After a Baby, Full Time or Part? – Amy Joyce, Washington Post

I love my new job. It was absolutely the right choice for me.

But — isn’t there always a but? — when I come in to work, I have to leave a little guy at home who has just learned to wave bye-bye with his chubby backwards wave. So even though I feel excited about being back at work, I also feel guilty about not having more time with my 9-month-old, Sam. I wonder, what would be different if I worked 80 percent of the hours I do now?

The idea of working part time entered my mind off and on throughout my six-month maternity leave. Many of my friends in similar situations worried about the same things I did: What would a part-time job do to my career? Would work continue to be gratifying, or would it just be a job where I punched a clock? Would working fewer hours save money in child-care costs, or would I actually earn too little to make ends meet? And really . . . does Sam even care?

For those of you who don’t remember, I wrote the Life at Work column for The Post’s Business section. I’ve come back to the paper in a completely new job — as an editor for the Weekend section. The job allows me to work more predictable hours than I did as a daily reporter with a weekly column. That helped me easily make the decision (for now, at least) to work full time.

But the decision isn’t so easy for many women. For those who have a choice, family, finances and career success are all major considerations when settling on a work schedule.

Julie Ingoglia considered working part time after Matthew (2 1/2 ) and Giovanna (14 months) were born. But the family’s insurance was covered through her job, and if she cut back on her work schedule, her insurance would also be cut back, as would her salary and her leave.

“I returned full time after both kids and pondered it a lot and still do,” said Ingoglia, a senior analyst at the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

Ingoglia, 33, said she might eventually decide to work part time. Before her children were born, she went to graduate school to prepare herself for a job that could let her consult and therefore have a more flexible schedule. She hopes that when the kids are school-age, she can reduce her work schedule so she can be around when they get home. “The decision was, I’d stay working full time now and reduce hours then,” she said. She and her husband hope that at that point, he will have a higher salary to offset her pay reduction.

Stepping off the linear career path has become so common that it now has a trendy vernacular. It’s not called “going part time” or even “quitting.” It’s “off-ramping.” When it’s time to go back to work and pursue a direct career path, you’re said to be “on-ramping.” Words aside, the way we work is being redefined, even if the changes are not universal.

Women are “redesigning careers to be a lattice instead of a ladder,” said Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute. If you view your career as a ladder and you jump off, Galinsky said, it’s hard to get back on. The idea of a lattice implies more flexibility.

Patricia Fuentes works a 60 percent schedule in public relations at Freddie Mac. She decided to take that route after her first daughter (now 3 1/2 ) was born. Nearly half of the employees at Freddie Mac work a nontraditional schedule.

“It’s happening so much more, I think because there are more women in the workplace,” said Debi Gay, human resources senior director at Freddie Mac. “Companies want to keep good people and have to be creative.” More than half of the company’s employees are women.

But not all careers or employers are set up for alternative schedules.

Colleen Kotyk Vossler, 36, worked at an international law firm when she had Andrew, now 4. After maternity leave, she came back on a reduced schedule. She was soon working far more than she had expected. “I don’t hold the firm responsible,” she said. “Clients want the availability.”

Because she was billing more hours than an average attorney at her firm, she returned to a full-time schedule. Ultimately, Vossler left the firm when her second child, Abigail, was 8 months old to take an in-house counsel position at BearingPoint. She wanted a job that would continue to be a challenge but give her more flexibility. The trade-off? Less pay.

“What I get in return is an opportunity to go on a field trip with my son,” she said.

Elaine Lippmann, 34, is a lawyer who decided to take on an 80 percent schedule after her son was born. She is grappling with the impact on her career. She never thought she would be one to work part time. Like many Type-A Washington career lawyers, she put in long hours to get where she was. But she said that after Judah, now 1, was born, “the thought of being away from him so much just felt terrible.”

Now she’s reckoning with the consequences. “I do feel that I’ve had to make compromises when it comes to my career, and I’m often not sure how I feel about that. I wonder whether I’ll have regrets down the road that I limited myself career-wise,” she said.

Lippmann works at a small firm. She’s the first lawyer there to go part time. “I feel a lot of pressure to show that this can work,” she said. But she isn’t sure yet it can.

She has moved into a practice group she likes, though it’s limited her training, she said. In her review this year, she asked to “dabble in other practice groups to keep up my knowledge base,” she said. “But I was told if I am part time, that limits what I can dabble in.”

Before going part time, women need to take a hard look at their financial situations.

Fuentes, who works part time for Freddie Mac, and her husband created three spreadsheets to help them decide. They analyzed first what life would be like with her working full time and them paying for full-time child care. Then they looked at their budget with her working 60 percent of the time and hiring part-time care. Finally they assessed a situation in which Fuentes wouldn’t work for pay at all and would be a full-time mom. The spreadsheets showed that a part-time work schedule was affordable.

“It worked out that it was a financial hit, but we could do it,” Fuentes said.

Before Lippmann decided to go part time, she and her husband looked at their previous year’s savings, then calculated how much less they would be able to put away. They determined that on her reduced schedule they could still contribute something to their 401(k)s.

Vossler took what she called a significant pay cut for her job as an in-house counsel. But she also had additional day-care expenses for her second child, hoisting the bill from $16,000 to about $30,000 a year. She and her husband have been talking about cutting back on their 401(k) contributions to have a little more cash on hand.

The family is also sacrificing short-term goals, such as taking big vacations, to stay on pace with retirement savings. Instead of buying trendy luxuries, they apply their money to house renovations and do much of the work themselves.

“We’re focusing ourselves to stay within a budget,” she said. That means shopping at BJ’s, buying on sale and going to consignment shows for children’s clothes and toys.

Stretching a dollar wasn’t new for Julia Gordon or her husband, which made it easier for her to start working part time as a public interest lawyer in the District. “I work in a really low-paid field as an attorney, and my husband doesn’t make a very high salary, either,” said Gordon, 44.

They are pros at budgeting and have been able to survive because they bought their house in 2001 (an easier market). They take inexpensive vacations, entertain at home, and drive 10-year-old cars that are fully paid for.

One thing they do spend on is a house-cleaner every two weeks. “I think of that as something we might have to spend on marriage counseling otherwise,” Gordon said.

If you decide to cut back your hours, it doesn’t mean your schedule is fixed for the remainder of your career.

My Sam is at that age when he’s thrilled to see his babysitter walk in the door, and he squeals with delight when his 8-month-old friend, Charlotte, with whom he shares the nanny, shows up in the mornings. But this morning, for the first time, he cried and held his arms up as my husband and I said goodbye. My heart is in my throat just thinking about it. But for now, this schedule works for us. In a few years, the situation may be different.

“There’s no perfect solution,” Lippmann said. “When you have a baby, you kind of have to throw all of your preconceived notions of what you want out of your life out the window. . . . In terms of career, you don’t know what your priorities will be until you’re in it.” She added that she was surprised at how much she wanted to be with her baby. “I take it one step at time. I feel like what I’m doing is trying not to worry about the long term and be happy right now.”

By Amy Joyce – courtesy Washing Post

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