Children At Work

Blogger Kelly Coyle DiNorca's post at Your (Wo)Man in Washington gave me something to think about as working mother. Kelly works from home for a youth sports organization. She's trying to juggle earning an income with childcare-- she has a sitter come only once a week. There are times when her business calls are interrupted by the demands of motherhood. While most of her business contacts tend to understand her balancing act---professional/mother, she recognizes that many people see bringing a child into the workplace as unprofessional. While WAHMs are imperfectly integrating their various roles, she wonders what are the options for working mothers in traditional employment settings.

DiNorca says, "The most recent issue of Mothering Magazine contains an article by Laura Ulrich called “Home is where the job is: A savvy mother’s advice on loving, money-making, and leaving the laundry behind”. This article ends with the statement, 'The more we as mothers take ownership of the right to integrate our lives, the more society at large will evolve to support such work arrangements.' However, all but one of the mothers interviewed for the article were self-employed, and found ways to carve out a self-designed (and defined) niche where they could meld caregiving with wage-earning. Absent were mothers who were able to achieve this sort of synthesis while working in professional or traditional jobs."

Click Here to read the entire post, "Should I Go or Should I Stay?"