Women’s Network Offers a Variety of Services for Working Mothers

For years Victoria Wilson balanced a successful career with raising a family, but it wasn’t easy for her or thousands of other women who undertake the roles of career woman, mother and wife.

The answer was simple: a “Working Mothers Network” that offers services, products, publications and programs.

“We thought it was unfair for women to drop out of the work force and lose their rank or tenure when men don’t necessarily have to do that because they have a wife at home,” said Wilson, president of the 40,000-member national organization.

Wilson, a former investment banker and the mother of two children, and several professional women were at a 2 a.m. “brainstorming” about career management and raising a family.

She said they were talking about the difficulties of caring for a young child and also meeting the demands of their profession. “We talked about a lot of the services that would be helpful for women that wanted to work and also have children,” she said.

The group developed a list of ideas, and with the assistance of students from Wharton’s School of Business, compiled services and developed a marketing strategy for the company.

Working Mothers Network was incorporated in 1983, and the organization was formally launched in January, 1986.

The organization offers a variety of services, including a referral service for housekeepers, child-care workers, discount buying and a quarterly magazine, Working Mothers Exchange.

Working Mothers Network particularly caters to women who have recently moved to the Philadelphia area and are trying to establish both a career and a home.

“It can take weeks for a working mother to find a child-care facility or a person to take care of their child,” Wilson said. “Every day they’re constantly working on that one issue--who am I going to get to take care of my child? “

Wilson said she was luckier than most professional women in that she had a strong support mechanism of family and friends who lived nearby. She returned to the work force when her son was 3 months old and continued to work once she started college.

“I learned how to use the crockpot, and I learned how to cook casseroles,” she said. “I’d make an entire week’s worth of dinners. Those are the kinds of things we tell members.”

The network offers parenting workshops, stress management for working mothers, training in CPR for infants and mailings.

The network initially targeted professional women, but membership now includes blue-collar mothers, single mothers and about 60 men.

Wilson also holds seminars for “baby maybes,” couples considering parenthood.

“I try to let them know what’s out there,” she said. “It can be done. You learn time-management skills--very quickly.”

A Wharton graduate, Wilson was determined that the organization would be undertaken as a business, not a nonprofit organization.

“The entity is a for-profit corporation on purpose,” she said. “I believe firmly that we can address the needs of working mothers and make a profit.”

Corporations should be more flexible and responsible toward working mothers, she believes.

“It’s important for corporations to be supportive--flexitime and sharing of times,” she said. That means “giving the woman the opportunity to come back to a job and not start over.”

Wilson admits she had “absolutely no idea” what she was getting herself into. Instead of working 100 hours a week on a merger, she now spends 100 hours a week as president of the network.

The network has a nationwide membership. Most of the services it offers are pilot programs primarily in the Delaware Valley, but Wilson said she hopes to expand. She has an ambitious goal of 100,000 members by the end of 1988.