There has been a lot of news about working mothers, the pay gaps, which employers are best suited for working mothers, etc. Here I am, a working mother, and I have to say, the problem baffles me. I just read this story on MoneyWatch (http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/family-finance/working-moms-yes-youre-paid-less/3159/) and this one on Business Week(http://www.businessweek.com/careers/workingparents/blog/archives/2009/06/the_motherhood.html) considering why working mothers earn less than women without children.
What baffles me about the whole issue is that when I read the comments on blogs or websites from readers, all of them are focused on perceptions about what a working mother accomplishes versus her peers and what she should be compensated for that work. Many comments reflect a view that they perceive the working mother as a slacker who doesn't work as many hours as they do or as hard as they do and therefore doesn't deserve to be paid equally.
In my particular case, I do not earn less . . . yet. But immediately I am having to accept the fact that I have to adjust my approach to my job and my career, and I suspect by child number two I will finally take a real hit. My husband and I participate equally in managing our household and caring for our child and we are very committed to our careers. But there is a big difference for both of us in terms of the impact of our new parenthood status. My husband is supported at work, and his company offers benefits to him as a parent that are invaluable to make sure he is given tools to allow him to take care of his child and his job. When my husband has to juggle the responsibilities, he is offered flexibility and he is not judged negatively for having to stay home to care for his daughter, but rather he is honored for his sacrifice and contribution to his child.
That is not my reality. For me, the bottom line in terms of my compensation will not depend on the quality of my work product, my contribution of billable hours to the firm's bottom line, or the satisfaction of my clients. On all of these things I match or exceed the standard in comparison to my peers. It will depend on the values of the people for whom I work. My managers who have families or share my values recognize my hard work and my skills and treat me like an equal. My managers who do not have children react angrily when I tell them I cannot take on an additional assignment or that the deadline they propose is not realistic -- I perceive that in their minds they don't understand why I can't just pull a week of all-nighters to do whatever it takes. For my part, I am torn. I want to be a team player and I hate seeing my peers abused with endless assignments, impossible deadlines, and zero respect for their needs outside of work. On the other hand, I find myself grateful that my new life as a mother has offered me the perspective to realize that my career cannot be sustained as a series of work-till-I-drop sprints in the midst of what is already a double-marathon every day. My work product is excellent, and I contribute intellectual capital to all the cases I work on. I am also more efficient than many of my peers and I work very hard. But I am putting my foot down more often and instead of allowing my supervisors to overload me with work that I can never hope to actually complete I am saying "no" to attempting the impossible at the cost of my family, my health, and my sanity. Instead of just working day-to-day, I now have a long-term perspective on my career, and that is a positive regardless of my parenthood status.
So what is it that makes the working mother worth less to those commenting on the web (who sadly, reflect mainstream social thought more than I would care to acknowledge)?
From where I sit, parents are incredibly valuable to our society -- the creators and caretakers of our collective social capital -- the generators of tomorrows scientists, teachers, farmers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, athletes -- they are responsible for our future. Yes, I chose to participate in our future. Yes, I view my responsibilities to educate, mentor, and provide for my daughter very seriously. I suspect that all parents who also work in professional jobs are attempting to raise competent, balanced, healthy little members of our society. I accomplish a lot every day, at work and at home. More importantly, I am not contributing less to my job when one analyzes me based strictly on numbers, but I am much more proactive about managing my managers and my caseload so that I do not burn out. So what is it that makes me worth less? Is it really that I can't just be a "yes" man anymore? It certainly isn't about whether I measure up intellectually to my childless counterparts. Is it that we do not believe everyone, with or without children, should be supported in living a sustainable life and participating in both a challenging career and nurturing a family?
What I don't get is why we aren't talking about the measuring stick itself?! We aren't really talking about whether working mothers can do as good of a job as their male counterparts, we are talking about whether working mothers can call home last minute and tell their spouse they won't be home for dinner . . . again. We are talking about whether working mothers can put in 50 or 100 hours a week and still manage a household. We are talking about whether working mothers have someone at home to do the laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, clean the house, make cupcakes for a kindergarten class and decorate for the holidays. We are talking about this balance in terms of gender, and so we talk about working mothers and not working parents. If we ever manage to make the collective social shift to truly dividing the household management equally among both men and women, then I suspect that, consistent with the Businessweek article, what we might really see is a pay gap between parents and non-parents. But right now, motherhood is a gender issue -- plain and simple. There are exceptions -- wonderful, beautiful exceptions -- but as long as mothers disproportionately carry the burden of "balancing" their jobs and their family's needs, we are going to be talking about the pay gap between men and women.
Yes, I "chose" to have children. And yes, if you asked me to choose between my children and my career, I would choose my child. But in the social context of our current economic state and the reality that most households need two incomes to make ends meet, how can we continue to treat parents, and especially mothers, who have valuable intellectual capital as marginal citizens when the truth of the matter is that they have already given us something extraordinary that no brown-nosing, "yes" man, work-a-holic could ever hope to accomplish in a lifetime on the job: a future.
-- Rachel
Latest Comments