Happy Mother’s Day from Professional Detours!

Mothers, whether good or bad, have more influence over our lives than any other single person we encounter, especially when it comes to our choice of career. And, as any mother knows, having children can completely alter a woman’s career trajectory. In honor of all the mothers who have encouraged, inspired, and advised their adult children, and in recognition of all moms with young kids who are currently balancing work and family, Professional Detours is proud to bring you a collection of thoughts about and by moms from all walks of life.

Mothers are our first teachers, instructing us about our world and our place in it. Sometimes they advise us directly:

Imagine my surprise when, after a lifetime of teaching me to keep personal things to myself, Mom insisted my drawings were the start of a comic strip for millions of people to enjoy.
Cathy Guisewite

Mom and Pop were proud of my popularity, but from their point of view, show business was no way to make a living.
Ethel Merman

[My mother] never had really tried to guide my career or really had any say in my life as an adult, but this was the one time she said she would never speak to me again if I quit acting.
Mark Ruffalo

And sometimes they lead by example:

Even when she didn't have a paid job, Mom did volunteer work and was involved in the church, and I got to see her interacting with other adults and using her mind and her skills in creative ways.
Jamie Lynn Dunston

I think one of the things that's made the biggest impact on me is what my mom compromised on in order to balance her professional career with being a mom: music…She said when we were little, when she got home from work in the evening she had to choose between practicing and spending time with us, and time with the kids won every time.
Elia Nelson Desjardins

My mother was a great example for me. She was a working mother with a good career.
Andrea Jung

My mom was a source of strength. She showed me by example that women, regardless of how difficult life may get, can do it all.
Gloria Estefan

Mothers support us in our career choices, even when times get tough:

My mom has a good way of engaging me in a conversation about the choices I make, listening, being objective and open-minded, and respecting those choices so long as they don't put me in danger.
Casey Affleck

My mom is definitely my rock.
Alicia Keys

When I was 10 or 11, my mom was the one out there catching passes for me. She was my prime receiver.
Joe Theismann

They teach us important life lessons:

My mom is always telling me it takes a long time to get to the top, but a short time to get to the bottom.
Miley Cyrus

My mom never taught me to be waiting for some prince on a white horse to swipe me off my feet.
Tyra Banks

My mom always said that there would be haters. Not everyone can love ya.
Joel Madden

And they make sacrifices for us:

My mom and my dad wanted my brother and I to have a better life, you know, better education, better jobs. It was probably harder, much, much harder, for my parents. When you're a kid, you can learn a language much more easily; I learned English in less than a year.
Mila Kunis

For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you'd would wake up times and hope that the next day you'd be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of. But all I cared about was her being home.
LeBron James

And even if we lose them, their legacy lives on:

No one was more important than my mom and dad. I know they are watching from a place up in heaven here today to make sure all their kids are doing good.
Eddie Murray

Sometimes our mothers’ careers have a profound impact on our upbringing:

My mom is the reason that I'm a nurse today. She is the best nurse I know. She taught me to work hard and do work that means something to you.
Megan Downey Dunston

My mom was a pianist, and she taught piano out of her house. I was just so excited, being a little kid and having all these other kids come to my house twice a week. I thought it was a big party.
Vanessa Carlton

My mom is two people to me. She's my mom number one, and then she's this lady most comedians know as being a legendary owner of a nightclub that's responsible for starting a lot of heavy careers.
Pauly Shore

But moms know that having kids can have just as strong an impact on their careers as well. After all, being a mother is challenging enough even without outside work:

There is nothing better than being a parent. It is the most challenging job one could ever ask for. I love being a mom and I love being a friend to my children as well.
Marlee Matlin

There is nothing like becoming a mom to fill you with fear.
Arianna Huffington

And finding balance between work and family is challenging, even at the best of times:

Being a working mom is not easy. You have to be willing to screw up at every level.
Jami Gertz

When you become a mom you just learn how to function sleep deprived and you do get used to it. I came back to work when Finley was three months old and the first few months were rough. Then somehow you learn to exist on no sleep and now when he does upon occasion sleep through the night, which is like a full six hours, you're pretty sure he's suffocating. So you don't sleep anyway.
Holly Marie Combs

I'm a mother, I'm a journalist, I'm an American; I'm all of those things, and it really complicates your job when you have all these things come into play.
Paula Zahn

Kids can change your perspective on everything:

Becoming a mom put "working" and "career" into perspective for me and helped me to be a hard worker to be able to take care of my daughter but not a workaholic and miss out on my daughter.
Leslie Kohli

It's the best thing ever - I love being a mom. This is my only child. My career was a priority earlier in my life, but now my son is definitely the priority.
Stephanie Mills

Before I was a mom I used to think that parents who worried about their kids watching MTV were just clueless. Now that I'm a mom, I see what the fuss was all about!
Martha Quinn

But it can also fill us with a confidence we never thought we’d have:

I know how to do anything, I'm a mom.
Roseanne Barr Arnold

Now you tell us: how has your Mom influenced your life and career choices? If you have kids, how have they influenced your career path? Post a comment and weigh in!

PTA to DOL: Alice Leopold's Kids Kick-Started Her Career

Many women feel they have to choose between having a family and having a career. Others struggle to find balance as they try to have it all. Some choose one path, only to find themselves unexpectedly thrust into another role. Alice Leopold never meant to be anything but a stay-at-home mom, but the simple choice to get involved in the Parent-Teacher Association at her sons’ school quickly led to her appointment to a federal directorship in the U.S. Department of Labor. Here’s how it happened.

Alice got married in 1931 at the age of 25. After completing a double major in English and Economics at Goucher, she worked as the personnel director of a department store for several years before marrying her husband, an ad executive. Less than 10% of women attended college in the late 1920s, and from 1920 to 1940 the average age of a bride held steady at 21, so by the time she tied the knot, Alice was already different from the other housewives in her quiet Connecticut suburb. But she was determined to put her career behind her and focus solely on raising her young sons.

But then her oldest son entered elementary school. Alice learned that there was no hot lunch program for the children, and she was outraged. She contacted the PTA, which in turn appointed her “hot lunch chairman.” She organized a group of mothers to cook large amounts of food every morning and carry it to the school in kettles every day at noon. The project gained widespread approval, and Alice was a shoo-in for the next president of the PTA.

Her appetite for public life whetted, Alice began working with the League of Women Voters, writing pamphlets to inspire women like herself to become more involved in politics. “I fell for my own propaganda about participation,” she later recalled. Her convictions about political participation led her to accept an invitation to join the Weston Town Committee of the Republican Party. From there, it was a short leap to the Republican nomination to the Connecticut General Assembly, an election she won in 1949, serving on the education and labor committees.

As a state assemblyperson, Leopold authored two important bills -- a minimum-wage bill and an equal-pay bill -- both of which passed in 1949. She served one term before being elected Connecticut’s Secretary of State and then, in a whirlwind of political fortune, ended up on the short list of “notable Republican women” for consideration as federal appointees under the Eisenhower administration. Alice got the nod to become the Director of the Women’s Bureau, answering directly to the Secretary of Labor, in November 1953.

So, in less than fifteen years, Alice Leopold went from being a stay-at-home mom to a federal bureaucrat, all because she cared about her kids’ nutrition. Her career grew up with her children, taking on more responsibility as they grew older, until she reached the top just as her youngest son was turning 18 and going to college. She served until 1961.

It's safe to say that, had she never married had children, Alice Leopold would likely have spent the rest of her life in HR at a department store. But because she cared about her children's school, she got involved in public life and ended up in a position to make policy that would impact several generations of working mothers all across the United States.

Are you a mom whose children shaped your career or helped you find a new one? Tell us about it in the comments!

Sources:

http://www.northnet.org/stlawrenceaauw/college.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005061.html

http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/ir/bitstream/1840.16/79/1/etd.pdf

Eleanor of Aquitaine: How NOT to Balance Work and Family

Is this you?

If you're like most working moms today, dividing your time between the house and the office, you probably spend a lot of time worrying about getting the balance right. Or feeling guilty because you don't think you're getting the balance right. Or exhausted because you're trying to handle the dual full-time challenges of pursuing a career and managing a household. Or all of the above. But take heart. However badly you think you're doing, your family is almost certainly better off than that of one of the most powerful and successful women of the pre-modern era: Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Eleanor had quite the CV. She became Duchess of Aquitaine, a large semi-independent principality in southern France, at age 15 in 1137. Three months later, she started climbing the ladder and became Queen of France when she married Louis VI. After having two daughters, she wasn't content to sit at home being queen, and went on an extended business trip to the Middle East with Louis, otherwise known as the Second Crusade.

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Of course, everyone knows that, to get ahead in your career, you sometimes have to switch jobs. Well, in Eleanor's case, since her career was really tied to the family firm, it was a little more challenging. She got an annulment from the Pope not long after the Crusade (it was not a successful trip), and, leaving her two daughters in their father's custody, married Henry, the 9-years-younger Duke of Normandy, a scant eight weeks later.

This was a bold move, a very risky move. Not only did she take a serious pay cut and a definitely lesser job title, but technically, her new husband even worked for the old one! But she could see that Henry was a man who was going places, and her gamble paid off. Henry went places, all right. He went to England and, with Eleanor at his side, defeated the armies of the King of England (who happened to be Henry's first cousin once removed - and you thought your family holidays were tense!), and "convinced" the king to name Henry the heir to the throne.

So Eleanor's gamble on the spin-off venture paid off, and she shortly became Queen of England (the only woman in history to be queen of both England and France). Henry became Henry II of England, and in between battles that freed Normandy and Aquitaine from all hint of French control, he reformed the English justice system, laying the basis for the common law system still in place in both England and America today.

After 21 years of marriage and eight children, five of whom were boys, things started to fall apart for Eleanor personally, though. Henry started flaunting a young and beautiful mistress, and several of his grown sons had gotten tired of waiting for their turn to run things. With Eleanor's encouragement, three of their sons, including Richard The Lionheart, started an unsuccessful rebellion against Henry. The revolt was put down, and Eleanor spent the next 16 years in captivity at Henry's command, although he sometimes let her out to join the family for special occasions like Christmas. Eleanor did not regain her freedom until Henry's death.

A good son?

Richard became king, freed his mother, and promptly set off on the Third Crusade, leaving Eleanor behind to run England in his absence. He also left his ambitious youngest brother, Prince John. (Whether he actually sucked his thumb is not known to history. We're pretty sure about the mommy issues, though.) Richard returned from the Crusade eventually, but died during a siege in France. Eleanor then watched John take the throne, her second son to do so.

She lived to be over 80, actively involved in ruling England until almost the very end. She was one of the most educated, beautiful, powerful, and wealthy women in history, but she wasn't able to find that balance between career and family we all strive for. You could even say she failed in spectacular fashion. So, the next time you feel inadequate because you didn't feel like cooking after a long day on the job, relax. It could always be worse.

The Making of Me: The Mom Behind the Man

Nancy’s son was in trouble. At nine, Al had already been kicked out of two different schools, and now his new teacher was saying that he was “unteachable” and “slow.” She knew that her son was smart, but the teachers had no patience for his boundless energy and endless questions. So she did what she felt she must: she pulled him out of school and taught him at home.

Believing firmly in his potential for greatness, Nancy encouraged Al to explore the laws of physics, nature, and chemistry and to figure things out for himself. She let him set up a laboratory in their basement, and he had full access to all the books in their home. When he exhausted all the reading material there by age eleven – including an extensive collection of classic literature and the works of Shakespeare – Nancy took him to the public library. Al decided to begin with the last book on the bottom shelf and systematically read his way through the entire library. By age 12, Al had read Sears' History Of The World, Burton's Anatomy Of Melancholy, The World Dictionary of Science, and a everything he could find on chemistry and physics.

Even though she had six older children to care for, Nancy didn’t give up on her son. That fateful day in 1854 when she decided to homeschool Al quite literally changed the world. Although he had special educational needs, probably ADHD, and was hard of hearing, Al – short for his middle name, Alva – went on to invent the light bulb, the phonograph, and dozens of other important electrical components that laid the technological foundation for the computer you’re reading this on today. Of course, by now you’ve guessed it – Nancy Edison was the mother of Thomas Alva Edison, The Wizard of Menlo Park, and she was essential to his success.

As an adult, Edison would recall, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me, and I felt I had someone to live for, someone I must not disappoint."

Was your Mom a Nancy Edison? Did she teach you lessons that shaped your future career? Tell us in the comments!

Sources:

http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventors/a/Thomas_Edison.htm

http://borntoexplore.org/edison.htm

http://www.thomasedison.com/biography.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1632102/posts

http://www.patentdrafting.com/edison.htm

Calling All Moms, Mothers, and Mommies!

Are you a Mom who works outside the home, or who quit a full-time job to spend more time with your kids? Did you learn anything from your Mother -- directly or indirectly -- that influenced your career path? Professional Detours wants to hear from you!

We're working on an exciting feature for Mother's Day paying tribute to Moms from all walks of life. We're collecting your thoughts on being a working mom, quitting work to be a mom, or going back to work after spending a few months, years, or decades as a stay-at-home mom. Please share your thoughts in the comments, and we'll be compiling them (along with submissions collected via e-mail, Facebook, and through personal interviews.

A few questions to get you started:

1) What job(s) did you have before your kid(s) were born that they would be surprised to know about?

2) How did becoming a parent change the way you think about work and your career?

3) Whether you had a stay-at-home mom or one who worked outside the home, what did you learn from your mother that influenced your career path? (All are welcome to answer this one!)

Mom Week will begin on May 2 with daily bios on famous working moms from history and end with a special article based on your feedback on May 6. Thanks for posting, and don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all our updates!