“Does motherhood belong on a resume?”

BBC.com Opinion Article | Author: Meredith Turits | Jun,21 - 2021

“Many have advocated that motherhood is a legitimate job that builds employable skills. Does the title belong on mums' CVs?

“Mums multi-task. They plan. They research, organise, negotiate, manage time and lead.

Although mothers’ juggling hasn’t ever been a secret, their role has, perhaps, never been more obvious than during the pandemic. As schools transitioned to remote classrooms, and women took on more of both the physical and mental load of home life than before, the skills required to keep the trains on the tracks have been on full display.

As a result, the question increasingly floating to the surface is whether or not these skills have a place on mothers’ CVs.

There’s long been a push to recognise motherhood as a legitimate job that trains workers in legitimate skills, valuable to employers. And some voices are getting louder. One of the newest leaders is HeyMama, a US-based community for working mums, who’ve launched a campaign called Motherhood on the Resume. It’s quite literal, says Katya Libin, HeyMama’s co-founder and CEO – the organisation is advocating for mothers to update their titles on LinkedIn, or even add the position on a resume, like any other ‘recognised’ job in, say, sales or engineering.”