Working it out

There comes a point, during every maternity leave, when a new mommy looks at the calendar and realizes the end is fast approaching. Those first few months with a new baby seem to exist outside of regular life; they're joyous and exhausting and intense. Then comes the prospect of reentering reality, parting with the baby who has been with you all day, entering the realm of drop-offs and pickups, goodbyes and hellos.
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I'm at that point for now, but I've been here before, so I know the answers to some common return-to-work questions. Will the baby remember me? Yes. Will I make it through the day without crying? Yes, eventually. Will I like anything about returning to work? Sure. You'll love being able to eat your lunch with two hands.

The trickier stuff, for many working parents, is logistics: how to reach the day-care center before closing time, how to find the time to pump milk, what to do if the baby gets sick. Some of us are lucky, with accommodating managers and built-in flexibility. But not everyone is so fortunate. Most businesses have no formal structures in place to help working parents manage. So to the overarching question facing families today - When will working parenthood become a less stressful proposition? - I have no ready answer.

What I do have are a string of sobering statistics, courtesy of the Families and Work Institute. The not-for-profit, nonpartisan research group conducted a survey of employers last year, compared it to one from 1998, and found that little has changed in a decade.

On the plus side, more businesses allow some (but not most) workers to periodically change their starting and quitting times. And more companies provide a space for breastfeeding mothers to pump milk.

But only a small minority of companies provide help with child care, or offer most workers the chance to shift from full- to part-time and back. Most striking is how few workers, in this information-economy age of broadband and BlackBerrys, are allowed to work regularly from home.

According to the survey, half of employers allow some workers to work regular paid hours at home occasionally. But only 3 percent extended that flexibility to most or all workers. Only 23 percent of companies allow even some of their workers to work from home on a regular basis - the sort of freedom that would be game-changing not just for new mothers, but for workers of every stage in life, who might need to care for teenagers, aging parents, or ill relatives. (Or cats and parakeets, as far as I'm concerned. I favor flexibility for all.)

The problem seems to be mistrust, said Ellen Galinsky, the Families and Work Institute's executive director. "I think that there still was the view that if you give them an inch they'll take a mile," she said.

Galinsky argues that flexibility has the opposite effect, breeding gratitude, loyalty, and focus. We working mommies understand that anything is possible when a deadline looms; as I type this, my baby is nuzzling against my chest, sleeping peacefully in his Baby Björn.

Galinsky predicts that things won't change without a cultural shift, when more businesses see flexibility not as a perk that solely benefits the worker, but a strategy that helps the company, too. She thinks the failing economy might help.

Disaster has a way of sparking progress, she notes. The widespread need for cost-cutting could prompt more businesses to bend to their employees' needs. Businesses might realize, she said, that offering flexible schedules and telecommuting opportunities isn't just benevolent, it's cheap. Allow people to work fewer hours and you're controlling labor costs. Let them work from home and you can lease a smaller space.

It would be nice to imagine something good coming out of this financial mess, so maybe this could be our dreamy post-collapse future: a nation of working mamas in pajamas, quietly making the economy churn while their kids are tucked in bed. I'd gladly give a bonus - and a sizable one - to any executives who make that a reality.