Time out

For the middle and upper-class mothers and grandmothers of previous generations, by and large, there was no choice to be made-women were expected to stay home. According to historian and University of Minnesota Professor Elaine Tyler May, Ph.D., “In the years after World War II, the ideal [of a woman staying home] was backed by economic reality. Men were paid a ‘family wage’ ... it was possible for a large segment of American society [to rely on] a one-income earner who could support the whole family.” But it wasn’t that way for everyone, May said. “There was huge pressure for the breadwinner to provide for all of the family’s needs, [but] in most working class families, women did work outside the home, part-time if not full-time.”

“Working moms today spend as much time with their kids as the stay-at-home mom of 40 years ago.” – Tracey Deutsch

Although the media seems to delight in telling (mainly anecdotal) stories about mothers fleeing the workplace to stay home with their children, the actual numbers of women who stay home are not high, May noted. “Stay-at-home moms have shifted from being mainstream to a sort of privileged position. Very, very few families can afford the luxury of a stay-at-home parent. It cannot be a viable cultural norm any more for most families.”

Opting out-and in?

Chances are you’ve read stories about high-powered professional women with MBAs and law degrees who stayed home after having kids and never looked back; women who expect that they’ll be able to step back into the work force when they’re ready to. Jenny Keil, Ph.D., an associate professor of management and economics at Hamline University, sounds an alarm to her students who are determined to leave the work force to raise their children. “What I tell my students,” Keil said, “is in a perfect world, they might be able to make a choice that seems perfectly logical [staying at home to raise children, then going back to work], but I don’t think they understand all the things that might happen. They may intend to go back when their children are older, but they might not be able to get a job when they need a job.” Examples Keil cited include uncertain economic conditions and skills that don’t keep up with technology or even deteriorate. “Women don’t think their skills deteriorate as fast as men think they do,” said Keil. Men think it takes about 28 months on average for a worker to become fully qualified in her job; women think it takes only about 12 months. With men often in the hiring seat, these differing perceptions can lead to trouble, she said. “These perceptions matter-it’s a huge disconnect.”

And there’s another possibility that lurks beneath the surface: When a woman is economically dependent on her partner, be it a man or woman, what happens if that relationship breaks up?

Having it all

Marquita Davis, 37, is the daughter of a stay-at-home mom who never planned to be one herself. “I never thought I’d do that,” she said. “I thought I’d balance work and a family.” And Davis tried to. She got her MBA from one of the nation’s top business schools-Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University-and landed a job with one of Minnesota’s top corporations, General Mills. Like many high-achieving women, though, Davis found that once she had children, the long hours she once took for granted were incompatible with the kind of family life she wanted. When her first daughter, Maya, was born in July 2003, Davis went back to work after a standard three-month maternity leave. But she had quit her marketing position and was home with Maya before her daughter turned 1. “General Mills is a great company,” she said. “For me, the expectations of the work load, being able to produce when things needed to happen …” Davis’ workday typically ran from 8 or 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 or 6 p.m., but when it was crunch time on projects, longer days and weekends at work were the norm.

“I wanted to do well in all areas,” Davis said. “I was struggling. I wasn’t doing well in any.”

Davis’ decision to take a hiatus from working cost about half of their family income and has caused some spending and budget changes. At the same time, Davis said, she realized that not everyone has the ability to make the choice she did. “I think the idea of being a stay-at-home mom has changed … you still sometimes get ‘the look’ but you also hear, ‘I wish I could have done that,’ or ‘I wish I could do that.’

“I think it’s good for my kids [to have me home],” Davis said, “the influence I’ve had on them.” And it’s been good for her, too, Davis said: “Being able to be there for their ‘firsts,’ not having someone else tell me about it. It would have been hard to have to think, ‘Oh, I missed that.’”

It’s not just women who want more family time. According to a number of recent studies, one by the Families and Work Institute, both men and women would sacrifice more money and career advancement for more time with their families; that is, if they didn’t have to quit work to do so. “Work-life balance” is a popular buzz phrase-yet today, Americans of all occupations work longer hours than we did 50 years ago, and we are the sole industrialized nation whose work week is continuing to lengthen.

For heterosexual families who have the means to decrease stress by having a parent at home, it’s almost always the woman who exits her job. Men who stay at home are anomalies; with the hostility many working women who try to climb the corporate ladder face in the workplace and approbation of their roles as mothers, it makes sense that some are willing to take a break from work to raise their children.

Wanting to be there

Tracy Roeder’s reasons for staying home had little to do with long hours. Roeder, 48, and her partner, Nancy Hedin, have two daughters. Hedin works outside the home and Roeder stays home with the kids. At the time when the couple adopted Sophie, now 7, from China, Roeder was working in retail. She wasn’t very attached to her job, but quickly became very attached to mothering Sophie. While having a parent at home was “a value we both had, it wasn’t locked in stone before we came home with Sophie,” Roeder said. “Once I was parenting Sophie I really could not see myself leaving for the day.” Hedin was making “significantly more money,” making it easier for Roeder to stay home. When Emma came home from Guatemala three years later, “we were all set up for it.”

Roeder finds that parenting meets her creativity needs. This summer they are planning a fairy garden, and current discussions center around attracting fairies. “That kind of stuff just tickles me to death,” Roeder admitted. “The make-believe, having them tell me stories, hearing Sophie say we need seashells for the fairies’ beds.”

The reality

It isn’t, of course, all hugs and fairy beds. Both Davis and Roeder speak of the emotional adjustments they needed to make in staying home. “I know this is a really common story, but to talk to kids all day, to be in the ‘kid zone’ ... you really start missing adult conversation and interaction,” Roeder said. “At first I felt isolated.”

Both women found camaraderie and support through the friendships with other stay-at-home moms, and both named Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) and library story times as good places to make social contacts.

Like Roeder, Davis used the word “isolated” to describe her early days at home. That can still sometimes be the case, she said. “Often I find that I might be the only woman of color who is taking advantage of certain activities,” Davis said. One valuable way she’s found friends is through “Mocha Moms,” a group of stay-at-home moms of color.

The predictability of a kid-friendly schedule sometimes gets to both women. “Sometimes I feel as if my schedule is always the same,” Davis said. “The monotony is one of the hardest parts,” echoed Roeder.

Roeder had difficulty adjusting to parenting more than one child. “Parenting one was so exciting. With two, I could not believe the amount of work. I had to start taking anti-depressants, which helped a lot.

“There’s such a different value system [around being a stay-at-home parent]. I feel I was socialized to value work that earns money more. You get different reactions to being an at-home parent. For me, the longer I do it, the more self-esteem I feel about it,” she said.

Keil likes to point out to her students the long-term ramifications of taking time off to stay at home. One point she stresses is not just the short-term income loss but the permanency of a Social Security statement with years of zeroes on it. “I show them my statements of years with zero income … this is my first son, this is my second son, this is my daughter,” she said, hoping that her students will realize that having a “cute baby to hold” is a wonderful thing but doing it full time will impact their earnings today, tomorrow and after retirement.

What she hears in response, Keil said, is “‘I don’t want someone else to raise my children.’ It makes my blood boil! You don’t have to change every diaper. When they are 22, just graduating, they haven’t even begun to process [the ramifications] of their choices. You can’t always see a fork in the road until it’s behind you.”

Working and parenting

If you think that the stay-at-home moms of yesteryear had more “quality time” with their children than do the working moms of today, you should think again, said Tracey Deutsch, Ph.D., a University of Minnesota history professor. “Working moms today spend as much time or more time in direct contact with their kids as the stay-at-home moms of 40 years ago. This is based on time diaries, which are more reliable than surveys,” she explained, citing the work of sociologist Suzanne Bianchi, Ph.D., in particular, her book, “Changing Rhythms of Family Life.”

Since there are still only 24 hours in a day, something has to give. Less sleep? Less leisure time? Neither is true, according to Bianchi. Instead, her research pointed to more multitasking and less time spent on housework. Bottom line, mothers who work outside the home have a workload almost 19 hours heavier per week than mothers who stay home with children.

Davis has thought long and hard about re-entering the workforce; she sees it as a question of when rather than if. “It has been about three years [since she quit work] and I really miss being in that world,” she admitted. “It was the right decision, though, and when I go back, that will be the right decision too. I’m starting to explore some freelance work. I’m talking to a recruiter.” Davis acknowledged feeling “a little bit of apprehension … things [in her field, marketing] have changed.” She makes it a point to stay in touch with a network of colleagues and to stay involved in the community. She plans to go back to work in the fall of 2008, when Maya is in kindergarten.

Roeder’s plans aren’t quite so firm. “I have to go back to work when both kids are in school,” she said. “I have to get a job with benefits.” She doesn’t know yet what that job will be; prior to her career in retail, she was a teacher, but she’s not interested in teaching again.

She doesn’t regret for a minute her decision to stay home. “Nothing would have given me what I’ve gained [from staying home with kids]. The intimacy of the relationship, that’s one thing I love about kids. It’s exhausting, it’s rich, vibrant, colorful, full of texture.

“I would not have missed this for the world.”