The Age of the Stay-at-Home Moms or Dads

By Daniel Parrillo

Eve Tahmincioglu, an MSNBC Contributor has stated in recent articles and morning talk shows about how stay-at-home moms may be committing career hara-kiri by deciding to dedicate a significant amount of their time to their children.  She has been so bold as to state that “Mr. Moms” of this country have a more difficult time trying to reenter the workforce than our traditional soccer moms.  I found this very surprising – especially coming from a female author.  She states that society sees stay-at-home dads as “unmanly” because they have decided to take the nurturer role instead of the traditional hunter and provider. 

Returning back to the public workforce is very difficult and scary for anyone – whether you’re a recently laid-off corporate middle management type with longevity in employment history and very little interviewing skills – or a veteran that has returned from recent conflicts abroad.  There are so many factors that have a significant effect on anyone’s employment search – things like your location and availability of opportunities for that type of work in your area – is a good example.  Finding software engineering opportunities are pretty difficult and competitive here in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area – but it could be much more difficult to find software engineering opportunities in seriously damaged areas of New Orleans (in software engineering – working remote is always an option.)

As our society changes and the roles of moms, dads, males and females start to evolve into “parent” and “co-worker,” finding a family and work balance is imperative.  Business campuses are starting to provide support services like laundry and dry cleaning services, easily accessible local gyms, shopping and even personal assistant services for the busy executive for small business owner.  Companies are learning that if they help their employees find a family/work/life balance – they end up with more content employees with a higher level of job satisfaction. 

The “stay-at-home” parent should entertain developing some type of work-from-home solution that could involve starting a business – to temporary contracting role to bring in a little extra cash.  My ideal recommendation would be to work on a career-relevant certification program and/or pursue an online degree curriculum in between naps and diaper changes.  The University of Phoenix has a wonderful program that allow adults to communicate and interact with each other (via teams and online classroom participation) that really helps the stay-at-home parent to go from Barney, Tele-Tubies, diaper genies and “baby-on-board” window stickers – into a wonderful world of statistics, business analysis, technology, hostile corporate takeovers and declines sales for an aging product li (it’s almost like playing “Doom” with your kids on the Playstation – but much more adult – and cooler !!)  Doing some business analysis and turning in a paper that seriously criticizes C-level business members – is even better than dealing with the playground bully.

I think it is wonderful that men want to stand around the playground – watching their children and talking sports with the other guys.  I think that is just great but my advice to anyone who decides to take on the role of the “stay-at-home” anything is to find a relevant online career program that will keep your skills sharp and make your more marketable once you’ve decided to start the process of returning back to the workforce.

Reference: Tahmincioglu. E., (Aug. 30, 2007) Return to work not easy for stay-at-home dads.  Viewed via http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19977348/