Re-entering the workplace after being a stay-at-home mother has to suck. It used to be considered a noble and honorable thing to take care of small children. Heck, it used to be considered a profession that would normally pay on the order of $100K-$120K a year. When you think about it, a stay-at-home mother is balancing checkbooks, cooking meals, taking care of sick children, constantly doing laundry and sanitizing her home (young children are terrible spreaders of disease), and increasingly home-schooling children while driving them to various activities.
Yet most employers look at the “break in resume” as a negative, and don’t view stay-at-home mothers as doing any work. Then again, most of these people probably forget to thank their mothers on Mothers Day, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. My wife recently re-entered the workplace, and although she is working from home (and we still have a 2 year old), it was a challenge to find an employer that didn’t look down on her decision to care more about her children and husband then a career.
In honor of her decision, and given the increasing desire to hire older workers over younger workers, I asked Microsoft CoPilot to build some resume bullets for a stay-at-home mom re-entering the workplace, and I got these:
- Multitasking & Time Management: Successfully managed a busy family schedule, including educational activities, sports commitments, and doctor appointments, while maintaining a clean and organized home.
- Budgeting & Financial Planning: Effectively managed household budget, making strategic decisions to ensure financial stability and meet long-term family goals.
- Conflict Resolution & Problem Solving: Developed strong problem-solving skills through mediating sibling disputes and addressing unexpected household issues.
- Communication & Interpersonal Skills: Fostered an open and supportive family environment that encouraged open communication, emotional support, and mutual respect.
- Project Management: Led and executed various projects, such as planning family events and home improvement tasks, demonstrating strong organizational and leadership skills.
Not bad CoPilot, but I think I can do better:
- Professional chauffeur. Successfully balanced the extracurricular needs of five individuals whose activities are always located during rush hour traffic and at opposite ends of the city. Managed to avoid accidents, get children to places on time and yet still get dinner on the table.
- Skilled negotiator. Can successfully argue with children from 2 to 18 years old, providing persuasive arguments in the wide spectrum of age ranges. Able to bribe without being discovered by peers.
- Outstanding Communicator. Able to switch seamlessly between soothing words needed to calm a 4 year old to the angry words needed to vivisect a school administrator that decided pornographic books are a great idea in school libraries. Utilizes full volume range, from sweet whispers to banshee-level screaming to prevent small children from playing in traffic.
- Multitasking Momma. Can you take a shower, get dressed and put on makeup, balance a checkbook, take out the garbage cans, make four lunches and boot a cantankerous teenager out the door to school, all before 7 AM and without the luxury of coffee?
- Long Range Planner. Provided life guidance to children otherwise lost in the world. Able to keep a husband motivated despite a soul sucking job that cares little of him. Builds her own world that might look messy on the outside, but has more love and charisma then any corporate party.
Given that the next generation seems to whine about showing up on time, putting on real clothes (no, pajamas at your job interview don’t count), and can’t think out more than 2 days…I’ll take a stay-at-home mom as an employee over a whiny 20-something any day.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
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