By Stacy DeBroff

When you are expecting a baby, sometimes work and the job market appear a daunting task. You are so excited about the new baby about to come into your life, but the rest of world continues to go on. Here are some great tips about how to handle work and pregnancy.

Searching for jobs while pregnant

• Don't hold back when you find out that you're pregnant -- go after and interview for the jobs you want!
• You are not obligated to disclose your status until they make the offer you are looking for. Disclosing your status too soon could automatically put you in a rejection situation. Once they've fallen in love with you as an employee, they will start thinking "how can we make this work" instead of "never mind."
• It is important to remember that they are making the commitment to you and have chosen you as the best candidate because you have exhibited the necessary qualities and skills.
• When the job offer is made, make your start date and maternity leave part of the negotiation.
• Keep in mind the nature of the job (i.e. hours, travel obligations, etc.) Be open to the fact that they may not be able to accommodate your needs because of certain requirements and expectations of the job or company.
• If a negotiation cannot be reached, decline politely and remind them again of how qualified you are for the job.
• As Moms, we find ourselves caught between trying to be the perfect house-keeper Mom like June Cleaver in the TV show Leave it to Beaver, and the incredibly successful, vibrant working woman inspired by Gloria Steinem to break through all barriers and shine at our chosen work.
• For the vast majority of us as 21st century women, the complexity of our evolving roles consumes our waking moments and dictates our chaotic schedules.
• As Mom, we find our time dominated by trying to live up to an astonishing variety of stereotypes that hinge on perfection in each of our pursuits. Just contemplating our shortcomings adds to our sense of exhaustion.
• The days of June Cleaver and Donna Reed are long gone, leaving moms with more options for balancing their lives than ever before, but when it comes to juggling work, raising children, and running a home, no ready-made models have yet emerged to replace her.
• It will take a couple generations, at least, for the Mom role to evolve, for media messaging to change, for the workplace 24/7 mentality to shift, and for a new Mom archetype to surface.
• In the meantime, confusion and emotional turmoil engulf us as we struggle to create an updated model of the modern mom.

The Great Experiment: Work/Family Balance

• Juggling used to be a circus act. Today it’s a woman’s act. In our roles as mothers, wives, friends, workers, daughters, runners of homes, and more, we frantically try to keep all the balls in the air.
• As women, we’re socialized to be caretakers, nurturers, and cleaner-uppers. It’s woven into our self-esteem and identity.
• Many of us moms have internalized images of parenting based on an ever-present, loving, and totally devoted mom as our ideal.
• No option on the work/family balance frontier seems perfect, either:

* Working full time means too much of life absorbed by work

* Part-time work is often more an act of treading water than career progression, or means that you feel like you're doing a mediocre job at both.

*Stay at home moms face the drudgery of housework while peers excel in the limelight and dealing with the inevitable question at cocktail parties: “What DO you do?”

• Feelings of inadequacy pervade both the worlds of work and staying at home: to succeed fully in one by traditional measures means sacrificing the other.

Whether at Work or Home: The Moms are still the one in charge

• In addition to substantial work or volunteer responsibilities, most moms still bear the primary responsibility at home and take care of all the other detailed, routine and often undesired minutiae of running a home and raising a family.
• So many responsibilities mean thousands of hours each year consumed by organizational snafus, procrastination, mounting piles of paper, the craze of morning lift-off, time for your child, making dinner, and endless loads of laundry.

Stay-at-home-Moms: Our Generational Shift from housewife to Parent

• The focus for stay-at-home moms has shifted from housewife to parent.
• The job of full-time mothering has grown more demanding too—with mothers as creative playmates, child-development experts, and volunteers in understaffed schools.
• As a stay-at-home Mom, there are lots of days when you have nothing concrete to show, except that everyone has been loved, nurtured, clothed, fed, played with, challenged, cleaned off, and tucked into bed.
• One mom shared with me this sentiment: “It’s hard to shake the perception that if I’m home, even part-time, I should theoretically have an enormous amount of time in which to accomplish many things.”
• Keeping a clean, organized home can be even harder when you and your kids are in the house all day “messing” things up.

Martha Stewart as Emblem of this Ambivalence of Roles

• With the emergence of Martha Stewart, we witness the spruced up resurrection (with a great new look) of the cult of domesticity, for women to embrace trading in briefcases for handcrafted linzer tortes and name tags for family dinners served on hand-painted china.
• The reason why people have such strong reactions to Martha Stewart is because her image is both compelling and frustrating at the same time.

Add to the Mix: Families Schedules have never been more hectic

• As parents we find ourselves living in an age of activity mania, where our children cascade from one activity to the next in a whirlwind of nonstop movement.
• In large part due to the perception of a more competitive world for our kids, we want them to have every advantage. We play Mozart in utero, we cringe when our child is the last to crawl in baby group, and we keep a vigilant lookout for possible talents to be nurtured along.
• By the time your children reach elementary school it is hard, if not impossible, to extricate yourself and your child from the activity craze sweeping our culture.
• Parents now live in their minvans or SUV’s, gulping coffee and careening to their children’s next lesson or sports event. And guess who does most of the ferrying from one practice to another? In this arena, too, moms are still in charge.

User Rating: / 0
PoorBest