Reply to Feel like the choice is binary re: whether to work or not after baby is born

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here: if we know that a parent (not just women) staying home with their kid can be beneficial to some - preventing PPD, not financially penalizing those who’d earn less than the cost of childcare, or just plain personal beliefs - why don’t companies do more to be truly family friendly?  Why do we make it so difficult for those who choose to stay home?  This isn’t about me: I recognize that I have a strong resume/credentials, and am entrepreneurial anyway so wouldn’t be afraid to start my own company, but I think it’s a pretty pathetic commentary on our society that we basically treat parenthood as a disease.  [/quote]

I would love to hear your solution.  Tell us what big, small, private, NPO, govt can do to make it less "dfficult fo those who choose to stay home" (your words).
Make sure your solution doesn't cut into profit, productivity, or easily abused.

Fwiw, Google, Netflix, and other biggies offer unlimited maternity leave  yet ironically most employees return w/n months; not years. So not sure folks want to stay home for long periods of time.[/quote]

Generally: not penalizing people for having resume gaps.  In many cases you’re penalizing people for having obligations :gasp: that are life, rather than work, related.  [/quote]

This. Once up on a time a resume gap was presumed to be caused by something nefarious that made a person an undesirable employee. That is an antiquated and probably discriminatory point of view. What is the justification for dismissing a mother returning to the work force in a job she's already trained to do with a track record of doing it very well?[/quote]

That there is another equally well qualified candidate who hasn’t been out of the field for two years.[/quote]

As someone who has done a lot of hiring, there are many situations in which I'd rather take the person who just took two years off, whether it was to stay home with a baby, to care for an ailing parent, to do some bucket list travel, or to work on their novel. My experience is that what you lose in taking that amount of time off (a certain amount of industry familiarity and comfort in a 9-6, 5 day a week grind) generally comes back quickly as muscle memory. But what you gain (perspective, a better understanding of WHY you work, some valuable self-knowledge that can help with your mental health and make you easier to work with, etc.) is impossible to find in someone coming directly from another position somewhere else.

I'm sure people on here will scoff at this, but taking time off to attend to personal or familial matters, especially if you do something challenging but very different than work (like caring for a baby or toddler day in and day out) can make you better at your job -- more efficient, better attitude, etc.

I love hiring people off an extended maternity leave and view it as a bonus to the employer, a way of catching someone who is eager to work when they would otherwise not be on the market.[/quote]

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