Opting for the Job of Mothering

A decade ago, Joanne Brundage left her postal route to care for her daughter and newborn son. She placed a tiny public notice in the “Suburban Set” section of the local paper: “A support group is being organized for women who have left paid employment to stay home with their children and are having difficulty making the transition.”

The first name she considered was Women at Home--acronym WAH! With her husband’s help, she came up with Formerly Employed Mothers at Loose Ends.

These days, the women of FEMALE, nearly 6,000 strong, have kept the initials but imbued them with a different meaning: Formerly Employed Mothers at the Leading Edge.

The name change tells a story. The members, in chapters from Los Angeles to Long Island, N.Y., form the front line of a quiet revolution, burnishing the image of the high-powered housewife as they struggle to define her role.

They have dropped out of the full-time work force, but they are not June Cleavers--dedicated solely to kids, husband, dusting, cooking and the occasional card game with neighbors. Neither are they the apologists of the super-corporate ‘80s, who answered queries about what they do with the sheepish, “Oh, I’m just a mom.”

Bosses now profess envy as often as not when employees reveal plans to quit. Indeed, some top executives have taken the identical step; witness the recent decision of Brenda Barnes, president and CEO of Pepsi-Cola North America, to resign for her family’s sake.

Those departing for home combine a revived pride--in being available for their children and in the fact that they can afford to do so--with the drive that they developed in the working world. Large numbers of them intend to return to a full-time job someday.

These competing forces can lead to cultural change, with profound and complicated consequences for community spirit, the national economy and feminist thought--and, not least, for American families.

Experts talk of a pool of hyper-talented volunteers, of comparison shoppers who will keep prices down, of work interruptions fueling a pension crisis, of a fear that women may move backward after hard-won social gains.

Among the FEMALE ranks, there is broad agreement that child care is central, but the job experience of ‘90s housewives must be meaningfully harnessed as well. “You can’t afford to let this kind of talent lie fallow,” said Fiona Gierzynski, who has a background in sales and teaching.

They point to FEMALE itself as an example. After all, Brundage and her soul mates have moved the organization from four women in an Elmhurst living room to 142 chapters in more than 30 states.

The FEMALE publicity director is a former TV reporter. The president, a certified public accountant, prepares the group’s taxes.

Somewhere on the board must lurk a lawyer, for at the bottom of the newsletter masthead, a disclaimer notes: “FEMALE is not intended as a substitute for medical and/or psychological care for those in need of such care for themselves or their children.”

For many, the organization is, simply put, another (albeit unsalaried) job. Brundage left the FEMALE board after her third child was born. “I’ve been to dinners with couples I met through FEMALE, and the women talked shop while the husbands talked about kids,” Brundage said.

The group’s national president, Fran Schwartz-Arroyo, is trying to throttle back her FEMALE work to only 10 hours a week.

Demographics Now Reversing

The size of the potential pool of FEMALE recruits is a matter of debate.

While the story of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s was married women stampeding into the labor market, New York economist Richard F. Hokenson reported in September that “the demographic sea of change is now in the process of reversing.” There are still twice as many two-income marriages as one-earner families, but the gap is narrowing and “it’s a long-term trend,” he said in an interview.

Hokenson, chief economist at the brokerage firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, believes the growth already has been substantial enough to explain some otherwise-puzzling business developments. After the last fall in mortgage rates, in his view, families used the savings to allow one earner--usually the wife--to work part-time or leave a job altogether. “This is why the mortgage refinancing boom has not been followed by a major burst in consumer outlays, which was the conventional expectation at the time,” he wrote.

And, in his interpretation, the cereal price war was necessary because more households now have more time than money--giving them the ability and incentive to try discounted private labels rather than the brands they relied upon in the past. It was worth the risk because if the family didn’t like the taste, the nonworking wife would not be inconvenienced by a drive back to the store.

Many other labor economists scoff at such sweeping statements, pointing to record levels of women in the work force. But even some of those critics say that mothers leaving jobs are part of--in the words of family historian Stephanie Coontz--”a trendlet, a mini-trend among the affluent, just in the last few years. It’s a status symbol now, a class thing.”

The Census Bureau is so confused about the extent of the movement that it commissioned a poll on the subject of mothers’ long-term career histories; analysis is set to begin in the spring.

To Arlene Rossen Cardozo, a writer on mothering and family issues, the new visibility of the back-at-home mom is a backlash against the perceived problems of children who grew up in the ‘80s with little supervision.

But Brundage says women are leaving the work force largely because of the way corporate America operates: Companies give more lip service than real commitment to flex time, telecommuting and on-site day care.

The ‘90s home-based mother often earns money (37% of FEMALE members do), technically placing her in the labor force. But she likely toils part time and makes a fraction of her former salary.

These moms are the hidden bulwark of the at-home trend, according to Cardozo.

Cardozo said she used numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consulting with University of Minnesota economics and business professors, to calculate that in 1996 “only one-third of mothers in the country [were] employed full time outside the home.”

Another third, Cardozo figured, make child-rearing their priority but find a way to shoehorn in some type of job. Patricia C. Gallagher, a Pennsylvania author and mother of four, noted in an article for the FEMALE newsletter that her computer sits near the washer and dryer. Her breaks coincide with cycle’s end. “I then fold the laundry,” she wrote.

Many of the rest plunge fervently into unpaid good works, an arena where it is excusable, even chic, to interrupt a phone conversation for asides like: “Christopher, you may bring your juice to bed, but you must take a nap.”

Such interruptions do not preclude professional-level success. True stories: A onetime Chicago Loop lawyer found a niche as a head lice activist at her daughter’s elementary school, designing a “check your child’s scalp” campaign, complete with a coupon parents had to sign.

Another attorney who detached herself from corporate life had time to set up the 401(k) pension plan at her children’s Winnetka preschool. “I love it,” said Judy Ward, who was the school’s director at the time. “When I started 14 years ago, the volunteers did things like paint the playroom.”

For some, it’s difficult to shed old business habits (Ellen M. Duffy, once employed as an engineer, is asked how she can be contacted to talk about being an at-home mom. She dips into her pocket, then hands over a printed card inscribed with her name, address and telephone number).

Networking Pays Off

The value of networking is clear. Brundage started FEMALE the year that women’s participation rate in the labor force reached its peak. The few other full-time mothers that she did meet at the park or the library had made their choices early on; they’d never worked outside the home and were hostile to any mom who would.

Brundage had no interest in taking sides. She’d continued working after her daughter’s birth, and left only when she couldn’t find acceptable child care for her son, who had trouble sleeping. The ad, she hoped, would bring her some boon companions.

Now 240 mothers pay $24 apiece in annual dues to that original chapter.

Thirty showed up at a meeting last month in a conference room at the College of DuPage; no one has a living room large enough for today’s turnouts. Gierzynski stood to one side, rocking another member’s baby. Across the room, an infant nursed quietly. But no other children were on hand; this was meant to be Grownup Time.

Copies of FEMALE’s 190-page paperback, “Tales From the Homefront,” were stacked up for sale (No surprise: Some of the members were in publishing in their previous lives).

The blue-jeaned women headed for their chairs, which were arranged in a circle, and took up the topic for the night: “Reviving Ophelia,” a book about cultural influences on teenage girls. Invoked in the ensuing conversation were Simone de Beauvoir, the new Barbie and Alanis Morrisette.

Other intelligence was exchanged as well. Did you know that Jewel-Osco takes diaper coupons up to three years old? Don’t throw those old ones away!

A clipboard passed from hand to hand, with sign-ups for the baby-sitting co-op, the book discussion group, the committee that takes meals to homes with newborns.

All over the country, scenes like this are repeated every other week. During the fall, FEMALE celebrated its 10th anniversary with six regional conferences, from Atlanta to Walnut Creek in Northern California. The group also built a Web site.

Since 1992, the group’s headquarters has been a second-floor walk-up in downtown Elmhurst, jammed with computers, a national mailing list, stick-figure drawings taped to the wall and quilting squares stacked on a table. Two part-time office managers work there--they can leave when their children’s school lets out--and next on the agenda is the hiring of an executive director.

FEMALE’s surveys show that 96% of members, (the average age is 34), intend to return to work when their children are older.

For a while, the DuPage County chapter maintained a database of members’ talents and allowed access, for a fee, to employers in need of temporary help. “They just didn’t get it,” said Gierzynski. “One called me and asked me to take on a project. He wanted me to come in to his office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for two weeks.

“I just told him, ‘I have two children and I’m pregnant with a third. I can do this at home after midnight, but I’m not coming in.’ ”

Further frustration is likely when a woman tries to return to full-time work after years off, warned James E. Challenger, president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an outplacement firm.

“It will not be easy to do,” he said. “They’ll be viewed the way job-hoppers are.”

Still, there are other compensations. Karen Shaffer, with daughter Paige, 4, and son Trevor, nearly eight months, fumes at a world defined by the walls of her rented townhome in Aurora, another Chicago suburb.

But one day Paige took pen in hand and, without prompting, wrote the first word she could spell besides her own name. M-O-M.

“I felt good,” Shaffer said.

Her husband, Brian, doubts he could ever take on her role. “I was real happy when she decided to stay home,” he said. “I’d never have the patience. I took care of the kids for five hours last night. Do you know it can take a kid 25 minutes to go to the bathroom?”

His neighbor, Kevin Springer, smiled at that. His wife, Tara, once a clinical social worker, is home now with 16-month-old Jake. She left her job at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center when the family moved from Long Beach to the Midwest over the summer.

For Husband, It’s a Happy Time

Kevin, a partner in a printing and bindery firm, is a happy man. “Before I was even married, I wanted to make enough money that my wife could stay at home.”

He ticked off the reasons: He has confidence that Jake is well cared for. If he wants to talk to his wife, he knows where he can find her. If he wants to take a vacation, he doesn’t have to worry about coordinating his time off with hers.

She talks of getting her Illinois social work license and has studied for the test during Jake’s naps.

But when asked for his prediction, her husband said: “To be honest, I think when she gets more used to it, I don’t think she’ll ever go back to work.”

Tara looked up from her son, her eyes wide, her brow furrowed. “You don’t think I ever will?”

Then she considered the facts. “It’s Christmas now. People are coming for Easter. Jake’s party is in July and I’m giving a party for my dad in March. There’s the new house. If we try to have another baby in the summer, then I get pregnant.”

She paused. “Maybe you’re right,” she conceded.