I’ve talked about why I do NOT want to become a Trophy wife so I don’t want to flog that dead horse again, but I am genuinely curious about the following:
What happens to her resume even if she did have a career before?
I can only speak for the IT industry and as I understand it is if you have about 5 years of experience (which is what I’d have), I could not go more than 2 years without at least working part-time.
I am sure there are industries out there that allow your skills to be still relevant up to 5 years after you’ve stopped working – I find that # kind of high, can someone confirm if this is even true?
I can vouch that from my experience in the IT industry, it is NOT true.
If you have worked in one specialization for 5 years, then went off the map for more than 2 years maximum, they will hem and haw pretty hard before taking you on.
And definitely not at your original salary or position.
IT changes so fast that you have to stay on top of everything and stay relevant, and going 2 years off the radar makes them nervous because they think you’ve forgotten everything within that time frame (which is not necessarily true).
But after 10 or 20 years which is what I hear is the AVERAGE time a woman stays a housewife if she decides she’ll do it just for the kids, I cannot imagine ANY industry that will allow you to get back into the workforce at the same salary and position as what you held before you left.
That is, without going back to school and starting from the bottom all over again.
I was reading a couple of articles a long while back, and I kept reading about these women who had left the workforce to raise their kids and give them a stable life before they were all shipped off to elementary school.. and then when they tried to get back into the workforce after 5-10 years (it varied), they all lamented that nobody wanted to hire them because they were out of work for so long, and they felt worthless.
So here’s my question to all of you:
Alternatively, what industries other than the IT industry (natch), will NOT want you after 2 years of not working?
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20wome…
read that article, its about women that attend Ivy League colleges with the intent of dropping their careers in favor of motherhood, nothing against motherhood but husbands die, get disabled, divorce happens especially after the kids leave the nest, I don't want kids but even if I did I would work even if part-time.
I've worked in retail previously and even customer service jobs don't like people who haven't worked for years, yes you could easily enter retail pretty easily but they prefer to hire people who have worked previously. I asked my bf why he doesn't take a year off programming, my bf says he's burned out but he says he doesn't want to because technology changes so fast and he is afraid he might not get hired after a year off programming.
I like my accounting major because accounting principles stay the same no matter what decade you're in. BUT accountants these days use computers, software, and the technology for both change. Accountants also need to analyze a company's finances, to know the current state of the economy, to know what laws apply in finance these days. If you're an accountant you don't want to forget what laws went into effect this year and how they could affect your company.
I think almost every field these days changes, so I imagine anyone who wants to enter the workforce after 10-20 years would probably need to go back to college. I think its dangerous to take too many years off from the workplace.
Thank you so much for the link!
10-20 years is way too long of a gap. Even 2 years seems too long to go without working at least part time. I can see taking 6 months off but not any longer.
Hey, sorry this one is late, was busy doing Mommy stuff the last couple of days 😉
Yeah, it is extremely hard to be gone even for the entire 1 year mat leave we get in Canada. I was back early all three times I had my kids. Things do change quickly, no matter what industry you are in (suppliers change, colleagues change, customers change, computer programs can change, new ideas etc). . . and that is at the places who know you! It is even more difficult to convince a potential employer to hire you. The assumption is that your brain has turned to mush since you have been with your kids.
However. I am still at home after the third kid. I went back early, then I quit. Aside from financial (technically I could afford daycare but ugh, that was a TON of money for THREE little kids), the emotional and especially the STRESS of it all. OMG. I still cannot imagine getting all three kids up, fed, dressed, and happily off to daycare in time for me to also arrive at work by 8am. Until you are there ( have kids) you can’t really see or appreciate this aspect.
Now, my degree took 5 years. I worked for 5 years. I’ve been a mom for 3 (exclusively, 8 years in total). My student loans are paid off and no one can ever take my degree from me and I’m really proud of it EVEN IF I AM NOW A MOM. I didn’t plan on ever leaving the workforce and I grieved over it when I made the decision. A funny thing happens though, once you leave. You explore other opportunities.
So, I will soon be a biologist driving the school bus, volunteering with educating seniors on osteoporosis, leading the local Girl Guide troop, and valuing all the other life experiences that come my way that are totally, totally! different than what I thought I would be happy with when I walked out of university at 25 . . .
Mickmack
No I did not mean it as a slam against your posting. I was just wondering, what was the meaning behind it,… similarly to the comment of Little Fish I think, that it is important to clarify the difference of kept women (trophy wife) and a woman giving up her job for her kid for a couple of fast years…to help him/her to make a good start in the life. I have not studied yet, how it is in US and Canada, but in many European countries the employer is obligated to guarantee the employees job in a company during 3 years! beginning with the day she is going to her maternity leave. Sometimes it is a problem, that this person after coming back in the company, she has bacome irrelevant, but still there are lots of possibilities to stay up to date with the job and doing it part time for a while or taking courses during the motherhood leave etc…
I would think teaching would be a career you could reenter. After all your interim ‘work’ experience is with children! My field of engineering evolves pretty slowly, I wouldn’t be technically obsolete after a few years. Most of my colleague do the 6 weeks off and then return to work. It’s a male dominated field, I don’t think anyone dares to take off for long. My friend conveniently got laid off just as she was having her child (she was in home lending). Now she is working as a consultant part time, mostly from home. Her MIL babysits the rest of the time. She was only out a few months, I think she has a great set up.
My mom is a retired librarian. Part of her time with us kids was spent getting her masters of Library Science. So she actually got hired at a higher salary than when she left to have kids, quite a bit later. It is something to consider – try getting an MBA with small children instead of before kids.
I’ve always wondered about this. My mom stayed home to raise my brother and me until we were both old enough for school. She then began to work part time and eventually full time. I saw her struggle to get back into the workforce.
It was great to have my mom at home, but I’ve since wondered if my parents will suffer for that later. I’d like to stay home for my kids if I can afford it, but not if I’m going to have issues later.
You also may be interested to know that Newsweek has discovered the whole DABA girl thing was a “hoax” personally I think they were just bored girls. I knew they were all friends, but their stories weren’t completely untrue either. Either way kind of sickening how many other women jumped on that bandwagon. Wondering if they’re feeling like the fools now?
Interesting post! I might be too late with my reply but better late than never!
Mum worked in HR before having us kids and being a SAHM for maybe 9 years, went back into HR. Granted, she probably went back in at a lower level but she worked her way up pretty quickly and was well respected by her colleagues and bosses. So maybe that’s a possible industry. Given as well though, the whole time she was a SAHM, she continually updated her skills and knowledge by studying long distance.
I’m in accounting. I don’t know if I see my future in accounting but am currently studying for my qualification. So I’m probably one of them “idiot women studying for her MBA but not planning to utilise it later”. To me, it’s more of a security padding where just in case my other plans doesn’t work out, I always have my accounting degree to fall back on and with that qualification, it will make it much easier to find a job. I think accounting would be another industry where one can relatively come back in and work their way up quite quickly.
My mother has a Ph.D. in educational psychology. She stopped working when I was born, and started working again when I was around twelve, at a salary on par regardless of whether or not she had taken time off.
I, on the other hand, am perusing a Ph.D. in biochemistry/biophysics. I couldn’t even take a full year off, let alone two, and still find employment, even if I were to take a huge paycut — after just a few years, nobody would be willing to even take me as an unpaid intern, because I would just be so far behind in the techniques and the literature that it would just not be worth their while.
Brooke: I am not sure if that was a slam against me and my writing, but that wasn’t what I was asking.
IT and other industries like IT are not the only areas with educated women, as the comments are indicating (careers I had never even considered like teaching).
And it’s not to say that women who are educated should NOT have children (hell, I plan on having 2-4), it’s that they have to be careful not to pigeonhole themselves without having a good exit strategy to gracefully re-enter the workforce without any hitches.
Or, to not become a SAHM and then have your husband leave you for some tart and then be screwed for any job.
hmm, good question. i dont really know the answer but i think for anyone who has chosen to step back from their careers, keeping engaged with a little part-time work, volunteerism, seasonal/contract work or professional development courses would help. it’s quite apparent that there are a ton of SAHMs out there who blog, which is a great idea – you learn new skills, keep abreast of how to use social media, learn how to do some light web design and promotional stuff – that alone could be an asset to a resume.
I think the social services would be fine with 2 years off from work. It’s mainly people skills and you don’t lose those.
Careers that you *could* come back to – teaching. Particularly if you teach at an elementary or high school level, where the material doesn’t change that much.
I think it is important to clarify that there is a big huge difference between a stay at home Mom and a trophy wife.
Perhaps more traditional woman careers like teaching or secretarial? Sure, teachers would have to update there certification, and secretaries might need a refresher, but I think you could get back in. I think for anything, you might need refreshers or s slight update.
BF’s mom was a SAHM, and she was able to get an office job at a college after years out of the workforce.
Those traditional jobs don't pay the rent. You really need a professional degree to get a position that will actually be fulfilling and sustainable. You're BF's mom must have had somebody providing for her, such as a husband. I am a single mom of 3 (divorced when youngest was7) and I was getting child support, alimony and worked as an administrative secretary for one year post divorce. It was a waste of time and energy. I eventually had to go on public assistance because x hid income and assets and sporadically paid tiny bits of child support. I attained my undergrad degree in IT, an MBA and two graduate certifications post divorce and will be looking for work soon. I'm 53 and have many health problems. It ire's me when women encourage women to accept traditional female jobs that condemn women and children to a life of poverty.
That is definitely a good question, and one that I’ve been wondering about, too.
Advertising is like IT, you can’t be out of it too long or you’ll end up out of touch. I don’t think I’d want to stay in this rat race after kids though, it’s too much work.
I think if I took time off I would ease back into the workplace via an office job or something. In an ideal world I would take that time off to come up with a business plan and develop my own business. Then no one can deny me! hahaha!
Sorry, but for me it sounds like: “educated women with career interests should not have kids!” or what is the point of that posting? Somebody ever heard about the problem, that only the low level working class is having children nowadays and the higher educated class, who are able to raise their kids, rather prefers not to have them… and it really is getting a huge problem (least in Europe)…
There are a ton of industries that wouldn’t blink an eye except maybe a few courses. And, yes, they’re the underpaid, female dominated ones. Nurses, teachers, retail, etc…
My field, social work, would probably take you back at a lower wage and make you work your way up again – but in my state (I’m in the US) you’d have to go back and regain your licensure (unless you kept up on it the whole time). Depending on how much time has passed and how many laws have changed, it wouldn’t be easy…but it’s different in every state.
It would be even harder if your emphasis was counseling. No one wants therapy from someone who’s been out for too long!
What really makes me wonder are the idiot women who insist on getting an MBA when they know they’re going to dump out of the workforce in a few years. Is the MBA just for grins, husbands, or some $80k sense of self-satisfaction? Why would anybody get a degree that’s really there just for making industry connections when she knows she’s not going to use them? Why not wait on the MBA and use it as a refresher if and when she’s ready to go back in?
I mention this because universities are starting to catch on that they’re not going to be able to count on female graduates from professional programs to you know, be professionals. Harvard has reduced the number of years of industry experience they expect from female MBA applicants because they know that women (especially the Harvard MBA nutcases) have their life pre-planned to a tight timetable and for a lot of them, the MBA program traditionally would fall in the “Have 1 boy and 1 girl 2 years apart” time.
But coming back to your point (and because I find most people with MBAs abhorrent and can’t talk about them anymore), I would think that the best most of these women could reasonably hope for is to come in several levels below what they left in any industry. I know that beyond IT even a lot of ‘soft’ industries like journalism, non-profits, and academia are so competitive that if you’re out for years, there are hundreds of fresher workers who have fewer responsibilities outside of work and who are willing to sleep under their desks.
I can say as a small business owner in technology and engineering, the hypothetical applicant better be ridiculously qualified and willing to work for the wages of a Vietnamese orphan. This matters a lot right now, because a lot of the companies that are hiring us are paying us mainly in equity so we just don’t have the cash to lay out on employees, much less ones who are going to require a lot of re-training and who probably have much higher expectations of salary and benefits.
When you decide to stay home and raise a family, you have to accept the fact that the skills and knowledge you worked hard to acquire and use will probably become obsolete.
I left the workforce with a six figure income. If I were to return, it would probably be as someone’s assistant for less than 1/2 of my pre-parenthood income.
It sux, but it is a choice I made.
I work in advertising, and I’d be almost totally irrelevant after 5 years these days. If it were 1985, that might not be the case, but today there are changes CONSTANTLY in social media, online marketing, etc. The industry is changing like crazy and it’s hard enough to keep up. I can’t imagine leaving work and coming back in 2014 and being able to pick up at any kind of useful level for clients.
That being said, it depends what you’re doing during the time off–like if you’re reading lots of industry materials, keeping abreast of trends online, maintaining agency contacts, and monitoring things pretty closely, that would help. But that’s almost a fulltime job in itself.
I’m not sure what kinds of industry would allow you to come back after 10-15 years or more. Hospitality, maybe? Customer service? Law? You’d still definitely need time to re-immerse yourself and bring yourself up to speed.
I’d think that it’d be the low wage, low skilled jobs that won’t worry too much about long absences from the workforce – retail and hospitality for example. Even for something relatively simple like secreterial work, I’d imagine you’d have to take a refresher course to update yourself on the new computer technologies and the like.