Working moms look back with mixed emotions - CNN.com

Working moms look back with mixed emotions

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By Maya Dollarhide Lucca



(LifeWire) -- When Christine Durst, 45, had her first child in 1987, she received a package from her boss while recuperating in the hospital. But instead of a baby gift, she found something else: year-end tax forms to complete.
"My son lay sleeping in his bed next to mine while I toiled away in the middle of the night," Durst recalls. "I was the business manager. If I didn't do the work, it wouldn't get done."
She worked at that job until 1993, two years after the birth of her second child, a girl. Today, her children grown, Durst works from home. But she regrets missing those early years with the kids. "I felt tremendous guilt about being away from home, and I felt terrible about the stress I brought home from the job."
While Durst, of Woodstock, Connecticut, looks back with regrets, Karol Rose, 64, of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, doesn't. Rose, an executive with FlexPaths, a women-owned consulting business specializing in workplace flexibility, raised two boys while working full time, taking off only a few months when they were born. "I think my sons liked that I had a job," Rose says. "You know, too much focus isn't great for children, either."



Working moms look back with mixed emotions - CNN.com