[Mb-civic] Relaunching mothers - Carol Fishman Cohen & Vivian Steir Rabin - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Relaunching mothers

By Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin  |  January 23, 2006  |  
The Boston Globe

WHEN SANDRA Day O'Connor exits the Supreme Court, it will mark the end 
of an extraordinary career. The story of the young girl who grew up on 
an East Texas ranch, graduated third in her class at Stanford Law 
School, and ultimately became the first woman on the US Supreme Court, 
has been well chronicled by virtually every news outlet in the country.

What has gone almost unnoticed, however, is the five-year period that 
this high-achieving woman spent at home. Yes, Sandra Day O'Connor 
''opted out" and was a stay-at-home mom. From 1960 to 1965, after the 
birth of her second son, she decided to leave her legal practice to be 
home full time. Essentially, she was forced to quit because her trusted 
baby sitter left. There were no day care centers in those days, and she 
could not find a competent replacement. Four years later, O'Connor's 
third son was born, and in 1965 she returned to work.

O'Connor was concerned that her decision to stay home would render her 
unemployable. In order to keep her foot in the door, she realized she 
had to do something in the legal field, even if it was volunteer work. 
She graded bar exams for the State of Arizona, which kept her current in 
the law. She set up a lawyer referral plan for the local Bar 
Association, which enabled her to meet other lawyers. She took a 
position on the county planning and zoning board, became a juvenile 
court referee, and accepted some small bankruptcy appointments. Finally, 
she dabbled in politics, becoming the precinct committee person for the 
Republican Party.

By the end of 1964, she was putting in more hours as a volunteer than if 
she had been working full time. With two of her sons in school at least 
part of the day, and a new qualified baby sitter, O'Connor contemplated 
a relaunch of her career. She decided to apply for a job with the 
Arizona attorney general; when a Republican came into office, O'Connor 
was hired, and the rest is history.

The story of Justice O'Connor's stay-at-home years and subsequent career 
reentry stands in refreshing contrast to more recent accounts of women 
opting out of careers. Indeed, there's been an implicit assumption that 
high-powered women who choose to spend time with their little ones will 
return to the workforce in inferior roles, at best and, more likely, 
will disappear from the professional landscape forever. As Sandra Day 
O'Connor's story illustrates, women who opt out can relaunch their 
careers and, yes, their relaunch might even overshadow their initial 
professional accomplishments.

If O'Connor were the only successful ''relauncher," however, she'd be 
the exception that proves the rule. But the fact is that women are 
opting back in one way or another. Brenda Barnes, currently CEO of Sara 
Lee Corp., is the poster child for relaunching in the business world. 
After rising to the post of CEO of PepsiCo North America, Barnes 
famously quit in 1998 to spend more time with her children. After six 
years at home, she managed a dazzling reentry-- as chief operating 
officer of Sara Lee, with a promotion to CEO just nine months later. 
Again, an extraordinary comeback. But one we expect to see more 
frequently in future years. As the pool of well-educated stay-at-home 
moms swells, and as labor markets tighten due to retiring baby boomers 
and the paucity of workers in Generation X, employers will turn to 
relaunchers to fill the gap.

A number of corporations have already started to focus on this potential 
labor pool. Deloitte & Touche pioneered a five-year extended leave 
program to mentor and then reintegrate Deloitte alums returning from a 
child-rearing break. Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers 
bankrolled the Center for Work-Life Policy to study women's offramping 
and onramping and to develop recommendations for making the workplace 
more accessible to women. In response to the study's findings, Lehman 
Brothers established their Encore Program to recruit former finance 
whizzes now at home.

Like Sandra Day O'Connor, relaunchers and those who support them 
demonstrate that just because a woman takes a few years off doesn't mean 
her education has been wasted, in economic terms. As relaunchers reclaim 
their place in offices, courtrooms, and hospitals across the country, 
feminists and fund-raisers alike will stop fretting about the financial 
implications of professional women opting out. Ultimately, successful 
relaunchers will fork over $50,000 donations to their alma maters, just 
like their linear career peers.

Or be appointed to the Supreme Court.

Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin are the authors of the 
forthcoming ''From Playdough to Real Dough: Relaunching Your Career 
After Taking Time Out to Raise Children."  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/23/relaunching_mothers/
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