An appealing recent entry from WordSpy (a web site devoted to “lexpionage,” the sleuthing of new words and phrases) is “stay-at-work mom.” The term refers to a mother who returns to work soon after giving birth.
I think it equally applies to those of us who are moms working from home, a situation that I have long thought of as the best of both worlds.
I ran across a reference to an issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, in which writer Thea Singer talks about a survey of 1,168 high-achieving working women. Ms. Singer notes that only 22 per cent of the entrepreneurs surveyed were childless at age 40, significantly fewer than the corporate types (42 per cent), many of whom were not childless by choice. “Could this be the path to the holy grail of having it all?” she asks.
She continues that “it may explain why, as former Dateline NBC associate producer Wendy Sachs notes in How She Really Does It, women today are launching businesses at double the rate of men. ‘I interviewed hundreds of stay-at-work moms, and the happiest were those who owned their own businesses,’ says Sachs, herself the mother of two.”
Another woman I met at a party once gasped, “Oh my god! You have my dream job!” when I told her that I’m a freelance writer. I have to agree!