Posts Tagged "Working Moms"

Do moms make better business managers?

Parenting effectively requires a lot of skills — the ability to negotiate and to have patience, among them. As a mother,  that means moderating a battle between two toddlers who want the same toy, serving dessert IF they first eat their broccoli or reading  a favorite story for what seems like the millionth time in a single night. As a manager, it involves resolving squabbles, dealing with personal issues, or explaining, yet again, the way you want something done.

The question of whether moms make better business managers came to mind after I spotted  some online coverage of the recent Super Mom Entrepreneur Conference and Expo in New York City. Since I’m also a mompreneur — I started Child’s Play Communications when I was pregnant with my son –  it got me thinking about whether our experience as mothers made a difference in the business world.

I know that one thing motherhood taught me was lessons about picking your battles. A perfectionist at heart (big time), I learned that in  business things can’t be perfect all the time, much as you would like them to be, and sometimes you just have to count to 10, clean up the mess and move on — even if you feel like giving the employee who created the problem a permanent time out. Motherhood also taught me to multi-task like a maniac, a skill I know I did not possess prior to pregnancy. There are times, in fact,  when I look back at running a business while my child was young, while also being the good wife, managing all the household responsibilities,  cooking dinner every day, taking care of a mom who was sick, running various school committees,  keeping clients happy, supervising staff – and wondering, HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!

So tell me, moms, do you think the experience of  motherhood has made a difference in your abilities at work? And marketers, do you see this among the moms you hire?

In the next few months, there will be more women in the workforce than men – surely a cause for celebration for those who believe in equal opportunities for the sexes.

Or is it?

According to a Pew Research Center study conducted last spring, 19% percent of Americans – nearly a fifth of the entire population — think women should return to their traditional roles. For those of us who were around before the term “women’s lib” was even coined, that number is something of a surprise.  But even more intriguing – although possibly less surprising – is the response of mothers surveyed: “A substantial majority of all working mothers (62 percent) say they would prefer to work part time. Only 37 percent would prefer to work full time. In contrast, an overwhelming majority (79 percent) of working fathers say they prefer full-time work. Only 1 in 5 would prefer part-time employment,” stated an article in U.S. News & World Report.  The same article pointed out that the great majority (86 percent) of working moms say they sometimes or often feel stressed (been there, felt that). But so do almost as many mothers who stay at home (82 percent).

As a mom who started her own business just before her son was born, I had the best of both worlds – a full time job that I loved, the opportunity to take my son to the office with me and, as he got older, the flexibility to take off time whenever I needed to – although as any working mom knows, time taken “off” during the day usually leads to that number of hours or more catching up in the middle of the night.

Moms, what is your ideal – full-time or part-time employment? And how do you feel about the fact that so few dads would prefer a part-time opportunity? Companies, what options do you offer moms in the workplace?

A U.S. Census report, released today, indicated that nearly one-quarter of all married-couple families in the U.S. had a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) in 2007.

The 5.6 million women who said they stayed home to care for children and family while their husband worked full time were younger and more likely to be Hispanic and foreign-born than other mothers that year.

Twenty eight percent of  SAHMs had infants, compared with just 21% of other moms, while 57% had a child under 5, vs. 43% of other mothers.

The report also indicated that SAHMs typically had less education: 19% had less than a high school degree, vs. 8% of other mothers, and 32% had at least a bachelor’s degree, compared witih 38% of other mothers.

Of course, the economy being what it is, it’s highly likely that many of these mothers have since returned to the work force — voluntarily or not.

Interesting opinion piece in Wednesday’s USA Today. The author, Laura Vanderkam, maintained that princess culture — all that exposure to Disney princesses over time — has contributed to creating a generation of girls and young women who believe that if they are charming and patient enough,  their prince will come to rescue them from economic woes. Vanderkam felt that this was the wrong message in an economy where 75% of all of those who have lost jobs are men, and the percentage of working wives with unemployed husbands rose from 2.4% to 5.4% between 2007 and 2009.  Her point: A growing number of  women will be the sole support their families at some point, and are not making plans to be able to do that — in two-income households, the mom typically tends to work fewer hours and provides about a third of the family income.  When suddenly responsible for all income, “Newly minted breadwinner moms feel stressed because suddenly it’s not about vacations or violin lessons. Their children’s standard of living is up to them,” says Vankerkam.

Do you think an abundant exposure to the princess philosophy affects girls’ views on earning money and supporting a family? What steps should be taken to assure that they are prepared if the full economic burden falls on their shoulders?

For more, see The Princess Problem.

This month, ForbesWoman, a special section within Forbes magazine, launched its first annual list of Best Cities for Working Mothers. It noted that while all moms want a safe place for their children to live, top medical care facilities and excellent schools, working  moms also have other important considerations. Among them: job opportunities, the potential for relatively high income,  a family-friendly cost of living,  and good childcare. The magazine discovered that some big cities that seemed logical places to raise a famiy for other reasons, offered comparatively fewer child care options for moms who work.

The top 10 cities for working moms are, in order: New York Metro, Austin, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Milwaukee, Portland, Cincinnati, San Jose, Pittsburgh, Seattle-Tacoma and Denver.

Where would your city rank on the list? And what would be your most important criteria for selecting a new place to live?

For the full story and all 50 of the cities, visit here.