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32 | GRAVITAS MAGAZINE While many women choose to stay home, far more women feel as if they are pushed- out of the workplace when it comes time for them to grow their families. For the most part, these high-achieving women have left their careers after starting a family, as their careers demanded incredibly long work weeks and their workplaces were too inflexible to make room for the new family responsibilities. If an employer was willing to broker a new arrangement, it came at the cost of being given less demanding tasks and watching the prized parts of their roles being given to others. Another emotional consequence of opting- out for some women is that they not only hit the "maternal wall" at work, but then experience traditional role stereotyping at home. Whenever couples procreate, somebody has to take on the added responsibilities and time commitments created by a growing family. By and large the mother generally meets those commitments. e predominant method of resolving work-family conflict, among my cohorts at least, is for the mother to shift her time allotment from career to family. And here we have it, one of the most disturbing by-products of stay-at-home motherhood is the sharp turn into gender- role traditionalism that some marriages take. Although this is not necessarily an issue for many couples, in some marriages the new income inequality leads to a power inequality, which then leads to very real feelings of financial and emotional vulnerability. And sometimes those vulnerabilities are exploited. e new reality for these women includes negotiating with their husbands for living expenses and being viewed as the only person in the household capable of doing the dishes. ey had expected to retain their status, position, and standing not only when they returned to work, but in their partnerships at home. What they learned was that when they left work, and the income they had been earning, they also left their "equal standing" at home. And what's more, for those who were able to re- enter their careers, the expectations by their spouses for the contributions made at home remained the same. Apparently once you are the homemaker there is no going back. Opting Back-In Of course the world has experienced a fundamental shift in the 10 plus years since the opt-out revolution was aptly named. e tumultuous years following the financial meltdown of 2009 have taken a toll on most Americans. Hard choices and financial problems have become the reality for many. Professions that once seemed rock-solid, such as medicine, have even been affected. Jobs have been outsourced and downsized to the point that many families are faced with a completely different financial reality today. To make matters worse, financial woes combined with the inherent challenges of marriage have pushed many unions to the breaking point, leaving some stay-at-home moms with a new title of single mom. Many women no longer have a choice to stay home or go to work. And yet, the reality women face when they decide to opt-in after a long career hiatus can be grim. For me a decade later, my fellow baby- group moms and I are no longer sitting on the floor playing jamboree games with our adorable little bundles of joy. We are now shuffling pre-teens to and from activities, tutors, sports, and struggling to balance school projects, household chores, jobs both part-time and full-time not to mention marriages and even divorce. Out of the 10 moms in the group, most have gone back to work in some capacity, only two women retain full-time stay at home status. e Harvard Law graduate is now the proud full-time mom of two boys and a set of toddler girl twins. Her marriage has remained strong and thankfully so has her husband's career. e engineer also chose to stay at home, from where she spearheads countless fundraising campaigns for her children's schools and her church. Our community as a whole reaps the rewards from her thankless and unpaid labor. I earned my PhD in Human Evolutionary Ecology, and yet, together with a dear friend I have re-entered the workforce in an entirely different field, one where I get to share my life experiences and daily challenges with other women. In my 89% of women who left their careers wanted to return to work, but only 73% were successful at acquiring a new position.

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