Tabla de contenidos para August - September 2015 en Working Mother

Maryellen Hooper is a 30-year veteran comedian based in Orlando, FL. Her blog (stinkyflowers.wordpress.com) and standup act have her satirical eye trained on husband Mark and sons Nate, 10½, and Zeke, 7½.* Maryellen has garnered the Female Comedian of the Year award from the American Comedy Awards. Q: Is comedy still a boys club? A: I’d like to say that there are way more female comics than when I started, but I think there are more comics in general. It tends to be male-dominated. I don’t know why it doesn’t attract more women. It was everything I wanted, that’s for sure. Q: Does the life of a stand-up work for a working mom? A: After he was born, I took my first son on the road with me, and I…

DELOITTE, a professional services firm, New York City, Los Angeles and other locations • MOM Monica Larsen Wetherell, Workplace Strategy Manager • KIDS Cole, 3, and Blake, 7 months “I work within our Workplace Strategy/Real Estate group (primarily out of New York City), and our goal is to constantly and continually innovate in the workplace. Our current model reflects a tool kit of spaces that supports flexibility, mobility, collaboration and innovation.” CLIF BAR & COMPANY, makers of energy bars and snacks, Emeryville, CA • MOM Michelle Ferguson, EVP, Marketing • KIDS Aidan, 13, and Iain, 11 “Not just an office, our space inspires each of us to live, thrive and create—professionally and personally. It’s a place where we are invited to share our ideas, values and the things we are…

She recognized the handwriting on the envelope, and Christine Koehler’s stomach sank. The Marietta, GA, mom of two had just gotten home from her job as an insurance adjuster and was already dreading the nightly homework ordeal with her 9-year-old son, Robert. She was not in the mood for another note from his fourth-grade teacher. Practically since the first day of kindergarten, Robert had struggled to keep up. Teacher after teacher sent home notes, called Christine at work or took her aside at Field Day. Initially, it blindsided her, as her 12-year-old daughter, Alyssa, who had had most of the same teachers as Robert, earned good grades with ease. Today, however, the questions remain: Is it him? Is it me? Or is it something beyond our control, like the school…

“You don’t have to sell the brownies so hard. They sell themselves.” So said the eighth-grade mom to me as we worked concessions together before our children’s band concert. She was a font of been-there advice for me, a first-timer for all things middle school. While I certainly appreciated learning how not to get shut out from the soldout band performances—who even knew that such things could happen?!—what really resonated for me was her impromptu offer to share two years of hard-won experience with me. Women helping women—what could be better? In “Women for Women” [page 18], we explore what leads women (including me sometimes) to lean in to judgment and criticism of one another, rather than kindness and support. Writer Adina Kalish shares tales of moms who have experienced…

Susan Nash remembers the moment in 1990 that prompted her to quit her high-pressure law firm gig. She had a court filing due on her day off, and her 18-month-old son had refused to take his usual afternoon nap. The already stressful day culminated in her wakeful toddler using his little broom, a favorite toy, to vigorously and repeatedly whack the fax machine she was using to send drafts of the brief back to the office. Susan immediately saw the sign her son was so artfully painting for her— “I thought, This isn’t working for me.” She soon left her job to work from home in a criminal appellate practice while raising her two sons. Fast-forward 25 years, and most working-mom lawyers will tell you that little has changed for…

Brown bag lunches suffering from the blahs? Wake them up with the Built Bento Salad Bowl, with its snazzy neoprene sleeve that helps keep greens crisp and cool. Dishwasher safe and PVC- and BPA-free, it’ll also save you time and worry ($22, builtny.com). Vera Bradley fans who just can’t bring themselves to tote her wildly printed weekend bags to work will love the new Vera Bradley handbags. These office-friendly leather carryalls feature solid-color exteriors with those signature prints on the inside—a workplace win-win! ($228, verabradley.com) Toss that industrial-looking company badge holder and upgrade to one that mirrors your unique personality. Office Depot’s stylish DiVOGA line ensures everyone will recognize you even before they check your ID ($5, officedepot.com). Perfect for an impromptu 5 o’clock celebration, Zipz Wine comes in single-serve…

“I’m sorry to all the mothers I used to work with,” said former Washington Post and Huffington Post editor Katharine Zaleski in a recent fortune.com article. “For mothers in the workplace, it’s death by a thousand cuts—and sometimes it’s other women holding the knives. I didn’t realize this—or how horrible I’d been— until five years later, when I gave birth to a daughter of my own.” That was Zaleski’s public apology to working mothers earlier this year. After years of judging them and even going so far as to avoid doing business with them for fear their dedication in the workplace was lacking, her mindset vastly changed once she had children. She has since become so passionate about the issue that she started her own company, PowerToFly, which helps women…

Part of our mission at Working Mother is to make sure diverse women and moms like you are being served by your work sectors. As tough a field as it is for women, law is definitely in our sights. That’s why we yearly select 50 Best Law Firms for Women—which set an example and lead the way by offering programs that promote inclusion and increase the number of women partners. And by making our list, these forward-thinking employers know they have a leg up in recruiting women and diverse talent. But there’s still a lot of work to be done. Fewer than 20 percent of today’s law firm partners are women. It’s not a pipeline issue; unlike the challenges faced by tech and other industries dependent on STEM talents, there’s…