Moms Find Perfect Balance by Choosing Part-Time Work
After 20 years replete with good salaries, benefits and vacation time, Jocelyn Sussman of Glencoe decided being home in the morning to get her three kids off to school was worth more than what corporate America had to offer.
Sussman, who has a masters in finance and worked for powerhouse companies like American Airlines, Ariel Communications and Discover Credit decided she needed more flexibility.
“Once you become a parent your priorities change,” said Sussman. “I could work. I could have a nanny drive my kids everywhere and make them every meal. But your kids are only young once and it’s really important to be a part of their life. I wanted to be the one helping them with their homework.”
Sussman is part of a growing trend of mothers who prefer to work part-time rather than full-time. In a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 60 percent of working mothers with children under the age of 17 surveyed indicated that a part-time career is the ideal arrangement, up from 48 percent in 1997. Similarly, while 32 percent of working mothers said full-time is the ideal situation in 1997, just 21 percent of those surveyed in 2007 said it was ideal.
The biggest reason for this trend is simple, most experts agree: More time working means less time with the kids.
Karen Steede Terry, author of Full-Time Woman, Part-Time Career: Launching a Flexible Business Plan That Fits Your Life, said the move away from preferring full-time work comes in part from shifting social norms and employment opportunities in previous decades.
“There was a trend for women working in the 1970s and 1980s. Women wanted to ‘have it all’ — work and a family,” Terry said. “As the corporate world got more demanding and required more hours and wanted you to work on weekends, women moved to wanting more part-time work.”
Flex time
Mothers across the north suburbs seem to be keeping in line with this national trend. But so-called part-time work comes in many forms, and often amounts to more than 40 hours a week.
“Flexible is a more accurate definition of those of us who work quote-unquote part-time,” said Becky Fitzgerald, a former national account sales executive with International Textile Group who now works from her Winnetka home as an independent consultant.
Fitzgerald was thrown into part-time status when her company was sold. She qualified for the Trade Assistance Act, which enabled her to take a series of Microsoft classes, bringing her up to speed on computer technology. The transitional time allowed her to evaluate her next professional step, and because of her experiences and new technology training she was able to successfully work independently outside the corporate world. (…)
Money matters
Of course, the costs of spending less time at work can add up, and some mothers simply don’t have a part-time option. In addition to decreased income, single mothers or mothers who are not able to go on their husband’s benefits plans must purchase health insurance for themselves and for their children.
Hilarie Lieb, an economics professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, said it’s important to look at what the partner is doing.
“If you’re looking at dual income families, then you can get by on one person working full time because of benefits,” Lieb said. Whether or not one parent can work part-time is “really a function of what the main income earner is generating,” she said. “And it also depends on the lifestyle they’ve created.” (…)
Source: Pioneer Press Online, IL
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/800108,on-parttime-022108-s1.article
