One of the biggest hurdles that working women face is what we aptly call the “motherhood penalty.” It’s the assumption that women who have children—or even may have them in the future—will inevitably leave the workforce or simply won’t be committed to the job. That attitude has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as working moms who find themselves sidelined at the office are more likely to leave, creating resume and knowledge gaps that make returning to the workforce more difficult when they’re finally ready. It’s a structural inequality, driven neither by malice nor ignorance but by limited thinking and an unwillingness to meet the needs of working mothers who, the idea goes, would probably rather be at home anyway.
Mother Using Laptop. (Photo by: marka/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Universal Images Group via Getty Images
But that’s an assumption nobody has the right to make about the millions of moms out there eager to maintain their professional lives. They just need reasonable, relatively short-term accommodations (which are even easier to offer in the new frontier of remote work). Mona Andrews, attorney and entrepreneur, realized it was time to finally start fixing the problem. So, like countless mothers throughout human history, she just did it herself.
I sat down with Mona to talk about her organization, Stay In The Game, and how she’s fighting for working moms.
Liz Elting: First, Mona, let me thank you for your generosity with your time. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your organization, Stay In The Game?
Mona Andrews: Stay In The Game is a company I started to combat gender inequality in the workplace by providing millions of women an alternative work structure after they become caregivers. They receive the flexibility they need to balance career and family. At the same time, businesses can increase their margins and cash flow by outsourcing key business functions to our team of experts while creating social impact by keeping women in the workforce. Companies are able to focus on their core business objectives while we deliver scale and efficiency straight to the bottom line. At the same time, we empower women to remain in the workforce while fulfilling their caregiving responsibilities. They can contribute to the financial health of their families while also caring for children or relatives. With Stay In The Game, no one is forced to choose between caregiving and a career.
I began my career as an attorney, one of few women in a male-dominated industry. When I had my first child, I knew a change had to be made if I was going to be the parent and businesswoman I knew I could be. I exited the legal world and founded my first company. As an entrepreneur, I had the ability to set my own schedule and take care of both my family and my business obligations. Unfortunately, many of the women I encountered were not so lucky and had an incredibly difficult time balancing work and home life; most were ultimately forced to leave the workforce. A problem-solver by nature, I saw the talent being lost and began working on a solution. Stay In The Game is my passion project—providing flexible, remote job opportunities for educated women who seek a healthy work-life balance.
Elting: How has the “she-cession” impacted your work, and are women who left the workforce during the pandemic facing the same hurdles in regaining employment as women who stepped away when they had children?
Andrews: Stay In The Game was fortunate that our fully distributed business model experienced minimal disruptions because of Covid. Our team was already working remotely by design, so we did not have to scramble to figure out technology needs or a remote work structure. The she-cession has only increased the number of women in need of flexible, remote, purposeful work. Now more than ever, the Stay In The Game mission of keeping women in the workforce is so important due to the beating working women took last year.
As you’re certainly aware, the pandemic forced millions of women out of work, especially as many had to prioritize childcare once the schools closed, so the hurdles are the same, if not more jarring, as those who have chosen to step away. I’ve heard so many stories about women being tacitly or even explicitly encouraged to resign “to take care of their kids” because they “weren’t focused.” We felt we were making big strides before the pandemic. We now know that we have lost a lot of ground and it is an “all hands on deck” situation to get us moving forward.
Elting: The terminations and layoffs of the pandemic followed a highly gendered pattern based on assumptions many employers have that their female employees are destined to disappear as soon as they have kids. We sometimes call that “pregnancy discrimination” or “the motherhood penalty.” Why is this still so prevalent?
Andrews: Great question. The motherhood penalty exists for several reasons I would argue- including governmental and societal. The government has not made childcare and early childhood education (pre-school) a national imperative. As a government, we have not made accommodating women to stay in the workforce a priority. Women have no choice but to balance the impossible without a good social net that supports them in having a career and children. This leads to the motherhood penalty we so often see. Society—we are still living in a very patriarchal society. That is slowly changing, but too slowly.
Elting: Stay In The Game is primarily focused on giving women flexible careers with training to help them stay current with emerging processes and technologies and avoid long resume gaps. How does that translate into “upshifting” back to dedicated workplace responsibilities?
Andrews: We must keep women in the workforce. Companies perform better with women leaders, yet organizations are adjusting the workplace rather than rethinking the workplace; it isn’t working. We provide opportunities for women to downshift their careers to accommodate caregiving, and we want to do this in partnership with organizations so women retain a connection to them, improving retention as well as maintaining the skill levels of the participants. Then, when the women’s children are more independent, our employees can direct their attention to their career full force. They will have kept their resumes up to date and many have learned an additional skill set or technologies. Upshifting back into the more traditional work environment is an option we want every one of our team members to have. By working for Stay in the Game, this option remains open to them. We anticipate that our employees will be the leaders of tomorrow.
Elting: I had had some hopes that the pandemic would force enterprises to build more humane and more human office cultures, but it seems that instead, it’s simply been weaponized against mothers. How can companies better accommodate working mothers without sidelining their entire careers? Why haven’t they already started?
Andrews: This is one of the solutions Stay In The Game provides. Companies can partner with Stay In The Game to offer a solution to their employees who need to downshift. And we know this is a benefit to the company, as they’re able to retain their intellectual capital by keeping a knowledgeable employee in their talent pool, at the same time, making a huge impact in the life of the working mom by maintaining the relationship and skill set.
Post-Covid, many companies are having a hard time finding employees. We are starting to see and will continue to see, at least in the short term, companies allowing flexible, remote work to attract and retain the best employees.
