Life Shifts Continue…🎃

I vividly remember driving to work a year and a half ago, starting my first day back into what I term the “business-work-force”. After 20 years as an adjunct professor, raising three children and getting them into college, I was looking forward to taking a much-needed long, deep breath, expecting to slowly consider how this mid-lifer would resurrect one of my hobbies, or read a few books or start really writing again…you know, the kind of things that running a household and raising a family often prevent for a couple of decades.

These plans were quickly squashed when my teaching salary could not compensate for the unexpected termination of my husband’s position, due to a corporate restructuring at his ‘big pharma’ company.

He ultimately secured another job that was to be “temporary” and suffered a hefty pay cut. Yep, this mid-lifer was forced to reinvent herself in a world where youth rules.  

More than the tasks of the job or meeting the staff on that very first day, it was the traffic that caused me the greatest stress :). My teaching schedule required a 6am departure for morning classes or 3pm for evening courses. I was not a part of the “rat race” which I wrote a post about last year HERE. Teaching college has its own challenges but I wouldn’t call it a grind. The “grind” in my opinion begins when rubber hits the road.

Thruway drivers weaved in and out, cut me off, and acted as if traveling at 60mph was a granny-pace. On the side roads, cars ran red lights and rolled through stop signs while their drivers sipped coffee and scrolled Instagram. My personal favorite was sitting at lights that changed four times before I could get through with 20 vehicles ahead of me.

At the beginning of my new career, I moved within the company cautiously, careful about who I befriended while examining the proverbial “lay of the land”. I was also managing silent insecurities having to navigate a corporate environment that I hadn’t been a part of since I was 26 years young. People much younger had more experience. This truth and my own desire to succeed forced me to work harder – for myself. An unexpected outcome was a promotion within three months along with a raise. Four months later, I was offered another generous raise. This too was unexpected since by that time I had become respectfully vocal regarding how the company had to make improvements in staff benefits, create an employee engagement plan, and execute a few other items if they hoped to retain good people.  

They were receptive to a few changes, so I moved forward with implementation knowing full-well that a few free lunches, celebrating birthdays and adding a newsletter would not make up for the level of unethical behaviors, potentially illegal actions and bizarre management practices.

Really bright and well-paid engineers were leaving the organization for less money. Horrible employees were inexplicably retained. Micro-management of high-level staff was suffocating. Several months ago, I determined to leave. The problem was finding time to send out resumes when the president continuously called me on my days off and the amount of work had risen to 11-hour days.

During August alone, I had moved my youngest back to her university, moved my oldest daughter back home, helped my son through a wonderful job change and my semester of teaching started back up (I still teach part time online). The nest was full at the end of summer and now the twins are both home working remotely for great companies. September’s non-work-non-teaching time was spent planning a baby shower for a friend’s daughter. We are the sorts who can’t seem to do the minimum. We are of the life motto: more is more and life events should be celebrated in BIG ways. The shower was last Sunday and the effort was worth it.

Throughout these home-life changes and additional responsibilities, the stress at work escalated to an unhealthy level and the owners were immovable when encouraged to rationally consider why ¾ of the employees had exited. When you can’t get through a brick wall, nor find a path around it and are prevented from climbing higher, you find something new.

As I drove to work on my final day, I weaved through traffic like a champion NASCAR driver. However, I’m a safe-never-run-stop-signs-or-red-lights kind of gal who always lets people merge. But I’m tougher in spirit now than I was a couple short years ago. There are pros and cons to being in difficult situations and living out unexpected turns in the road of life. One positive is that I collected some good people along the way. These same sweet souls gave me three weeks of farewell cards, gifts, food, etc., and have reached out multiple times with expressions of missing me deeply since my departure only a couple of weeks ago. For those that exited the company long before me, they still keep in touch.

God gave me peace that it was time to leave but I wasn’t clear about what was next other than continuing to teach. One thing was for sure: the highly professional, always-dressed-up corporation I worked for displayed unethical behaviors that really disgusted me. Little did I know, being disgusted was about to take on a vastly more elevated meaning.

Two days after my final day at work – just when I was praying about my “next assignment” – I was stunningly placed on a grand jury that would require my faithful attendance for two months. Before any of the 25 of us could say “what-the-what?”, we were immediately sworn in for duty. As the lot of us walked to our cars, stunned as to why we weren’t questioned as we had been in previous years when called for jury duty, we realized that fear of COVID was preventing swarms of potential jurors from even showing up. For those gainfully employed, they were beside themselves about the amount of time required with less than $5/hour in payment.

Many people LOVE jury duty. They sincerely LOVE it and wish they could go back more frequently. I’ll agree that it’s interesting to learn the inner workings of our judicial system up close and personal. However, the lawyers warned us that the material our particular group would see was especially “difficult”. To my knowledge, there is only one person out of my large group that believes this to be a fun experience.

I love my country. It’s important to serve, but day after day, hour after hour, we review case after case of the worst atrocities. You already know this from staring at your social media and your preferred news channel, but humanity is depraved. Each day we sit in our chairs, reviewing endless, sickening behavior. I’m viewing in real-life what I wouldn’t ever watch on television.

Two random, (non-grisly) things you are already aware of but I’ll share to confirm from my brief legal experience: 1) There is a camera recording you in places you really don’t think about. Did you get that? Not just at stop signs, street lights and outside of buildings. We are being recorded e v e r y w h e r e.  2) I have learned that Google can virtually pinpoint how long I was in the produce aisle at my local grocery store two years ago on a specific date merely because I have a gmail account. Did you get that? Via the email accounts they can track a person’s whereabouts.

If I wasn’t already repelled with tech companies as described HERE and in other posts, these proceedings are merely additional confirmation. No one to blame but ourselves for downloading our apps and opening up our personal data to the global cyber-thieves. They remain lightyears ahead and it’s too late to attempt controlling them. While it’s great if they supply pertinent information to catch the bad guys, it’s astounding to be educated on the depth of their knowledge regarding our daily lives. I’ll let your imagination fill in the rest of the mind-blowing information we have been learning alongside observations of the most gruesome evil.

On that happy note (insert laughter), it’s been one month since I’ve posted but I hope to rekindle my online communications with the special people who write on WordPress. It’s been a community I’ve missed in the last several weeks. Most of you have also had lulls in your writings for various reasons, so I know you get it. Likely, I still won’t be able to write as frequently as I hope to during this current season, but I’m going to try…

Happy Halloween to all!

And So She Flew….

This blog has been quiet lately, but my nest has not been. My just-turned-23-year-young daughter (one of the twins) landed the kind of job we’ve been praying for since graduation last May. I rejoiced alongside her four weeks ago that God answered our prayers BIG, but was stunned that the job was 7-states and 16-hours away (by car). Sigh.

I write the beginning of this post from the airport concourse, waiting for my flight back to the nest.

The last month has been slammed at work, then crazy at home with planning, packing and preparing. Now, this huge, life-altering event is behind us. The wheels of my return flight squeaked as they tucked under, making me want to tuck my own feet under me and squeak a bit about what a huge hole there will be in my nest…

I had finally adjusted to the bustling activity and non-stop-in-and-out of the twins returning home from university last May. Although my youngest is still away at her school, the nest was no longer a silent space. We were literally back to “Mommmmm!” at the bathroom door the second I started the shower. Whenever I felt annoyed at something, I mumbled thanks that my nest was alive with life.

My saver-daughter independently purged years worth of clothes and shoes, and thinned three giant bins of cards and notes into one. She even found her saved baby teeth and notes to the tooth fairy (“please leave my teeth and thank you”). Piles to be packed and donations to be given away were strewn throughout the house and her room.

Her room.

The Jonas Brothers. One Direction. Taylor Swift. All decorations from her youth were recently replaced with fresh paint, a new travel theme – complete with photographs of her many adventures in travel. She had wisely turned down a job a Boston a couple months ago and arrived back home ready to nestle in…accepting that it could be a lonnnnnng wait for the “right” opportunity. God has such a sense of humor.

Her and I had just hung the last of enlarged photos from her trips and our summer vacation in Scotland and Ireland when the interviews began with her current job. The room we just completed was quickly deconstructed with all the décor in boxes for her first apartment.

While the mess strewn everywhere, she began wrapping fragiles in what we wrapped her in 23 years ago in the hospital. All of us parents have these exact same, thin, worn wraps somewhere in our homes and it was too much for me when I saw them.

This baby girl is my independent one. We have a favorite family video of her loudly announcing at 2 1/2 years old, “I can do ittttt!” She did not want help. Her independence is part of her. While this is how she can go to a place where she knows zero people, this quality has also (somewhat) eased my Mama-pain over her departure from the nest.

Funny how she’s my most independent one, but she’s also the only one who still sleeps with the same “dollies” at 23 that she did at 2yrs old.

These near stuffing-less treasures went with her far away.

Though Google and Zuckerberg and Apple’s leadership were decades ahead of us in copying and saving our so-called “personal” data – long before society bothered to contemplate if snaps and posts and emails were being saved in massive data centers – and I really go off on a tangent about all of it :), I still embrace certain technologies that keep my babies and I connected. I wonder how I lived without Snapchat to show my kids something at a store. I’ve always refused to use FB despite the disappointment of my friends, but I spend plenty of time on FaceTime with my kids.

Even more than when the twins were at their universities and we talked every day, “live” technologies have officially become a greater blessing during my daughter’s first full week on the job. Snaps of her new office help me picture her there. Snaps of her food make me laugh since she loves to eat! FaceTime on lunch breaks and after work help us still “do life” together as much as we can with 7 states between us.

Though my independent one, she was quick to confirm that it would only be 7 weeks until I arrive for Easter weekend….”you are coming for Easter, right Mom?”

Well…who can say no to that invitation!?

Joining the Rat-Race Mid-Life

 

Over 20 years ago, I sat on the tarmac in Iowa waiting to take off and return home from a business trip. I was in my first big-girl job post-college, and after receiving a promotion, was promptly sent to various cities to work with administrators in the Midwest and Northeast.

Looking out the window at the night-time sky, a red jelly-like substance began dripping over the windows. I asked the flight attendant what it was, as this girl had only been on one plane ride at 18 years old and knew little about air travel.

She explained that the weather was frigid and the plane was being de-iced. I wondered if I should be worried. I was too young to be as fearful as I would certainly be today. The delay was more annoying than anything and I decided then and there to return to graduate school and become a teacher.I’ve spent 20 years in higher education and there were two main advantages for me: 1) It was truly a meaningful career when I began and, 2) It was the best Mom-gig a girl could hope for while raising children.Fast forward a couple of decades and two giant truths now dominate my professional existence: 1) While the cost of tuition has skyrocketed exponentially, our pay has not. 2) The majority of collegiate institutions are about anything and everything except teaching and learning. Of course there are exceptions. However, if you read the data, and have current affiliation with several universities as I do, you will observe a shift in the actual “education” portion that is alarming. I have also held administrative positions along with teaching, so my insight goes beyond the classroom.

With twins just graduating from college and my youngest with two years left to go at her university, well…this mid-life Mama had to get another job. In addition to kids in college…

-We are a part of a destination wedding this August where my girls are standing up and I’m part of the ceremony (more on that in August).

-My husband went through a job change a year ago and his salary dropped considerably at the new company…blah blah blah…there are too many stories like ours to count lately. You can imagine the strain.

-Then, he landed himself in the hospital for a couple of days-nothing serious but the medical co-pays for three days in the hospital blew through his very handsome severance package.

The timing of these several things at once was comical and costly.

So, I cut the on-campus teaching, kept the online professorship, and added a three-days a week position in HR with a small company at their corporate office. Promptly after I started, the HR Director resigned. I’m essentially the entire HR department on a three-day schedule doing five days plus worth of work. I’ve already been working on my days “off”.

To say the adjustment from both a professional standpoint and a personal one has been challenging would be an understatement.Two kids (here) graduated and moved home from college. My youngest is serving in ministry in Texas for three more weeks. The change in the household has been tremendous. God bless the kids, they are doing the dishes, and occasionally vacuum…After 10 minutes of searching, I find the pasta strainer with the syrup (?), but who am I to complain?! 🙂

I’m working more than I have in a decade while still doing most everything I did prior to the new job.

I’m trying to adjust. I didn’t really think it would be that big of a deal. After all, before kids (and life in higher ed) I had a career in business. I traveled for heaven’s sake. I was a working professional!

I’ve changed and I’m waaaaay older.

Driving home in wicked traffic the other day, I was reminded of how this is just normal life for most. Sit and wait while four lights change and we creep up to finally get through an intersection. Wild morning traffic is something most people have been navigating for decades while I purposely set up early morning office hours to avoid. I taught late classes so my husband was home with the kids when I left. I graded papers and lesson-planned from my home office.

Lunch was when I wanted it and it certainly didn’t have a time limit.Oh, the schedule of “regular hours”. It’s laughable to those of you reading who’ve been in the rat race for decades. Up at 6am, on the road by 7am, work work work, eat lunch fast, back to your desk, back in the car at 5pm….

The conventional work schedule alone makes this deep thinker ponder who came up with the 8-5 workday. Why are we all bumper to bumper at 7:30am just to reach the destination by 8am? Why are we again bumper to bumper at 5:15pm? Even though more employees than ever are working from home, or have flex hours, my small company runs a tight, traditional culture with zero flexibility.

Definition of rat race according to dictionary.com: any exhausting, unremitting, and usually competitive activity or routine, especially a….life spent trying to get ahead with little time left for leisure, contemplation, etc.The part of the rat race definition that makes me laugh out loud includes leisure and contemplation. Professors contemplate! We lead our students to think, not just answer questions. We have more opportunity for leisure due to flexibility.

In those years when I had the luxury of being “contemplative”, and particularly when I was in the evening classes with working adults completing their Bachelors and Masters degrees, I spent considerable time discussing the importance of locating the job that would be satisfying after they finally graduated. We wrote out the number of waking hours on paper, subtracting not only 40-hours in a building, but planning for work, choosing clothes for work, drive time, required social and corporate events, buying Christmas gifts for workmates, etc., etc.The ultimate point of the exercise was revealing the truth that full-time working adults work more than they literally do anything else. More time at work than with family. More time working than cooking or playing or creating. I made them take a hot second “contemplating” that stark reality. Really thinking about life in the present – but also what they wanted it to look like in a few years.

Most people work for money and few work because they love what they do.

Most are hustling in the rat-race “routine”, “competitively” working to get ahead, hoping to reach those goals of “leisure” and the luxury of living more “contemplatively”.

My Bible app devotion recently stated: “You have been entrusted with talents… It really matters how you use these.” If only we could all earn a living utilizing our true, greatest talents. I have observed most people at best use their gifts in hobbies or volunteering in ministries. Excruciatingly few can pay medical and dental benefits without a company-job having nothing to do with their greatest gifts. We use our gifts to serve as best we can-where we are.

We are old enough to know that life requires attention. If we’re going to enjoy any of it, we must leave the housework, skip the obligatory visit to the distant-relative’s house and read the book that is collecting dust because too many other things trump sitting down in “leisure”.

I miss my extended quiet time with God in the mornings. I’m way behind in my Bible reading. I catch up on my days off. Things like crafts and baking are time-intensive joys that I cannot afford. My leisure time is spent with my kids doing things together. They will only live home for a limited amount of time and I’m not going to miss these remaining moments living together.

Throughout the years, I could see how my full-time career friends had time for nothing but work. I observed at a distance their counting days off…worried about arriving 10 minutes late or leaving a half hour early to catch their kids’ game after school. Mentally tortured about missing family events and simultaneously feeling obligated to their employer.While I previously watched at a distance, I now live it and while the work is interesting, the schedule is a bummer. I’m thankful that this existence now was not the reality while raising kids. As always, a big hug and sincere admiration to those working parents who legit do it all – and well.

On that note, it’s time to enjoy the weekend and family…

I wish each of you a Happy Weekend! 🙂

Photos: 99designs.com-woman; aviation.stackexchange.com-plane; nyfa.edu/Harvard/-Harvard; robbreport.com/lifestyle/news/would-you-pay-6-5-million-to-get-your-kid-into-yale-2843748/-Yale; ft.com/content/804b928e-6cde-11df-91c8-00144feab49a-RatRace; Cnn.com-man on desk; Colossians: Pinterest

D-Day Celebrations Have Me Thinking About Patriotism

I don’t come from a military family, nor was I raised with any real political discussion or  thoughts about country. Yet, in my twenties I started paying attention to history and even more so in the last decade, I’ve grown to be highly patriotic. There was no significant reason why other than maturing enough to realize that we truly live in a great nation and freedom really isn’t free.Catching a bit of the D-Day celebrations on the news yesterday once again touched my heart and mind. Veterans who served 75 years ago had patriotism – a love of country – and understanding of history and the importance of serving that is lacking in contemporary society. Our 20-somethings struggle to answer questions such as, “What is D-Day?” “When was WWII and why did it start?” My own 20-somethings included.

Even us 50-somethings can’t fully relate to some of the news tag lines from yesterday:

My grandmother widowed at 18. She still feels that grave loss 75 years after D-Day.

We had to go down and clean up the bodies on the beaches because we had new troops coming in.

When service transcended party: D-Day, my dad and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower.

War is terrible. Tragic. D-Day was those things. It also was heroic and necessary. Younger generations of Americans won’t understand what happened on June 6, 1944, unless they are inspired to learn it.Years ago when I started talking politics and studying history, I brought topics into my college classroom, encouraging students to be engaged. They were. I learned that there is a big difference between reading your 6th grade textbook and bringing history and politics to life by making a practical connection to modern living. I also raised my kids to be politically engaged in the last few years and encourage all young adults to study and understand why they believe what they profess to believe.  In a world where taking time to read, learn and pay attention longer than five minutes is rare, I’m going to take six minutes (wink) and continue talking to my 20-somethings about history and its relevance to our future as Americans.

The next chance to really celebrate this amazing nation is July 4th (and of course wear red, white and blue on Flag Day, June 14th!). I plan to take time to honor our nation and thank those who serve.

Happy Weekend to All! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Why Isn’t Parenting Considered a Profession and Why Are We So Embarrassed by It?

If you’ve read this blog lately, you know I’ve been traveling a bit. Conversations among a wide array of human beings, each simultaneously living strikingly similar yet vastly dissimilar family lives fascinated me. A perpetual student at heart, I enjoyed every small talk chat and lengthier conversation surrounding the literal commencement of our graduating children’s passage into employable adulthood.

Weeks prior to the graduations, I sat on bleachers and walked across fields with fellow parents of college athletes. Hearing how they raised their almost-college-graduated children was riveting. Or, maybe I was just most enthralled with how they viewed their parenting. After all, these big family moments such as college graduations launch us parents into all sorts of deep reflection.

Joys, funny stories and softly spoken regrets were shared as we stood shoulder to shoulder squinting into the sunny lacrosse field. Plans for our kids’ upcoming entrance into the professional world were discussed with excitement and apprehension.

Graduation ceremonies evoke contemplation. We wonder about many things, including how our professional choices influenced and affected the life of the beloved child walking toward us in their cap and gown.

We mid-life parents huddled together, humbly sharing a few successes and challenges while also perching our lips in anticipation… waiting for approval or disapproval from our peers as we revealed our employment. While the good men in our conversations chuckled and segued into NHL playoff statistics and how the Yankees were doing that week, we Moms remained attentive listeners to each other’s decisions, silently comparing, tallying our worth against theirs, adverting direct eye contact when the words grew too personal for folks only together for a weekend. Ultimately, each indirectly revealed the hidden label we always carry: “not good enough”.

Perhaps the most riveting was watching the responses to the Mom who was a former physician, left her practice, fired the nanny and raised her children. No, her husband wasn’t wealthy. She made a choice and here we stood, years later, her smile content watching her daughter run the field, but eyes narrowing through sunglasses when questions such as, “how could you abandon all of that schooling?” “did you pay your loans off before quitting?” “do you regret it?” were asked of her.

There were a few genuinely disappointed people. “She could have been so much more” their eyes said. I sensed she was accustomed to disenchanted peers as she firmly added, “it was right for my family”.

Another Mom in our little mid-life circle shrugs, “I was always home with our kids”…like it was a bad thing. I was even a very casual conversation with a young man when we found ourselves talking about his Dad’s highly successful business and I asked what his Mom did. I don’t even know why I asked such a question but he answered, “well, she stays at home…but she really works hard for us and volunteers and helps my Dad.” Ugh. Even the child felt the need to explain.

But back to our mid-life Mom group…No matter who was talking, the outside-the-house and stay-at-home women both felt the need to explain their professional choices. Yet, the few who did odd jobs and largely remained “at home” over the years were definitely embarrassed to say so.

Why are we dissatisfied with ourselves if we become anything professionally-less than Sheryl Sandberg?

There exist countless answers to that question but one of the many is that the very real parenting accomplishments are invisible to the world. Observing others during those conversations really affected me, particularly those who shrunk back for having remained in their nests. Their words and expressions stayed with me the last couple weeks and prompted this post. I also recently started a new job outside of higher ed (although I’m still teaching online), so I’m familiar with job-hunting as a mid-lifer. When raising my kids, I had done all three: full time, part time and stayed home for a spell. I settled upon part time as a professor. Some years were crazier than others, but I had some flexibility which was a blessing.

This mindset of parenting-worthlessness even seeps into those of us whose workplace career is part time and raising children is full time. Why do we always answer the new-introductions question, “what do you do?” first with our outside titles such as Consultant, Dentist, HR Rep, Professor?

Because Motherhood is not acknowledged as a profession. It’s frowned upon to include a decade or two on your mid-life resume about being an employee (of your family) and leader in your organization (home). Even if only five years out of the workplace, experts tell you to leave the employment gap rather than, gasp!, mention being a literal lifeline to a few little humans.

Once the early infant weeks pass, there really is no such thing as a “stay at home parent”. Exhausted parents long to be home for one full day. Instead, they are integrating their children into society via trips to the library, museums, parks, play groups, preschool, and endless extracurricular activities and sports. Yet, the label of “stay at home” remains locked in heavy chains.

I volunteer for MOPS – Mothers of Preschoolers. It truly feels like I was JUST a 30-year old MOPS Mom and now, I serve in this wonderful organization. While cleaning up the room one evening, a young Mom with two children was asked what she “did” and I observed her also shrink back when answering, “I stay home with the kids”. She too meekly looked up, waiting for the other woman to approve or disapprove.

We have good reason to respect big titles in the workforce. Obstetricians who bring our babies safely into the world are godsends. We nearly drop to our knees in gratitude for the brilliant Neurosurgeon who saves our loved one. Understandably, there is a scale for professional respect. Mere titles spoken aloud make people nod in appreciation, eyebrows raised in approval when introduced at a dinner party. Yet, full time parents will avoid stating their title as long as possible when asked – depending on the peer group they find themselves in. Myself included.

The weekend conversations veered into parenting being a profession, albeit unrecognized by the world at large. Full-time working Moms need employers to truly understand they have two careers. Stay-at-home Moms need recognition for being the extraordinary workers they are. Especially those Moms who are reentering the workforce.

Respect. Esteem. Reverence. Many professions generate these adjectives merely by their title. Other careers earn praise after a couple of years in the field. But people who choose to forego full time day care or grandparent sitters, selecting instead to independently raise their own children continue decade after decade to be ignored as smart, productive workers contributing to society – including contributions to its economic system.

This got me thinking about all they do that should be resume-worthy…

Modern parents who choose to be with their children full time are often educated. Smart. Resourceful. Highly Productive. Impressive Multi-Taskers. They are negotiators and mediators. Their communication skills must be impeccable as they create order from chaos.

They direct and lead the undisciplined youth into a disciplined life. They refuse to allow their homes to become modern-day arcades, leaving them to be the unpopular supervisor including developing policies which restrict endless screening. They were already lonely leaders at the top of their organization, working overtime without praise. Added rejection from those they are serving takes a toll.

Then, when they decide it’s time to reenter the outside work world, they are further rejected. Or worse, they receive no response to their resume at all. Silence. For years prior, they were invisible in society, unheard in conversations among employees with paychecks. Now, they pull their emotionally drained, appreciation-starved selves together and put their identities out there, already aware of being behind the 8-ball. But they do it anyway. They shove aside the negative self-talk that dominates their mind. This takes discipline and courage.

Surviving full-time nesting with children from infancy to Kindergarten and certainly beyond, takes mental, physical and emotional energy. There is almost never any gratitude or positive feedback and certainly not enough to cover the array of nonsense that is involved in this very real job.

So-called “stay at home Moms” are both the employee and the management. Their work travels into the nights, weekends and holidays. There is no added pay or new promotion for their exhausting commitment to the organizations named “home” and “family”. They too navigate the ever-present sensitivity toward “diversity and inclusion” as they arrange play dates and teach about the differences in their kids’ peers. They demonstrate exceeding wisdom and restraint when they patiently teach their children that the profane bully in the schoolyard is ravenous for attention somewhere in their psyche. (What Mom would rather do is grab that bully by the neck, lift them off the ground and spew expletives and hurt right back at ‘em.) Moms know how to deal with the office bullies.      When workers are acknowledged, there is tremendous personal satisfaction and elevated confidence. Recognition increases motivation to perform even better and well, it just lifts a person up. Kind, genuine words of praise for doing a good job stays with people. If you’ve ever received such recognition at work, you likely recall the person and exactly what they said. Moms have lasted sometimes decades without such acknowledgement or green dollars. What strength of character they possess as professional workers!

If you hire, give Moms (and Dads) a chance. If you believe in the wildly popular “Servant Leadership” trending in business and industry, read Moms’ resumes. Maybe they are applying for something other than their professional position from 10 years ago. They have learned more about their strengths and abilities and now realize where they are most suited to contribute.

Full time parents have far exceeded the primitive societal view of simply making meals and cleaning house. If you are in a position to interview people and see the “parenting” resume gap, don’t assume “stay at home” parents are less-than. If you read that Moms were only working part-time out of the house for the last twenty years, don’t assume they were vacationing in their “off” time. Their kids demanded, their aging parents needed, the schools asked for volunteers, the hockey team required hours…their minds and hands rarely stopped working.

I hope we can start recognizing parenting as the profession it is. The minutes, hours and years count. Most of them were without hour-lunch breaks and “personal” days. I’m now in a position to help hire employees and I plan to give parents a chance to change careers and/or re-enter the workforce. I doubt I’ll be disappointed. And, through MOPS and other situations, I will continue to remind parents that they don’t owe anyone any explanation for their professional choices of full-time, part-time or home-time while raising their children. At the end of each day, we only have to answer to the One and Only. Images: click on photo to see location(s).