Two posts in one day? Say it isn’t so. As the husband to a current stay-at-home mom, I thought this quote from Debra J. Dickerson in a recent Salon.com article was awesome:

Far be it for me to reduce Nancy Pelosi to merely the sum of the carpool miles she drove, but it took an extraordinary woman to do that and move on to become speaker of the House. To object to Pelosi’s inclusion of children in politics is to presume that an erstwhile stay-at-home mom brings nothing with her to public life from that experience, that she gained nothing from it, that child rearing is mere baby sitting, only keeping children alive till they can take care of themselves. In fact, it is an art and a science and it changes you. It grows you up. At a minimum, it teaches you just how many supposed grown-ups only need a good, long nap to be decent neighbors and co-workers.

All so true. And as someone on the hiring side of the table, I’ve never turned away a candidate coming back to work after staying at home with her children (haven’t interviewed a stay-at-home dad, but I guarantee the reverence is the same). The skills and experiences – mediator, project organizer, leader to name but a few – equate right into the working world.

If you’re a stay-at-home mom getting ready to reenter the working world, welcome back. We need you.