What's really holding working mothers back from prioritizing work?

This morning Eve Tahmincioglu of Careerdiva.net had a terrific post called:  CEO Mommy Confession: Work comes first. Why shouldn't work come first some, part or most of the time for a working parent?  I wholeheartedly agree with Eve's blog post.  Moms should be able to say "work is a priority" without any guilt or criticism. 

However, this got me thinking about some related issues about what might really be holding working moms back.

Are we focused on the wrong thing?  Do we need the Freakonomics guys to look at this issue?  Perhaps the problem isn't that women are making each other feel guilty about careers.  It seems to me that the problem is bigger than that. 

Right now parents are being forced to make work/family choices in an environment where school systems/kids' activities are geared to a culture of the two-parent household where one parent is at home, one parent works a 9-to-5 job within a short commuting distance from the home, and grandma lives right around the corner. 

I personally don't know anyone who has a family like that. Even if there is a parent at home full-time, the other parent is an "uber-employee" which means they are more often than not traveling/working til past dinner most nights. There are also the divorced couples, single parents by choice, and gay couples with no access to health care unless both work full time jobs. 

My view has always been that if you are going to have children in our current society, one parent has to have "flexible" employment.  This is where health care and education reform could both play a role.

• Universal health care could help by allowing parents to be able to choose more flexible work schedules. 
• With education, perhaps the issue is less of a curriculum issue and more of a "what type of education system would fit our culture." Right now we are forcing our kids (and us) into a school system created to fit an agrarian society and developed to meet the "traditional nuclear family" of which few even exist today. 

While the healthcare issues are somewhat obvious, the biggest complaints I hear from working parents on education on a daily basis are:

• "What do I do about school closings on non-work holidays/professional days/early dismissals/snow days?:
• "What do I do about sick days/Doc appts/school concerts during work hours?"
• "I don't have good after school options."
• "I wish we could just let our kids have more freedom after school, but it's not safe"
• "I can't get my kid to sports/other activities because I can't find/afford a babysitter who drives."
• "It's impossible to do all the homework esp. when we don't eat dinner until after 6 pm"
• "My kid has more homework each night than there are hours in a school day."

Now obviously, I have my child in a fairly decent school system so I'm not facing the curriculum, safety or unqualified teacher issues. But, to be fair, these are the issues preventing many of the women with the most potential to be CEO's from prioritizing work.

Is anyone looking at these issues?  Are there other ones?

Personally, I'm hoping these types of issues might tackled by a future Shriver Report.  Clearly these are too big to be resolved right away. But, I have a feeling they are what is keeping women from being able to prioritize work.  This is why we need to look at the bigger issues in a different light and, in the short term, we need to find more ways to enable more women to drop the guilt and put work first.  More thoughts on this tomorrow.

Comments

[Kate Hutchinson]

I am at a point in my life where I am considering whether I want to have kids at all, and this is an issue of high importance for me. I am a career woman, I don't want to be labeled as the Mommy CEO--I want to be a CEO who may also be a mom.

[Diane Danielson/CEO, Downtown Women's Club]

Hang in there Kate - I think we're going to get there. The recession is helping. The internet is helping. But, I really think the focus needs to be deconstructing things like the education and healthcare systems, something that I think will happen if we get more women in higher political office (for either party!)