A working mama's guide to flexibility

Flex hours, working from home, ample vacation days.  Time to take kids to appointments or leave early to attend Christmas concerts, Mother's Day teas or special outings.  These are all examples of flexibility in the work place.  I think any mama who works for someone else would agree that options like this are key to balancing family and work life.  But it occurred to me the other day that I needed to think bigger picture when it came to career flexibility.

I started working full time after university when I was 22.  I had my first child when I was 30.  Before kids even came into my life, I had tracked 8 solid years in the workforce.  This is very different from our mothers and grandmothers who might have worked a year or two, or perhaps none at all before they had their first child.  According to Statistics Canada, the average age of a first time mom in 1970 was 24.  In 2006 it's listed as 27.5 years and I would say that the age has continued to creep up in the last 6 years and now sits around 29.

By having children later, we have the opportunity to create a solid career foundation before we begin having kids.  When I had my first child I was on my fourth job and had progressed steadily up the corporate ladder. I know that some of my friends have expressed the thought that having amassed some career successes before kids makes it harder to leave the work force and become a stay at home mom for various reasons - used to earning a good income or don't want to loose the progress they have made.  I absolutely see that point of view, especially since there can still be a stigma attached to being a 'homemaker'.

But I think the time I spent in the workforce before kids makes it easier to step out of the work force while my kids are young and will make it easier to step back in when I am ready.

Image courtesy of The Sun Sentinel

Okay, so back to my point about career flexibility.  Because a lot of us had our kids starting in our early thirties (or later), you could frame your career into BK (before kids) and AK (after kids).  A wise friend pointed out to me that even if I stopped working tomorrow and stayed home for 15 years, I could still have an AK career of 12 years and that's if I wanted to work until I was 60.  I could use flexibility and work a few years less or a few years more depending on what worked for me.  Add the BK career time and I could still work full time for a total of 25 years!  That's a long time!

I guess what I'm saying is to use your creativity to think about your overall career with flexibility.  Flex yourself in with some part time work when your kids are young or flex yourself out completely.  Continue to work full time now and flex yourself out when your kids are in middle school.  The possibilities are endless!

So yes, in the short term hopefully vacation days, working from home and opportunities to leave a little early from time to time can help the working mama balance her life, but broaden the scope and think of the entire trajectory of your working life and use flexibility to craft the career life cycle in whichever way it works for you.

I know its not as easy as I am making it sound.  My point being that if you are struggling to determine what is best for you and your family in terms of working outside the home, working at home, working part time or working at all when you have young children (every mama's conundrum on some level I think), looking at the situation with a wider focus may help in the decision making process.

I'll leave you with an interesting statistic - "Women will create over half of the 9.72 million new small business jobs expected to be created by 2018 and more and more are doing this from home offices" (www.forbes.com).

If you are seeking more flexibility in your work life, would you consider becoming an entrepreneur?  If you could create your ideal work environment or job, what would that be?

"Follow your instincts. That's where true wisdom manifests itself." - Oprah Winfrey