When Saanich mom Tanya Moehl’s younger son started kindergarten, she saw only one path ahead: a return to work.
“I was home and I tried to do home things, but there is only so much of that you can do,” said Moehl. “I don’t like cooking and cleaning that much.”
On the other hand, she had been out of the workforce for seven years.
It wasn’t empty time: There had been the preschool boards, organizing play groups, field trips and “God knows how many fundraisers.”
But Moehl feared her resumé looked empty. Despite her 12-year stint working and managing a sporting-goods store prior to motherhood, there was this big gap.
So she talked with husband Mark Urwin, a provincial public servant, and figured out what was important to them. She needed to be finished work when the boys, Kian, 7, and Julien, 5, finished school. She also wanted to work close to their home.
Moehl found both at Quadra Street building-supply store Lumberworld, where the employer was willing to accommodate her schedule and recognized her retail experience and willingness to learn. She is now doing marketing work for the store, creating flyers and co-ordinating media exposure.
“Once I got on that roll, that routine, ‘Oh, I’m back in retail again,’ I was fine,” she said.
In many ways, Moehl went through the exact planning process advised by job counsellors who deal with women returning to work after a period away with children. That includes things such as:
• Consider reasons for returning to work. Is it money, career advancement or just a chance to be useful and busy?
• Think about job requirements. What are the minimum conditions in terms of hours and responsibilities?
• Talk with your family about what it will mean. Balancing work and motherhood is difficult. But a woman will often find she has a more supportive spouse or friends than she realizes.
Victoria counsellor Michele Waters of Career Quest Coaching said women, in particular, have to take care before stepping back into the workplace.
“Any woman who has a child goes through a major transformation,” said Waters. “So a good idea is really stepping back and evaluating what it is she wants.
“Now that she is a mom, she has more to balance.”
Waters said she is sometimes amazed at how determined and anxious mothers can be about returning to work, even when halfway through maternity leave.
She advises thinking about small stages. Don’t just leap back into the old job. Instead, get together ahead of time with colleagues for a casual lunch or coffee. Discuss changes in personnel, management or technology, such as new computer programs.
Meet with supervisors. Talk over any new requirements in your life now that you have become a parent. A mom returning to work may have to educate her own colleagues about a mother’s requirements.
“If she is one of the first women in the workplace to have a baby and then return to work, she might have to do some pioneering to educate her colleagues and management about family-friendly practices,” said Waters.
A mother going back to paid work can also think of her return as a transition time. She may not be capable of hitting the shop floor at full speed. She may require some build-up, such as returning part time and then increasing hours.
Also, a return to her old job might not be a good fit with a woman’s new role. Talk to a career coach about new possibilities. Perhaps even consider self-employment if it works best.
“Be creative in navigating that return to work,” said Waters.
Moms returning to work also need to recognize their own limitations.
Post-partum depression, for example, is very real and can be a debilitating, even dangerous, psychological condition. So keep up the communication with family, friends and colleagues. And don’t be afraid to seek medical help. “If she is feeling overwhelmed, then she should reach out to her doctor and talk about everything that is on her plate,” said Waters.
The trick is for a woman to locate that balance among work, family and her own needs.
“It can be an awful lot to balance and often something suffers and usually it’s the woman,” said Waters.
Victoria mother of two Colleen Wild was out of the paid workforce for 11 years with her two kids, Dexter, 11, and Maxine, 6.
With an extensive career history as an esthetician and in management, newspapers and advertising, she saw a job counsellor when considering a return to work.
It took one session for her to realize she would be happiest meeting people and working in esthetics, where everything is “lovely and smells nice.”
“The biggest skills you will ever have is being friendly, being teachable and having a good work ethic,” said Wild. “If you have all of those things, you are employable.”
But she was also determined to be on hand for things such as kids’ soccer games or children’s illnesses, or even time with her husband, Mark Stoiber, a business consultant and new author
So Wild opted for self-employment, primarily for the flexibility. She now works again as an esthetician, specializing in skin care and marketing a line of products.
Her company, Dermavictoria, operates out of an office and clinic space built at the family’s Victoria home, so she is never far from her kids or husband.
“It’s fun — I get to spend time one on one with my clients,” said Wild. “But it’s also a perfect situation for me because, today, for example, I’m not taking any clients because Maxine is home on a pro-D day.”
