The Career Challenge

How Moms Balance Work, Family and

External Pressure

By Karen Deaver

When you boil it down you find that all mothers, whether they work outside the home or not, are suffering under the same external pressures. The contrast between society's pro-family stance and the actual lack of support we have to make good choices is beginning to come to light. At the core is an ever-increasing corporate drive to produce, which requires a greater commitment to the workforce than to the family.

The message we get from many employers is that if we aren't pulling our weight, we're taking time off, time away from contributing. And if parenting equals time off, the value for what we do when we choose family over production is diminished. Child rearing isn't productive in the eyes of our social, governing and corporate institutions.

It helps to see that "having a child is a life-altering event after which even if you won't change the number of hours you work, you'll just change what kind of work you do and how you do it," says Warner. By identifying what we need to thrive in both realms – at home and in the workplace – and by seeing women's unique abilities to move in and out at different points in our lives, we can begin to integrate the two.

Whatever our choices, identifying the pressures we face as mothers is the jumping off point to change. Many women aren't aware of how staying home to raise kids will impact their futures, says Warner. "It's important to try to raise awareness, so that women might in turn change legislation and/or the workplace to better accommodate them," she says.

Mothers are on the go as part of a rapidly expanding "mothers movement," as Mothers & More puts it, and we're changing the home front, one child and one job at a time.

Want to see more?

• Company Moms: Meet Smart and Savvy Mom-preneurs
• And What Do You Do? When Women Choose to Stay Home
• Wanting to Work: Do Stay-at-Home Moms Miss the Rat Race?
• Talk about it!