A website that has jobs for mums

I just heard the best endorsement you can get for the site www.jobs4mothers.com. My friend K decided to go back to work in human resources consulting, but only wanted something part-time since her kids are still quite young. She posted her CV on the site, heard from a company looking for a part-timer, interviewed and got the job - all in three weeks.

Has anybody else out there had a good experience with a site that helped them go back to work after spending time at home with the kids?

Comments

[supermother]

But why on earth are these your issues rather than those of the children's father? Why do people get themselves into such sexist positions? Your other half is as responsible for dealing with the reflux, sorting out children care as anyone. We found 3 under 5s it was cheaper and better if there was sickness to have a daily nanny at our home. People work out what is best but for the few years of under 5s which will be the hardest of your life or were in my experience, harder than 3 teenagers, harder then my divorce period... it's ridiculous to give up a career just because that's hard. I can tell you it's 1000 times harder being in effect a domestic servant at home with no pay, no status and bored to tears. If you don't like your work change it but don't give it up. I think small children are sweet in small doses and whether you're at home or not it's difficult but very soon they'll be at nursery school then big school and you've another 40 years of fun career and children being proud of what you do. Not woman equals tiny bit of pin money and charity work because it's only men who can take any kind of positions of leadership or earn proper money. We certainly don't want to go back to those days.

It depends what you pay for 2 nursery places whether you could get a day nanny for the same rate but it's much easier.

[Gipsy]

here's an interesting article:

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?storyID=9145

[Mrs L]

There's got to be more to it than just all these women being a bunch of idiots, Supermother. I applaud your philosophy on this one, I just think a large number of women have a very hard time actually applying it to their lives. My youngest is nine months old and suffers from severe reflux. Going back to work was incredibly stressful this time around because he had major problems settling into nursery and they won't look after him when he's projectile vomiting several times a day. I have to say, I have asked myself several times whether it's worth it. I am utterly sleep deprived and feel I cannot give my all either to my family or to the people I work for. My older child (nearly 3) is unhappy because I am so bad-tempered with him. What's the point in such an unsatisfying existence? Hands up, perhaps I am just not up to the task of continuing my (pretty alpha) career with such small children to care for too. I can't speak for anyone else, but perhaps quite a few women feel the same as me. Does that really make us a bunch of idiots?

[supermother]

It is lose lose all rouhd if you don't have much of a job, you have little money, live off male earnings, have no status and basically clean and keep house for a living plus possibly work for pin money. What decent teenager or student child is going to want a mother like that? It's dull dull dull. My children have got huge amounts out of my full time work. I am a person not a domestic servant.

"Why are women so much happier about
compromising their working life for their children than men? Because a lot of them are a bunch of idiots. They will all regret it. Come back on here when you're 65 and tell me - housewives or part timers you are glad you gave up a proper career. Or they are conditioned in this country to feel as they do which is not the case in many other countries abroad where women work full time very happily. Or they are pressured either subtlely or obviously by their men. Or their careers may nevre have been up to much anyway because they're beta not alpha.

[Betamummy]

What about a website that finds jobs OUTSIDE of London? We don't all live in the big smoke you know.

[Minna]

We do it all for the kids don't we? I have two girls (as well as a boy) and they are destined for smart London day schools which will be paid for by my part-time salary. I am frequently racked with guilt about working - so far so predictable - but a friend (with older girls at smart London day schools) who gave up work to look after them told me her daughters HATE that she doesn't work and hasn't got a fab job. Why? Because they go to school with girls whose mothers all have top jobs which the girls see as a status symbol and don't want to admit to having a stay-at-home mum. These two girls actually berate their mother for not having a high-profile job. It's very interesting but actually not surprising. Alpha apples never fall far from the alpha tree.

[Mrs L]

Yes, I completely understand it too, because it's the choice I've made. I want to be with my tiny babies far far more than I want to smash through the glass ceiling, and I think a lot of women feel this way, while it seems that men don't. Supermother feels we are letting the side down by allowing men to leave us to do all the menial stuff, but that's because she thinks raising children is menial. I'm not so sure it is, and even if it is, I want to do it for the time being (with a bit of "proper" work mixed in). Also, someone has to raise the little blighters - they can't do it by themselves. Does Supermother think that women who work full time raising other people's children are also letting the side down, or not? We can't all be in the board room, after all.
I'll clock in after 7pm to find out.

[Kim]

Mrs L, I agree with you. I think it's a terrible waste of talent for women with degrees and Masters to end up doing the kind of work for which you don't even need A-levels. And particularly galling when you see their male peers making their way up to senior positions in the organisation.

And in an ideal world, childcare would be shared more equitably between men and women, and even high-flying jobs could sometimes be part-time, and there'd be much better childcare on offer for those who need it.

Until we're there, I do have some sympathy with the woman who says, "I'm going to do this crummy job because I want to spend more time with my children." It's a terrible waste of talent, but I can also understand why it's the personal choice some women choose to make.

[j]

actually guys supermother is posting before 8 am and after 7pm, at least on this thread.

ps this is my lunchbreak

[Lisa]

An observation. I work in an investment bank, and on the whole have found the following:
-on the banking side (brokers, traders etc.), it is still dominated by men. The very few women I come across are all single. I was in a meeting last week with a deal team, four men, all married, and one woman, unmarried. When the meeting finished at 11:30pm, men all went home, woman carried on working;
-on the support side (legal, compliance, accounting etc), there are more women but, the majority are single. Of those who have families, the majority work part-time and those who work full time, have stay-at-home husbands. My boss' husband is a music producer, and does this from home but earns practically nothing.

[Mrs L]

You're right Kim, I think many women do end up doing jobs they are overqualified for in order to get flexibility - I and many of my friends are cases in point - but Supermother's point is why should they? Their husbands wouldn't do this (mine definitely wouldn't and he and I earnt the same before we had children and had similar careers, although his was always more high-flying than mine). Why are women so much happier about compromising their working life for their children than men? We know the answer but the question is what do we do about it? Castigating women who want to be at home to raise their own children is not, in my opinion, the answer - perhaps rewarding them financially should be, because in the sort of society we live in, we attach so much value to material worth. Raising the next generation should be held in much higher esteem than it currently is.

[Kim]

To answer Jennifer's original question, I'm told that this is a very good organisation:

http://www.womenlikeus.org.uk/home.aspx

I agree with Supermother that of course some women will want to work full time, but the majority of mothers I know have opted for some form of flexible or part-time working - often they will do some job they are vastly over-qualified for just because of the flexibility.

Maybe it's just because those are the wome I mix with, though - the full-time working mothers are way too busy!

[Gipsy]

Jane, the Daily Mail is a pile of made up rubbish. I say this as someone who's had to, on more than one occaision, dig deep into a story they've printed because it impacted on a story I was writing. That's an amusing in places but rather sad story, and it makes a good article. But the woman concerned only cites a few examples, and I'm guessing that there were plenty more families that she worked for if she started at age 17 and now runs her own nanny agency. As a kiwi I know a lot of people who've done stints as nannies, and heard very similar stories too. But then those are the sort of people to hire a nanny. For instance, a well balanced, normal, mother who doesn't work because her husband earns stacks probably isn't going to be encountered by many nannies, not because she doesn't exist, but because she doesn't use nannies. I also know that there are plenty of working mother's out there who do use nannies, and aren't at all like those horror stories. I wonder too if it is simply a reflection of their upbringing - a modern take on the traditional, children not seen, heard or hugged and packed off to boarding school as soon as possible type of English upper class upbringing.

[Jane]

LM - sad, isn't it - the way women put themselves down, whatever it is we do.

by the way, would recommend everyone go and read an article in today's Daily Mail by a nanny to rich folk, who said what ghastly parents most of them were - and it didn't matter whether the mothers were career-women or ladies who lunch, neither lot cared a sod about their own children. Their own lives were far too important.

Even if the woman has exagerated, or only shown the bad 'uns, it's still pretty damning. But I suspect that qualities it takes to become rich and the top of your career are not those that nurture you to be a nice person.....

[Lazy Mummy]

I know - I was joking too.

Agreed about not wanting women to be ghettoised too, and the worst thing about it is, women really do it to themselves.

The people that bother me are all those women (some of them highly educated and skilled) who say things like "Oh, I'm just a Mum". No, you're not, and even if you were, would you really want everyone else to think of you that way? Firstly, it doesn't position you very well for any job, and secondly, you are denigrating motherhood in general --and while it's not necessarily a highly intellectual occupation, it is a challenging one, and deserves respect.

[supermother]

I was only joking about men.

But I genuinely don't like the fact that every article about women assumes they have responsibility for their children and not their husbands and secondly that they all want some nirvana of 2 days a week as a housewife and 3 days working. A lot of them want to be normal adults in normal or even alpha jobs and we don't want to be ghettoised as only wanting to work part time when children are young.

[Mrs L]

Yes, I can see your point Supermother. But really, I am truly dying to know what kind of alpha occupation allows you the time to opine all day on alphamummy. You really must be on to something.

[Lazy Mummy]

Noooo!!!!! Firstly, I actually like the men in my life - husband, brothers, father, friends - and I'm sure many of us do. Secondly (and more horrifyingly), upon thinking of a man-free planet, I immediately got flashbacks to my teenage years in an all-girls school. Such bitchiness, cattiness, over-abundance of oestrogen...Lord of the Flies doomesday scenarios just can't compete.

[supermother]

I'm not called super for nothing....And I never said I earned £500k. It's not on to talk about money really. Money, politics and religion - my mother always said one should avoid over dinner.

Can't you see the key thing... I'm man free. Perhaps we should rid the planet of men to improve the lot of women.

[Mrs L]

Can somebody please find out what Supermother does for a living. Somehow she does a job which pays £500,000 per year and raises a huge brood of children on her own while at the same time spending most of the day filling up message boards with her never-ending opinions on just about everything. Talk about flexible working.

[supermother]

Good idea although the idea all women want to work part time and take a lot of time off when they have babies is not something we always want said about all mothers as it's not the truth. Women equals flexible working applicant is a stereotype all proper alpha mummy web sites needs to stamp down on very hard under their expensive very high heels.