According to a recent CNN article, stay-at-home-moms are using the internet not only to connect with other parents while the kids are napping, but to run home-based business or work for companies that offer flex time, a concept the media dubs "having it all."
From running eBay businesses to doing customer support from home, women are changing the way they work in order to stay at home with their kids. They're ambitious women who have seen needs and filled them, taking charge of their own professional and parental destinies.
Babble's Editor-in-Chief Ada Calhoun talks about how her concept of time has changed now that she has a baby. She works from home two days a week and makes the most of it. She says she "has no time to waste," and she's spot-on. Any parent that works from home has two bosses: family life and work. Every second is devoted to one or the other.
As a counterpoint, also on Babble, Pamela Stone discusses the concept of "opting out" (the title of her new book). Highly-educated and trained women are giving up their jobs to stay home, often because they feel like they don't have any other alternative. I've heard many women of my generation talking about "being glad they have a choice to stay home," but that word, "choice," has always bothered me. Says Stone, " Women almost universally
talked about their decision as a choice, and they talked about how fortunate
they were to have a choice. And in some sense they're right, because they
can afford to forgo their incomes. But when you step back, what they are really
saying is, 'I'm fortunate to give up years of training. I'm
fortunate to give up years of investment and success.'"
Stone is also a proponent of "flex-time," and wonders why companies allow talented women to "walk out the door" completely.
Where do you fit in? Are you sitting at home pondering the next great internet business? Or are you worried that taking time off for kids will leave you out of the game?
