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Moms and dads who spend a few years staying at home full-time to care for their kids sometimes worry about re-entering the workforce.
First, there’s a gap in their resume. Second, by staying at home instead of going to an office or participating in conferences and other professional gatherings, they’ve also missed out on networking opportunities.
But most of all, they worry about what their potential employers might think about the fact that they’ve devoted the last few years to their families and household. After all, how do playdates, doing laundry, volunteering at school, cooking meals, driving kids to soccer, etc., prepare you for a career?
Many would argue that parenting and running a household can actually provide valuable training for the work that takes place every day in offices, clinics, newsrooms and other workplaces. Moms and dads who may not be earning a paycheck are using the same skills that are needed in the workforce – they’re the ones who help organize school fundraisers, manage multiple schedules, volunteer at schools and other community groups, balance the household budget and care for the well-being of people.
A recent blog post at The Wall Street Journal made some
parallels between parenting and the business world. Good parenting is like good
management, according to Patrick Lencioni, a management consultant and author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.”
Here’s a question for parents who have worked part-time or who have spent an extended period of time outside the workforce to take care of children: What did you learn by staying at home and how did these skills and lessons prepare you to re-enter the workforce?
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addyh on October 07 at 12:12 p.m.
Count me as one who took time off, then came back. I think anyone who looks askance at a resume “gap” is living in the stone age. Maybe that makes a difference if you’re on the fast track to partnership at a big law firm or accounting firm, but I think most employers understand that people (and really, we’re mostly talking about women here) have work-life balance issues. I think taking a family break lends perspective and flexibility, both invaluable in the modern workplace.
Cindy_H on October 07 at 1:14 p.m.
Planned to take six months off following the birth of my first child. Six months stretched into 15 years. (Though I did independent contract work from time to time.)
What did I learn?
Conflict mediation and resolution.
Prioritizing budgets and schedules.
Motivational leadership and organizational skills.
Nonverbal communication skills i.e. The Look.
Probably, the skill most profitable to my present occupation is that I learned how to ask the right questions. How to tell when I’m being conned. And how to be succinct.
ECJ on October 12 at 5:09 p.m.
I once hired a friend who was a stay at home mother/housewife with no paid employment experience because she needed a job and I thought she would do the work needed well after managing three girls to teen-hood and a drug-addled husband. The job was runnning part of a survey and she did it very well. But my boss called me in and asked if I was crazy. He hired a “professional” manager to run another part of the survey - that person spent his time having sex with one of his workers and produced no results that were useful.
It all goes back to knowing the person and the work to be done, because “credentials” can mean nothing, both then and now. Managing a complicated household can be just as diffucult and require the same skills as managing almost anything else. The talents needed for management are pretty independent of the source they are acquired from.
nowinchicago on October 13 at 9:43 a.m.
Very interesting perspective. I found this article…it compliments this piece very well: http://bit.ly/3un6j7
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