Make no bones about it, when US women return to their careers after a mere 12 week maternity leave pass, they’re doing the rounds back in the office - first flaunting their post-baby bodies, staking their claim back in the financial services arena and then going for the kill. The new 'F' word dripping from their mouth, though, is 'flextime'. And the best part ? They’ll get it.
Not so the case, it seems, for our career minded work mums across the pond in Britain. Word on the street is that once working women over there leave for their (oh so enviable) one year maternity leave stretch, they are iced out from returning back to their careers.
'Oh, so you want to work from home dahhhling ?' Say what?!!!
We’ll leave the chauvinism factor to the side; we’re diving deep if we try to shake the Brit’s 'woman’s place is at home' shtick.
Their maternity leave rocks compared to what work moms get back in the States. But look closer my dear Watson, even this is bitter sweet.
Being out for a year can leave Brit women at a disadvantage, as they may have lost their foothold in the working world and may have missed some pretty hotsy career opportunities. There’s also a lingering perception that one has become stale after being on baby brain for such a stretch – (we’re talking men who feel threatened here). We’re told Brit work mums aren’t exactly hailed back inside the corporate hood after so long out. Waving that aside, Brit women who are fired up to jump back into their careers twelve months later are then faced with the incredibly high cost of daycare.
'Ummm sorry hon, but I can’t show you the money'.
Fast forward four years, the munchkins are now in school. Brit mums are itching to slip back into their professions and dusting off their sassy Jimmy Choos. The only problem now is, that they’ve gone under for a while and aren’t exactly being wooed back for the slots they left warm.
Another mum bites the dust ?
About the writer
Marisa Santoro is a single working mother, IT executive and professional speaker in corporate America. Her geeky childhood love for computer programming led her to a successful career as a Vice President at a Wall Street brokerage.
She writes her own blog In Our Shoes
Marisa Santoro
@InRShoesmore stories from Marisa Santoro
Marisa Santoro is a seminar leader, writer, IT executive at a Wall Street brokerage and a single working mother. She leads inspiring women's seminars in New York and London, lands success story interviews with women executives and entrepreneurs on both sides of the pond and shares career advice to empower working women in business. She has a natural instinct for ‘picking up’ brilliant women who juggle it ALL.
She writes her own blog In Our Shoes.
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