What happens when women go home to have their children, raise them, then decide to go back into the workforce? Plenty. Many wind up making surprising changes—like Sharon Fine of Bethesda who left her Capitol Hill lobbying job after her third child, and later turned her house into an art gallery. “It’s much more fun than the law firm,” Fine says.
There’s Pascale Brady, of Gaithersburg, who used her French MBA for an international sales and marketing career, took a “five-year baby break,” then became a certified professional life coach. Martha Gaffney, of Chevy Chase, D.C., went from volunteer zookeeper to EMT with the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad.
There is a common thread. These Bethesda-area women have chosen less stressful careers the second time around, tailoring them around their children’s schedules, instead of the other way around. Many went from stay-at-home mom to mixing in some part-time work, testing the waters to see if working outside the home would fit into their new lives as mothers. Some decided to take on full-time professions that felt more worthwhile than their former jobs.
“If I wasn’t going to be home with my kids, I wanted to be passionate about what I did,” says Amy Hugo of Bethesda, who went from project management at Fannie Mae to owning and running Amethyst jewelry shop in Bethesda. Like Hugo, when these mothers returned to the workplace they created careers much more conducive to raising a family: Their work makes room for soccer practice, homework sessions and just hanging out with the kids—complementing family life.
Getting a ‘do over’
When Amy Hugo and Angela Malkin switched from corporate work to running a jewelry shop on Bethesda Row, they thought, “We’ve both been project managers and moms. How difficult can this be?” says Hugo, who turns 40 next year. “We shop all the time; we got the other end of the [sales] transaction.”
In retrospect, the two friends laugh about the details they had to learn along the way—like how to close up shop for the day (remember to store the checks in the safe!). And they wonder at how they could have ever been satisfied in careers with long office hours and endless meetings, days radically different from those at their arts-oriented shop, Amethyst. 
When she left Fannie Mae two years ago after 13 years of management and financial planning, Hugo says she “couldn’t imagine doing that for the rest of my life.” She originally left the whirl of meetings and late hours to go home and take care of the children, but as much as she loves her kids—ages 12, 10, 4 and 2—she couldn’t stay home, either. “I am genetically programmed to work,” she explains.
Bethesda resident Malkin, also turning 40 this year, was a project manager at Centene, a Medicaid managed-care corporation, and became a stay-at-home mom when her third child was born in 2006. She also has a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old. Though she didn’t have to go back to work, she says she just couldn’t fill her days with the gym and the drycleaners and the wash. “I was bored,” Malkin says.
Malkin and Hugo met in 2002 at Bethesda Community School, where their now 10-year-old sons were enrolled. It wasn’t long before they began knocking around business ideas. When they realized Sandra’s Fine Jewelry was vacating prime real estate on Bethesda Avenue, they decided to take the plunge. Hugo’s own pieces, simple but elegant and artful combinations of precious metal and gems, are among those on display; there is also jewelry from Turkey, France, Peru and Israel. Malkin has become an ebullient and outgoing saleswoman. Because the two take turns running the shop, they still have time to spend with their families.
“I feel like we’re getting a bit of a do-over,” says Hugo. “I really want my kids to understand that the sky’s the limit, and you can do whatever you want.”
Celebrating the mom-preneur
Corina DuBois balances baby Cole on her lap as she tells the story of going from government consultant to owner of Celebrate Mama!, a services and advocacy organization for mothers. Five years ago, DuBois was working as an independent contractor for Washington state, assigned to prevent the planned closure of military bases there. She did her job so well that instead of being shut down, the bases were expanded.
But it was a hectic time. DuBois, 33, remembers dashing out of meetings in the Pentagon to find her husband holding her first baby outside; she would nurse the baby and then go back to work. Once she finished the contract, DuBois decided to stay home with son Holden, now 5, and embrace motherhood full time. She had another boy, 3-year-old Nolan, and moved to Silver Spring two years ago. Cole was born last June.
Though she loves being a mom, DuBois realized after being home for a while that she missed working elsewhere. “I really grappled with the [idea] that I was a bad person because I wanted to work.” So she bought a Stroller Strides franchise, and she led hour-long outings for new mothers interested in working off their baby fat by walking and exercising together. She met many women eager to work, but unsure of where to begin, so she created Celebrate Mama!, a business that helps women fashion satisfying careers without giving up all of their time with their kids.
Celebrate Mama! (celebratemama.com) is focused on helping mothers become entrepreneurs—“mom-preneurs.” DuBois consults with mothers as they develop business concepts, build Web sites and obtain licensing.
Celebrate Mama! also is known for extravagant events designed for young parents and children, like a festival held in May featuring Thyme Out, a dinner prep service; the American Dance Institute, with its family dance classes; and Stroller Strides, as well as mothers selling crafts, jewelry and services, and activities for children. Similar events are franchised in 12 cities across the nation.
“I feel rewarded in the fact that I’m doing something that I need to do for myself,” says DuBois of her new work. And, she is gratified when a mom she’s never met thanks her for showcasing the possibilities out there for mothers who want to work—and spend time with their children.
Knit one for change
Maybe it was the time her 5-year-old daughter told her, when she returned from a work trip out of town, “It feels like you’re dead when you’re gone.” Maybe it was her first day back at work, when she came home to find her infant son had a 106-degree temperature. Or perhaps it was the nanny who lost her kindergartener one long afternoon. Whatever it was, Lyn Ermer of Bethesda, mother of four, was ready for a change.
A corporate lawyer for MCI, Ermer tried working part time, but her boss was not sympathetic. “Do you want to litigate or do you want to be a mother?” he asked. Her reputation went from being a competent lawyer making million-dollar deals to “an idiot” because she worked part time; she took a 60 percent cut in salary and a 20 percent cut in work, and stuck it out until she was fully vested in MCI. Then she started consulting, as a part-time labor arbitrator. The schedule worked better as she raised her four children, now ages 23, 21, 18 and 13.
When a local knitting store went up for sale, Ermer mentioned it to her husband, and to her surprise he encouraged her to buy it. “I was a beginner knitter. I had no business background. I still can’t read a spreadsheet,” she says. But she had “some wonderful women” who helped her get started, and she opened shop just as the knitting craze began. Her timing was a stroke of luck: despite close to $1 million in sales, she didn’t make any money that first year. “I just didn’t have the skills,” she explains. “I was a fool, but God protects fools and drunks.”
That was eight years ago, and now Ermer runs a thriving business, Knit n Stitch = Bliss, on Bethesda Avenue. Her shop offers a lush selection of yarns, patterns and other knitting inspirations, as well as classes for beginners and advanced knitters. On a typical day, women knit companionably in a central room while others shop for their next project.
“When you’re in law…it’s contentious, it’s argumentative, even when they’re on your side. This is a more artistic community. You’re working together to get something done.” Her staff, almost all women, ranges in age from 15 to 91. “It’s an atmosphere where your family comes first,” she says. “In any other job, I never hugged and kissed people at the end of the day.”
Out of marketing, into art
The first time Martha Lechner Spak of Potomac painted anything it was a mural on the wall of her son’s bedroom: a scene full of characters from Richard Scarry’s books. Then she crafted birdhouses and bunnies for her daughter’s room. “I thought that was fun and easy, and I moved from wall to canvas.” Now she sells her work at design stores—still lifes and landscapes, beach scenes and mountain views, in oil on canvasses large and small.
It’s a long way from Spak’s original career in marketing For Discovery Communications. In the days of “home video,” Spak’s job was to create promotional packages, as in, buy this home video from Shark Week and get a CD-rom and a plush toy free! It was a brand-new field, and great fun to invent it as she went along. She loved the work, and continued part time after her first child,now 16, was born; when her second child, now 13, came along, Spak worked on a contract basis, but finally gave it up. “I wanted to be with the babies when they were small,” she explains. “It became so obvious that I couldn’t do both.”
Spak, 45, never considered going back to marketing. The concrete achievement of creating a completed work of art is satisfying, and the painting, which she does in a small home studio beside her kitchen, allows her to work around the children’s schedules.
Spak is self-taught, so she experiments with new techniques and styles as she goes. Her work, which fills her Potomac home, ranges from impressionistic landscapes with watery horizon lines to a simple assemblage of light-infused lemons, a dark stack of books, even a reproduction of a Manet. But Spak is no art historian. “I can’t spiel off a bunch of artists,” she says, acknowledging that art-show jurors are usually more art-smart than she is. Still, she is accepted to their shows, including one at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria. Her work is also at the Kellogg Collection on Wisconsin Avenue, Patrick’s Designs in Alexandria, two shops in Rehoboth, Del., one in Sterling, Va., and another in Easton, Md.
Selling about 100 paintings a year, Spak isn’t making a living, but she is treating this as a second career, and intends to continue to paint and expand her exposure. Look for her at local festivals—between painting six hours a day and ferrying her children to tennis and swimming, she’ll be displaying her best work.
Virginia Dodd Myers lives in Takoma Park.
