ago or her second in August. The Seattle-based litigator loves her job too much and craves the mental stimulation of work. Money, of course, was a factor, though it wasn't at the top of her list.
Yet to make it work, the 40-year-old had to tweak her schedule and ambition. Her workday often resumes at 9 p.m., when she logs in from her North Seattle home after tucking her daughters into bed.
She also sleeps about six hours a night, now works 50 hours a week, not 70 hours, and her self-employed husband typically picks up and drops off the children at child care.
She also makes sure she doesn't book business trip flights until after her girls finish swimming lessons.
Phillips realizes she may pay a price for all this: a longer climb up the corporate ladder.
"I don't believe I'm sabotaging myself. I do think it will take longer than it would have ... but that's OK with me," Phillips said. "I am not sure it is balance, but things are working."
To help lawyer-moms strike a semblance of work-family balance and keep moving up, Phillips co-founded MAMAS (Mother Attorneys Mentoring Association of Seattle) in late 2006.
Once a month, the mothers gather for a brown-bag lunch, and discussions range from summer camps to life coaching.
Over in Ballard, Salmon Bay Community Lending keeps a mobile nanny on the payroll. She is on call during the day to care for children of all six women who anchor the business.
"She is part of the team," says Ruby Grynberg, who founded the all-female mortgage brokerage three years ago. "I certainly don't know anyone else who has a similar situation."
Mobile nannies are far from the norm, though. Pro-family changes are coming slowly to the Seattle work scene, according to family advocates.
"What we are seeing is an increase in businesses who are offering flexible work options, and who are offering options for both parents to work and parent," said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, the Seattle-area based leader of the parents-rights group Moms Rising. "We are seeing a very slow but steady increase."
But, the gap between the demands of work and home in 2008 remains wide, far wider for those sitting on the bottom and in the middle of the wage scale, according to Virginia Rutter, a senior fellow with Council on Contemporary Families.
They have less money for child care and often face meager benefits at work.
In another twist, older moms are more likely to keep working after having children than younger moms, according to an analysis of federal data by former Bureau of Labor Statistics economist Charlotte Yee.
In 2004, 67 percent of moms age 30 to 44 were in the labor force after having their first child, compared with 56 percent of moms in the 20 to 24 age range.
With moms remaining firmly at work, the looming recession is casting a longer shadow over the American family. Nearly 70 percent of women cited financial strain as a bigger problem for the nation's families than divorce, in a survey of more than 3,000 women by NBC Universal and Meredith Corp. released in April.
As moms and dads search for balance during the economic downturn, "Opting In's" Richards has advice about getting flexibility at work.
"Ask for it," Richards says.
© 2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
14 Comments so far
Show AllI don't know any moms who don't do some work for pay - the thing about choosing to work outside the home is that it's so limiting. Time constraints limit women to pursuing only one income stream, while working from home allows for a variety of streams of income!
mommy.z-net.us
I'm no Hafiz, but I get by. -Rawlf the Dog
PRESENCE: It feels good when we resonate, kind of like making harmony out of our respective songs.
EL MYSTERIO: Any correlation between Mom's working and low wages against rising costs of living? I opted to stay home to raise my children because as part of the "hippie" generation, it was no sweat for me to live in a small apartment, not drive a fancy car, and just be grateful for my daily bread which often arrived by spontaneous gigs just in time to meet expenses. The forces that conspire against the stay-at-home Mom deserve more indictment then (in case this is your intent) blaming the Moms!
I wonder if there is a correlation between increasing number of working moms and the increased behavioral problems of the recent generations of kids.
PRESENCE: You sweetheart, you! Motherhood would be a lot easier in a world that honored life, children and peace... in a sense, each of us is a facet of the macrocosm and with its extreme emphasis on violence and competition, it's a wonder that we can love when and how we do. THAT is the miracle that science can never explain. It can't find LOVE in the brain, can't stimulate the "right" neurons to explain it... the ESSENCE of our souls goes beyond what science can measure, and so long as our world remains defined by the bastions of mundane power and its dependency on rational parameters like logic, we lose HALF of our human endowment and capacity to embrace a far more fulfilling form of sentience. Like everyone else, I struggle to make love my first priority... and how the world and its wounded citizens challenge that initiative!
Wow, "hellodarling" why all the bitterness towards women and children ? Women "pooping out children" !? That reference makes children instant waste, and women a machine that produces
waste ! Ugh, this is progress ? Then you seem to blame the government for treating the children as waste, where do such ideas originate I wonder ? I think I need a shower.
Media is wonderful, isn't it? Everyone woman is a lawyer, and has trouble getting little do-dad to swim lessons. Right. Most women have trouble making ends meet, and then get a divorce, and then have more problems making ends meet. Then they get another man and so on. Our society has far more problems than this article makes out. Why don't reporters in Seattle walk around with me while I counsel children whose mothers were hooked on meth when they were born. Why don't they get down and dirty where most people are trying to survive in this hostile world?
Motherhood is obsolete. There is to be no future for offspring to grow up into. Air travel is obsolete. Automobile commuting and recreational driving is obsolete. Electronic gadgets are obsolete. In a humane society, contraception would be mandatory, by force of tradition.
PEACEMAN & RT DRURY: Good postings.
GHAWAR & HELLO DARLING: You two really know how to piss on the party for us Mothers on Mother's Day. Your posts are to a respect of children and LOVING parents what Ebineezer Scrooge's closed heart was to business. If progressives carry such closed hearts heaven help us!
What is a mom? Well, in america, a "mom" is a woman who poops out babies for the state to use as cannon fodder and slave labor in prison camps.
In america and elsewhere there are women pooping out brats while there are other babies with no mommy or daddy. I guess most women feel that a NEW baby is better than a "used" one.
Then, to top THAT off, she's not even likely to even have the TIME to be a "mother" even if she wanted to.
Ladies, can you do me a favor? Could you please make sure that ALL babies and children are cared for BEFORE pooping out a bunch more brats???
It would make the world a more peaceful and loving and nurturing place for EVERYBODY if you could just do this one thing.
There are very few young couples where both have education ending at high school (or dropout with later GED) who can afford housing, car(s), health care, and the cost of raising any (much less several) children without both spouses working full time "forever" in the marriage.
There are also few young couples with college who can swing it (especially in the young early years) on one income due to all the above plus likely student loans.
Companies like Microsoft with large gross profit margins CAN be generous with "pro-family" benefits. Many employers don't have the margins and CANNOT do so, even though they might want to.
Raising kids is a tougher economic slog for most young parents than it used to be. Electing lots and lots of Democrats is the best advice I can offer to youngsters from the moment they turn 18. Government either "won't" or "might" help the coming generation more with such things as health care, pre-K, student loans, and workplace laws----depended entirely on how many liberals you elect.
Say you want to "make it" without government help in those areas? Good luck. The American odds are now against you.
I have never thought favorably of children, and reading this article I now find them trebly irksome. Good job, Mr. Nyhan, and fair warning to rash young couples bent on marriage and family.
This is the classic corporate media article of the past several decades that uproots the real issues with its basic assumptions, and replace them with destructive distractions, confusion and a sense of urgency that one must work more, work harder, and pay more taxes.
The crucial facts are: 1.) children need total parental interaction for the first several years of life, no compromise is acceptable, and 2.) we don't need more people in the workforce because 90% of economic activity in the US is highly net destructive, for the people, for the society and for the environment. Instead we need more people learning how/why to do their part help build a better family, community, society. These facts are squelched by the capitalists, militarists and imperialists who are on a jihad to enslave the people.
The corporate media supports the jihad in various ways. For example, the above article states "Nearly 70 percent of women cited financial strain as a bigger problem for the nation's families than divorce". But the divorce fundamentally produces the financial strain. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer leaves no option for the reader to make that connection. The corporate media message is: "Get divorced and work more hours, the children be damned. Enjoy your independence from family, enjoy your independence from social responsibility, but please maintain your dependence on the capitalist machine - from which there is no refuge, and keep busy churning more dollars for the corporations, the Pentagon, the elites.
There is a vast difference between a woman who has to work out of necessity and one who has other options, such as staying at home raising children or as a homemaker, or just wanting a career.
I'm not sure what the writer's point of the article is.