The Washinton Post reported on Friday that Michelle Obama is about to be jobless. She is quitting her position as Vice President of Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals to seek balance in her work-family life as her husband Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) pursues the presidency.
Michelle Obama shares that she never intended to be a stay-at-home-wife and mother, though she, like every professional working mother, admits to feeling conflicted about her choice to work out of the home.
Says Michelle Obama, "Every other month [since] I've had children I've struggled with the
notion of 'Am I being a good parent? Can I stay home? Should I stay
home? How do I balance it all?' I have gone back and forth
every year about whether I should work."
Blogger Pundit Mom takes this all in and asks, "If someone as high-profile as Michelle Obama can't negotiate a family accomodation, what hope is there for the rest of us?"
Pundit Mom adds that she hopes Barack Obama can use his wife's situation "to illustrate as a campaign issue why more workplaces need to shift the view of what is workable for professional people, women AND men alike." Granted, we don't know what was behind Michelle Obama's leave. Certainly she is high-profile enough that she can have any job she wants when she decides to go back to work. Still, this begs the question, "Should she have had to quit?"
Pundit Mom doesn't think so: "It's not about women not being able to suck it up and stick it out. It's about dragging employers kicking and screaming into the 21st Century...Maybe they won't get it until more women leave the workplace and they see their bottom lines plummeting when half the qualified work force steps off the track and businesses are left scrambling for qualified replacements."
I know one organization that will have a lot to say about this.
[photo credit: Washington Post]
