Motherhood – And its Skill Amassing Side Effects

Raising a child is filled with challenges – sleepless nights, tantrums, tending to a sick child, the endless scheduling and deadlines, remembering to fill out numerous forms for doctor visits, schools, games etc. Women are built to take on these motherhood challenges and overcome them. The go-getter executives, the office secretaries, the nurses and the scientists, the pilots or the stay-at-home moms, all face them in varying degrees. No exceptions there.

For every challenge that a mom overcomes, she learns a new skill!

Work under pressure 

The sleepless nights and long days spent in taking care of a child teaches a mom to handle difficult and stressful situations with integrity. You’ve mastered the art of functioning in chaotic and unpredictable situations.  This means that at work, you can get a lot done  without getting frazzled easily.

Also read Back to work? Your Mommy years count!

Keen sense of perception 

Raising a child makes a woman fastidious, protective, intuitive, and perpetually vigilant. Your increased sense of perception and observation skills help in a whole host of jobs.

Find the best part-time, remote, work from home jobs for moms.

Power of negotiation 

Ever watched the Optimum ad where the epic big sister-younger brother deal is reached?  Mediating sibling rivalries through diplomacy is nothing short of a feat. You’ve learnt this on the job and executed it frequently. These interceding abilities make it easy for you hammer out small and big issues at workplace.

Also Read Smart tips to manage the back to work transition for you and your family

Champion Networker

The inherent mommy desire to know the best bouncy place, the better summer camp or a competent tutor sharpens a mom’s hobnobbing skills no end. When at the workplace, you can easily strike a good rapport with colleagues or work effectively as a human resources manager or a social media coordinator.

Also Read: Moms, want to get back to work? Here’s how to make a career gap ‘work’ for you on LinkedIn

Network from the comfort of home. Meet Women Entrepreneurs and Share your Skills for free!

30 Industries, 200+ Skills, Incredible Talent!

Also Read 7 ways to maximize your Career

Passion 

No candidate is as good as the one who is enthusiastic. A mom spends years being a boo-boo healer, a nurse, an errand girl etc. Despite the joys of motherhood, the repetitiveness of it all makes her anticipate the return to workplace with a strong sense of eagerness. When you get back to work, you have a real hungry need to prove your mettle. This makes you an ideal employee – hard working, dedicated and passionate about making a difference at workplace just as much as you did being at home with the kids.

Also Read: 10 Legit Ways To Earn Money AND Be A Stay At Home Mom

Also Read 12 Career Moms share Happiness Secrets

Multitasking 

If you’ve ever found yourself struggling to teach one kid, while checking another’s quiz and turning the chicken in the oven at the same time, then you are multitasking and rocking it. When crisis mode strikes in the office, it is this ability that makes you roll up your sleeves and take on additional responsibilities with ease.

Why is now the best time for moms to be Virtual Professionals?

Also Read Pants or Pajamas? What I’ve learnt as a Work-at-Home Mom

Efficiency

Whipping up multiple breakfasts, while simultaneously packing school lunches, tying shoe laces, braiding hair etc. to make it to the bus stop on time, everyday, require a certain degree of planning and efficiency that should not go unrecognized. A 9-5 job for a woman means just that – diligent organization & productivity to complete tasks on time.

A mom getting back to work is tenacious, compassionate, competent, and a great team player! Companies and recruiters who understand this will surely benefit from hiring the right candidates.

If you are a mother reading this, the next time you wonder about your skills, make sure you keep this in mind – because you are way more than the sum of all parts.

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“Reading and writing are such solitary activities but by no means make you feel lonely! Your characters are always with you. “

Prachi is a short story writer, mother of two kids, cook, cleaner, an errand girl with some unusual habits like blessing each airplane that she sees from her bedroom window. Weird? Yes, but that comes from her fear of flying.

Inspired by crisp writing like in ‘The Book Thief’, ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan’ and ‘Lean In’, she hopes to say more in fewer words. She talks about nuances of writing and everything that goes around her on her Blog.

Her work has been published in Huffington Post, Brown Girl Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary, Goldfinch, Ascent Aspirations, Vending Machine Press, and has won an award on Six Sentences.

She hopes to see her name in the Best American Short Stories one day.