This is a joint post by Clinical Career Counselors and Licensed Mental health Counselors, Ilana Levitt and Donna Sweidan

As Mother’s Day came and went this year, I thought about all the women I know, clients and friends alike, whose careers have been impacted by having children. I’ve seen mothers struggling with career issues in many different ways – from stepping out of the work force, reducing to a part-time schedule, and transitioning industries – to accommodate their family life.
Working mothers face a bevy of practical issues surrounding their careers and families. Should I re-launch my career? Should I go back to school to learn new skills? Should I trust strangers to take care of my children while I’m at work? The resolutions to these questions are seldom 100% satisfactory or easy; most women go through a great deal of emotional conflict even if they know what they want to do. We are bombarded with two, recurring and frustratingly contradictory messages: “Go back to work, the economy is bad, households need to be dual income, husbands now do more to help, women can do it all!”, and, “The first few years are critical to bonding, stay at home, make sacrifices, our mothers did and so should you!” Society doesn’t help, since preschools close at 3:00 PM, school plays start at 10:30 AM, and teachers get out early for holidays — is anyone thinking about the working mother?
Take Nancy, for example: she is a single mother with two children, ages 5 and 8. She works 30 hours every week (which she went through great pains with her employer to negotiate this schedule), and finds time to juggle sports, class trips and doctors’ appointments; but it doesn’t seem to be enough. Her kids and other mothers want her on the PTA as well. When it comes to balancing a career and family, whatever decisions she or other working mothers make, there is a tendency in our society to blame the mom for her children’s woes. If she chooses to work instead of staying at home; if she decides to breastfeed her baby instead of using formula; if she buys the cheaper diapers over the premium ones, should negative consequences occur, the blame will fall mainly on her shoulders.
The field of psychology has evolved, however, and helps us understand that disappointment in our parents is a normal and healthy developmental process. Theorists and psychologists have rightfully explained the idea of the “good-enough mother”; she is the imperfectly attentive mother who does a better job than the “perfect” one who risks stifling her child’s development. I have seen both male and female clients who are crippled by decision-making because they had parents who made every decision for them. What did they all have in common? They had stay-at-home mothers.
Advice for working mothers abounds, of which the most usual kind run in the vein of – be confident; don’t be intimidated if you are returning to the workforce after a long absence; evaluate your career options; try to take on consulting assignments; network and market yourself; channel family support; be aggressive. But is this the right kind of advice? I don’t think so.
It’s not that it’s bad advice, all of those tips are very good, but it just isn’t geared towards the segment of women who need guidance the most. The women to which this advice would apply are probably already following it – they have a clear idea of what they want to do and how to get there. The mothers who need advice are the women who have stopped working after their children are born, and, whose entire identify is centered on being “Jake’s mom” or “Brian’s wife”; while they love the family members they take care of, they want to be more than an extension of someone else’s character. The problem is (and this is where they need help and support), they have absolutely no idea where and how to begin. These women are emotionally stuck.
I can relate it to the Yoga Obstacle #8 Alabdha-bhumikatva (that was mentioned in the last blog): Being victims of our own discouragement. We become victims when we perceive failure. Women who choose to stay home haven’t failed professionally, yet the workforce seems foreign and impossibly out of reach. For these women, identity is the cornerstone of the battle. At 35, 40, 45 years of age, they are contending with career identify issues that 20-somethings struggle with. This is true for women who first had careers before they children and who don’t perceive ‘going back’ as an option. To work towards defining themselves, these mothers have to begin a ‘letting go’ process – first by attempting to see who they are outside the home, by allowing their children to think and make decisions on their own, and, by realizing that if they aren’t available for every doctor’s appointment, or soccer game or school play, there will ultimately be a growth lesson in that. These women have to start by re-defining themselves, thinking about their full identify and slowly getting reinforcement and recognition from external places outside the home. Be aware that this can be an arduous long process and should not be misunderstood as failure. These mothers will also be fabulous role models for their daughters, who need to see that the working world is possible at any stage of a woman’s life cycle.