wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Hi Liliana,
I hear you. Time and capital and hubris and, I think, limitless amounts of courage.
Maybe the better part of courage is doing it half-and-half - who's to say you can't do both? I mean, take a lower-paying traditional job, and still work on your own business on the side? It seems like you could get further if you coordinated with other women in the same position. Even men who are in the same spot. From what I see, I think there are a lot of experienced older workers who are getting the shaft, regardless of sex. It's the cult of youth. Sigh.
Hang in there,
Eva

I am working on it although needless to say it is very hard. Currently I am also considering the traditional employment option just because I would like to get a paycheck as soon as possible. The going solo alternative requires time and capital....

Hi Liliana,
Did you end up starting your own business, as you mentioned? It seems like it would be far preferable. You would have flexibility. It also seems like a band of experienced older women working together could start a business that could pose a serious challenge to the traditional business models that they came out of.

Wharton at University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Harvard, and other schools have developed special programs to help bring experienced women back into the workforce. They realize society is losing a very valuable resouce with many of these women opting to stay out because of many reasons. Children is one of many. There is also the glass ceiling in many industries, such as financial services. There is the desire for many women to have working options that are more flexible in terms of schedule, location, etc.
I can tell you that for experienced senior women, which is my case in financial services it is very difficult to "on ramp" after a career stop, albeit short. I have found that it is virtually impossible to obtain one of those jobs not to mention a flexible one. THe choice for women in this situation is to start their own business, which is clearly what many have decided to do. It seems to me employers ought to consider giving these women a chance with their extensive experience and willingness to be flexible in terms of salary, they could end up getting a bargain!

Brian, Is there a way to link this discussion to the discouraging system of securing teaching jobs in a country desperate for teachers? I stayed home with my developmentally challenged son for two years--giving up a tenured college position. (Foolish!) When I applied to almost every high school in NJ, I soon learned that I wouldn't be considered because my twenty years teaching at the college and high school level would place me in a higher salary range. (In reality I would have taken almost any reasonable job, no matter the salary.) At 40, for the first time in my life, I was standing on an unemployment line. It took nearly 10 years to get back to the classroom which I love. Never did I recover the salary loss. This is a rather complicated issue, but one I often wish you would explore.

Tony:
Yes, having children is a choice but because of the lack of support of this society towards working women, it has become one that excludes other aspects of women's lives. America is still pretty much stuck in the 50's where the myth of "motherhood-as-an-all-fulfilling activity" is very much alive with complete disregard to the fact that women are also capable of being other than mothers. If you take the time to talk to your own mother, or women friends with children, you will see that motherhood, or for the sake of this argument, parenthood in general is not as "black and white" as you might think. Having a child is not a choice that should exclude everything else in your life if the right support and networks are in place to allow you to do so.

P.S. Good thing your mom made the choice to have children, even to the detriment of anything else she might have wanted to do with her life, right?

yeah, but Tony... society needs children. Not an overpopulation of them, but women who have children and actually RAISE them are fulfilling an important societal need, not JUST making a choice.
It's a lot of work. Not that I would know personally, but...
Look, the fact that Judith Warner is probably the most annoying New York Times contributor (after Tom Friedman) should not influence your view of the rest of motherhood's significance to society.

Brian -

I've always enjoyed your show -

I wonder if it would be valuable to explore commissioned sales positions, and receiving those commissions.

In NJ, the dept of labor doesn't have specific regulations on commissionable jobs in small businesses. A contract is what they recognize, but they aren't always possible to obtain, and employers have the ability to hire someone, let them sell, let them go, and find a reason not to make those payments.

Obviously, I'll think twice before I take another commissionable job, but it could be a widespread problem, that goes unnoticed.

Barbara

Tony states: "The problem with many of the arguments made here is that it ignores the fact that having children is a choice. It's not cancer. It's not Hurricane Katrina. It's not even a sick uninsured parent. It's something that women choose to do more often than not. If I choose to hike the Appalachian Trail for 5 years or if I choose to sit in bars and watch Sportscenter it would likely adversely influence my job prospects and long term economic prospects."

True enough, but what if no women optedto have children? Or at least, so few children were born that they could not support you, with their taxes, in your old age?

The problem with many of the arguments made here is that it ignores the fact that having children is a choice. It's not cancer. It's not Hurricane Katrina. It's not even a sick uninsured parent. It's something that women choose to do more often than not. If I choose to hike the Appalachian Trail for 5 years or if I choose to sit in bars and watch Sportscenter it would likely adversely influence my job prospects and long term economic prospects. Choosing to have a child does the same thing. Choosing to not go to work... whether it's to watch soap operas or change diapers does precious little to advance your career prospects. The idea that the workplace should make accommodations for the people who make this decision is ridiculous.
The specific issues of working mothers and the workplace don't begin with childcare, or the price of gas, or discrimination, or the economy or making accommodations for this precious segment of the workforce...it begins with the choice to have a child. Discussions of this issue should acknowledge that fact.

I've struggled all my career to keep working, since I was a single mother, divorced at 31, never got child support, and worked at sales position where I was always the last hired, and first fired if the economy went south.

In my last position, I might have done too well. I sold remodeling projects, and did so well that we needed two additional project managers, so now they have jobs, and I don't! The economy slowed, and my boss once again took over the entire sales function. I became a luxury, in a way, when they needed to cut back.

At 57, I'm leaving NJ to look for work in MA, where I hope the local economy is better.

Suggestions appreciated! I'm usually hired immediately, but employers are holding back with economic news. Thanks!

RosieNYC in NJ states: "There is no such a thing as equality for men and women when it comes to the work market yet: No affordable child-care options for middle class (about 1200 a month in my are for full-time), no part-time options; not to mention that a gap in your resume is still consider a mortal sin."

Probably true. Solution: Mandate that men and women without children also be allowed to take paid time off with the guarantee that their jobs will still be there when they return. If everyone could do this, the economic incentive for employers to look askance at women in their child-bearing years would be eliminated. As long as they have this incentive, any anti-discrimination measures will only be window dressing.

I am a pediatrician in a secure full time job. After taxes and paying for child care for my 2 small children, I take home $80 per week. How do single moms do it? When this take home becomes a negative number, that's when most women decide to stay home. We need Obama/McCain to start a read discussion about affordable (and good!) child care in this country.

#12,

Unfortunately the guest was right. There are a lot of women living in poverty and it is inclusive of married, divorced and single and they are making $5-$7 an hour if they are lucky.

It put them over the line to get Medicaid or food stamps and who can pay rent and live on $7/hours. It's is a revolving treadmill.

Susan writes: "lack of AFFORDABLE child care, lack of GOOD child care, lack of flexible jobs, and flexible childcare. Many families decide the "profit" left over from the pay is barely worth the trouble for lower paying jobs"

I've have heard many people say this. I've often wondered: Why not stay at home with your child and take in the neighbors kids too for less than the unaffordable amount wanted by commercial daycare centers, but for a still tidy sum? Spend days doing enrichment, going to the zoo, etc? Make sure you have them back to your house by 4 PM so that school-age kids stop by after school for an hour or two until their parents get home for a steeply reduced fee? I can't be the only person to think of this...

For the marketing manager who is looking for a job--try John Wiley in Hoboken.

I wanted to suggest to Lori who just called in with a background in marketing (and in fact to any woman looking for a new position) that one field where people are very much in demand is non-profit development. There has been a huge explosion of non-profits in the past decade and there are tons of Development Director positions which need to be filled. Organizations are often hiring people who don't have a background specifically in development but in related areas like marketing or even an outgoing personality in media, etc. If you can raise money, you will be very comfortably employed. This also happens to be a field where there seems to be a majority of women, so very relevant to this topic.

Your caller said "better for my family" is "making lemonade", ie making the best of a bad situation. One would hope that the family is more important than money.

This guest is sadly misinformed, I have been working more than 20 years never worked in a factory!!

All women do not have children and husbands (is that redundant)

$5 $6 dollar an hour jobs, what the? is he talking about??

Glad he's gone, frustrating!

There is no such a thing as equality for men and women when it comes to the work market yet: No affordable child-care options for middle class (about 1200 a month in my are for full-time), no part-time options; not to mention that a gap in your resume is still consider a mortal sin.

I am a systems engineer that decided to stay home with my daughter and now that I am ready to go back to work, I have not been able to find a job that doesn't involve a 7 am to 7 pm.schedule even though I have managed to keep my skills updated. We are hurting economically, but unless I am willing to work as a cashier, I just can't find a job that would allow me to balance my family and work. BTW, Brian, please let everybody know that if they want an experienced systems engineer/technical trainer, I am available. :-) thanks.

The last caller, the Marketing Manager, should check nyfa.org

O
me too, honey!

O —

Speaking as a "feminist", whatever you want to do is fine.

That was the whole point... that you have a choice.

What troubles me about this topic is the conclusions that reporters (and I'm sorry to say, many of them were women) jumped to when they initially attempted to interpret statistics about women "dropping out" of the workforce.

There is a social bias in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, Slate, etc., which assumes that what a journalist notices in her own social and economic circle is a legitimate "trend." Journalists wind up doing amateur sociology instead of reporting.

I find people like Caitlin Flanagan to be particularly guilty of finding these "trends." I think journalists doing these kinds of trend stories should make a point of getting out of their enclaves of the well-educated, well-married, and well-heeled and get out and do some reporting. If it's true of attorneys, is it true of nurses, too? If it's true of the wives of bonds traders, is it also true of the wives of taxi drivers?

It's not illegitimate to comment on social trends among a particular class, as long as the reporter makes it clear that the trend is limited to that group. The problem is that they generalize from their own group to the entire population.

The fact that you have Lewis Uchitelle on today to correct this myth using actual economic data shows what a problem it is. The data were never there showing a widespread "motherhood movement." And by the way, if I work to provide a good life for my children, am I excluded from "real" motherhood?

As with African-Americans, it is difficult to know which comes first, poverty or discrimination. Truth is, they are mutually re-enforcing.

lack of AFFORDABLE child care, lack of GOOD child care, lack of flexible jobs, and flexible childcare.
Many families decide the "profit" left over from the pay is barely worth the trouble for lower paying jobs

It's not just the economy. The economy has shifted due to technology. I'm in advertising and my industry has shrunk considerably, so there are less jobs.

And I'm single, I'm not home taking care of kids, I hate that assumption.

I am probably going to piss off a lot feminist,

but I want to work to have a career but I want to be taken care of financially by the man in my life.

Brian,

I can't believe you are letting your guest get away with this victim stiff. Women are leaving the workforce because of bad times??????? When times are bad, you have to work,even if for less.

What he is proving is that times are better than in the past.

Brian- Please stop assuming that all women have husbands.