Original Comeback Moms

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a “Comeback Mom,” which I was tagged in a Good Morning America segment, which focused on women returning to the workforce after raising their families. Actually, I’ve had two breaks in traditional employment. The first time I had over ten years of executive experience when I left the workforce when my son Stephen was 6 months old (he’s now 20!).

I remained home over three years, until after the birth of my daughter Kathryn. I first became a Comeback Mom when she turned six months old and Stephen was almost four. I returned to a flexible work arrangement close to home. Through the years, I changed jobs and companies, increased responsibilities all while raising my kids and juggling a household.

Once again, I find myself in a Comeback Mom situation. I left my position following the acquisition of the small software company I had been with for ten years by a multinational corporation. I completed my graduate degree and have been seeking out work assignments more in line with my interests and needs. Comeback Moms, can comeback to work and home multiple times depending upon the need to balance family and work.

When thinking about balancing family and work and Comeback Moms, I have to include my own Mother, Josephine (affectionately known as Zeffa), as one of the originals for returning to work in the early 1970s in a high school library media center. She had five children at home and a husband that believed that is where she belonged, not at a job.

She stood up to my Dad, Emery, when he told her, "go back down there (school) and tell them you can't take that job."

I’m sure she straightened to her full 5’7” height against all of his 5’ 6 ¾” and said, "No, I won't."

I was kind of surprised to hear this story; my how things have changed. I have to hand it to her, she knew what she wanted - her five children to go to college and her added income would help make it so. Unfortunately, her income, as it turned out, didn't put the five of us through college; it became a necessity when my Father passed away less than two years after she started working. She was and continues to be a great example to me to believe in one's self and get on with the business at hand of balancing work and raising a family.

She may not have funded our college educations, but she certainly planted the seed of believing in our own achievement that we could do it all while taking on monumental tasks herself. She raised five children alone working at a secretarial job. Five children became five college graduates. Later, the same five acquired three Masters Degrees, one DMD and a distinguished Head Naturalist at a National Park. Now to me, that's a Comeback Mom!