A Woman’s Personal Life Always Supersedes Her Resume
Have you added “Maternity Leave” to your resume?
Even though I returned to work earlier than allowed by the law, I still felt like I wasn’t fully integrated into my organization when I got back. People started to forget I had even been there. Some may have thought I left because so many women switched jobs after returning from maternity leave, but I wasn’t one of them. I surprised some of my colleagues by walking up to them at a company event and catching their attention.
“Oh, you’re back from maternity leave, aren’t you? ”
“Obviously, I’ve been back for nearly two years now, working from home ”.
I don’t have to hide that my career has stagnated since I became a mother, first by pausing it during maternity leave and then by declining high-profile roles that would require long hours. As much as I wanted to travel again, my son still needed his mother around.
Now that my son is almost four years old, I realize I have passed up too many job opportunities. You may be familiar with fear and guilt mixed in, thinking that wanting to resume your career ambitions makes you a terrible mother. I was also concerned that with a small kid at home who had just started kindergarten and was mostly home sick with all kinds of illnesses from…