For Stay At Home Moms, Re-entering Workforce Isn't Easy

At first it seems like the right thing to do: You're having a baby. You should be home to raise the baby. 

If your finances allow for it, staying home with your child is considered to be the best situation for both child and parent (there are dads who stay home too!), in most cases. It really comes down to the decision and needs of the couple and expanding family. Life always has a way of changing, so what works right now might not work a year or two later.

But no matter how long a mom decides to stay home with her family, when she's ready to return to the workforce, she is penalized for it. The "gap" in her employment history is considered questionable: She chose motherhood over career once, she could jump ship again.

Women leave their full time mothering position for many different reasons. Financial issues could arise, life changes like divorce or death of a spouse, or an empty nest is too quiet and an outlet is needed. 

Discrediting their experience and writing off their need for a job as frivolous - she hasn't needed a job in 20 years, surely she doesn't really need one now - is a social injustice and a slap in the face of mothers everywhere. 

Don't slap your mother!

Flexibility is a must. Problem solving is a daily task. Organized multi-taskers handling what ever comes their way making intelligent decisions and getting the job done.

We've all seen the lists of jobs (and their pay) the average stay at home mom takes on day in and day out. But for some reason, while other people are able to use these skills on a resume, when the same skill sets are proceeded by "Stay at Home Mom" they are suddenly void. Not applicable. Not considered "real" experience.

When marriage or a relationship (and a birth) creates the position, receiving money in exchange for services is a trade that doesn't happen. When someone doesn't pay for a service they receive on a regular basis, they believe it to be without value.

Without value is different from free. Free means there is something someone wants and they receive it without having to give something in return, like money. Without value means worthless and useless. Not exactly the words you'd use to describe your mom I hope.

Mom upside down is WOW. And once you understand, once you have walked in the shoes of a stay at home mom, you'll see why you need to show a little more respect for the WOW she creates in the lives she cares for.

This is just a partial list. But consider the salaries people earn for doing these jobs and you may start thinking about sending a check to your mother. You should at least pick up the phone and call her.

I say Private and Personal in the list below because when services like these are provided on a private or personal level, they cost more. A mom is a mom to one family, so these services are provided on a personal level in a private manner.

Private Child Care, 24/7 with no time off unless someone else is hired to do it. Going to a job and leaving your child with someone else does not necessarily make life easier. It might if you have live-in care. I would hope having live-in care would make life easier, but I think Maria Shriver would have a few things to say about that.

Private Chef, available at a moments notice to whip up waffles for one or chicken enchiladas for ten.
Personal Shopper and Errand Runner
Personal Maid, keeps everything picked up and organized.
Private House Cleaner, scrubbing floors, toilets and windows.
Personal Financial Manager and Correspondence Expert - calling on bills, taking creditor calls when things are bad, dealing with medical bills. 
Personal Home Service Coordinator - scheduling of services, meeting service personnel for appointments.
Private Taxi, at the drop of a hat whisks the little ones off to where ever.
Private Tutor, for more that just math and social studies.
Personal Travel Agent and Entertainment Coordinator, planning everything from trips to the zoo to classroom field trips and family reunions.  

Do I dare talk about SEX??? I don't know if I've seen that on the "what it costs" list... Okay, not something you want to think about when you're thinking about Mom. 

The best benefit of being a stay at home mom, is being a stay at home mom. Being able to be with your children day in and day out, every minute of every day until they enter school. Day after day of staring at a newborn. Seeing every smile, every first moment, noting every detail so when asked later by a spouse, friend or family member you can recite the story verbatim because they're the first human to speak to you in English.

A stay at home mom gets to spend time as a classroom parent. Picks them up after school and attends every recital, graduation and sporting event. Mom also volunteers for PTO, PTA, fundraisers, field trips and hosting sleep overs.

Just reading the above paragraph could cause a reasonable person to think: Oh Heck NO. Hauling your kids and a friend or two around to school, to piano lessons and baseball practice in between meals, homework and house cleaning can become, well, not quite the blissful reality of a romantically envisioned life. 

Yes, it is life. And life is day after day of working; a job, a project with a goal. The job of being a stay at home mom is raising kids. The goal is raising them to be responsible productive adults.

Add Life Coach to the job experience list!

With all of the hats a stay at home mom wears, it doesn't make sense that the experiences are not considered viable, transferable job skills. Especially when you consider that a stay at home mom has probably been doing these same tasks for years. Isn't that what employers want - stability?

And here's an interesting tid bit: Many Human Resource Managers, the ones doing the front line resume reading, interviewing and hiring, are women. And yet, they tend to hire anyone but the woman who is attempting to re-enter the workforce after time spent at home with children. The "mom" resume is usually the first one tossed aside.

There are the regular, and unfortunately petty reasons women turn on women, the first being jealously. The professional on one side of the interview table could have her own agenda or emotional issues that pit her against the woman she's interviewing. Perhaps her own life did not included the opportunity to stay at home with her children, or maybe she doesn't have children for a variety of reasons. The mom-wanting-a-job is treated differently than the younger or childless women or men who interview for the same job. 

And yet, if individual skills and abilities were compared line by line, the skills and experience of the stay at home mom could not only equal the other candidates, it could surpass it.

Maybe the problem lies in the inability to check references? Asking a husband for a professional reference for his wife could awkward.

Many moms use their stay at home time to pursue passions that become businesses. They stay involved in the business world on their terms, on their schedule. They create something out of nothing and they pour their hearts and souls into it. Some find great success on this path. I hope these successful women remember where they come from when hiring employees, and they hire a mom.

Others find the stability of a 9-5 day job to be their path to happiness. They're not out to change the world; they just want a normal job with a normal paycheck, something they used to get, back before deciding to become the ultimate volunteer.

Putting a resume together is the first and usually the most intimidating task. How to explain the dreaded gap or parental time? The months or years or decades spent out of the corporate world, how do you paint a professional picture when you've been drawing with crayons? Hiring a professional is the way to go. (And don't worry, there's probably a mom-prenuer out there who can help you.)

I haven't found one yet, but I'd be surprised if one didn't already exists: A Temp service that helps moms ease back into a job. Offer testing and training and put them to work like Temp agencies do, placing them in a job until a good fit is found. 

The potential of this experienced yet under valued group of people who are available for work is limitless. In the end, it's the employer who misses out on hiring a potentially awesome employee when they pass on hiring a stay at home mom who is wanting to work.