May 2, 2008

Moms find creative ways to mix jobs, motherhood 

Theresa Laurence, Tennessee Register

Bridget Golden never expected to enjoy spending her days racing toy cars around the living room with a toddler. “Having a child, my priorities completely changed,” said Golden, a parishioner at Our Lady of the Lake in Hendersonville.

Always “really driven” and career-oriented, Golden has scaled back her professional ambitions since giving birth to her son Andrew two years ago.

On Feb. 16, 2006, Golden could no longer define herself by her job, her marriage, or her hobbies. She was now a mother, and everything was different.

As Golden’s vision of herself as a full time working mother faded, she wasn’t all that upset about it. She has now found a comfortable balance between work and family life with her part time job as the assistant director of Vanderbilt University’s student conduct office.

“I’m a better mom and a better professional being able to split my time,” Golden said, adding that “there’s never a perfect solution” to the working mother conundrum. And there’s always at least a little guilt – whether she’s at home, wondering if she should be working harder towards her career goals, or in the office, yearning to spend more time with Andrew.

Golden said she feels lucky to have the arrangement she does, and emphasized that “a supportive spouse and employer are important for success in this type of situation.” Golden’s husband, Thom, also works at Vanderbilt, as the associate director of undergraduate admissions.

Part-time professional jobs, ideal for working mothers, are still a rarity; when they do exist, they usually do not include any benefits. Additionally, part-time infant daycare, Golden found, is virtually non-existent. So, many women are forced to choose between full-time jobs or full-time motherhood.

But women who have the advantages of a stable family life, a breadwinning husband and reliable child care do have some wiggle room to fit a job into the puzzle of motherhood and family life. Whether full-time professionals, part-time, home-based employees or entrepreneurs, working mothers are finding creative ways to work and raise children.

Bring your baby to work

Unable to secure adequate childcare after maternity leave, and not wanting to quit a job she feels passionate about, Christ the King parishioner Michele Johnson decided to try bringing her infant son to work with her.

She quickly mastered the art of multi-tasking, including typing while nursing, and found that the arrangement worked well. So well, in fact, that she did same thing with her next two sons.

Since 2001, the Tennessee Justice Center, where Johnson is the managing attorney, has served as a home away from home for seven babies.

Allowing mothers to bring their babies to work until their first birthday helps ease the transition from full-time mother to full-time worker. “It’s almost impossible to leave your baby at 2 or 3 months old,” the time many mothers must return to work after (an often unpaid) maternity leave, Johnson said.

To those who see bringing a baby to work as unprofessional, Johnson asks, “How many centuries have women done hard work with their babies strapped to their backs?”

Rather than being a nuisance in the office, Johnson found that having babies around “made a difference in office morale.” Young mothers can work and raise children in solidarity with each other, and seasoned mothers in the office can share advice with the new moms.

In a small, close-knit firm like the Tennessee Justice Center, incorporating babies into the rhythm of office life was a natural fit. “This is stressful work,” Johnson said of her job at the non-profit public interest law and advocacy firm that serves the poor. “It’s calming when you hold a baby.”

Even though Johnson has been trying to “evangelize” to other law firms about the benefits of bringing your baby to work – healthier babies and lower absenteeism for employees – she says the idea hasn’t caught on in Nashville.

Keeping her foot in the door

Rather than bringing babies to work, still a radical idea to many employers, more working mothers are seeking out or working with employers to design jobs that can be done from home. For St. Henry parishioner Susan Booth, working part-time, mostly from home as a business analyst for HCA, has proved a feasible arrangement for raising her three children.

Her youngest child is now 3 and attends pre-kindergarten several days a week, but Booth doesn’t have her eye on returning to full-time work yet. Continuing to work part time, though, is important “to keep my foot in the door,” Booth said. “If I do want to go full time, I can’t just walk back in without being up to speed.”

Booth goes into the office once a week to meet in person with her manager. She also relishes the much needed adult conversation, which can be hard to come by for a working mom like herself, who spends most of her days in front of the computer alone, or with only a toddler for company.

Overall, Booth said, “I’m definitely aware I do have a good deal right now.” Although her working arrangements remain unique, she says employers are slowly opening up allowing more flexible schedules for working mothers. “Companies see that the potential is there for them to lose knowledge and experience, so they’re being a little more accommodating,” she said.

‘Only me I have to answer to’

Some careers, of course, require your presence on the jobsite.

When St. Henry parishioner Betsy Koehner was pregnant with her second child seven years ago, she decided she would start a home-based business in lieu of returning to her teaching and coaching job at Harding Academy. She settled on a monogramming and embroidery business, which she thought was an untapped market in Nashville.

She borrowed money from her parents to invest in the expensive equipment, took the training class, and got to work. “I was learning to run a business and how to stay home with a baby at the same time,” she said.

Juggling a new business, child-rearing and housework proved a daunting challenge, but looking back, Koehner said she wouldn’t do anything differently. While her family “doesn’t depend on my business to put food on the table,” she likes being able to make a financial contribution to the household. “It pays for the little extras I like to do for myself and my kids,” she said.

Running a home-based business while raising three boys has given Koehner the flexibility to be with her children in ways a full time teaching job did not. She can run over to pick up a sick child at Julia Green Elementary School if need be; she can play a quick game with her 2-year-old in between threading her embroidery machine. “It’s only me I have to answer to,” Koehner said. But the flip side of that is, “you’re never gone from your work. It’s always there lingering” in the next room, she said.

Koehner’s youngest son attends mother’s day out several days a week, so she can dedicate those days solely to her work. “It’s for both our benefits,” she said, so she’s not constantly trying to divide her attention between him and her business.

While there is certainly no “perfect solution” for being a working mother, these women prove that there are as many ways to handle the demanding balancing act of motherhood as there are mothers. 

Photo courtesy of Michele Johnson

Michele Johnson, managing attorney at the Tennessee Justice Center, instituted a policy at her firm to allow mothers to bring their babies to work until their first birthday. In the photo above, she works in her office with then-six-month-old son Henry, who is now three, just as she did with her two older sons. A total of seven babies have spent the first year of their lives with their mothers at the Tennessee Justice Center. All mothers will be honored next Sunday, May 11, on Mother’s Day.

Photo by Theresa Laurence

Bridget Golden works part time at Vanderbilt University so she can spend more time with her two-year-old son Andrew. To balance careers with family life, more women are devising creative ways to be working mothers.