Flip the Script: Embrace the Work Gap of a stay-at-home parent on the resume.
Stop telling stay-at-home parents those years are a waste on the resume.
A great stay-at-home parent has the work ethic of an entrepreneur, they are building their company. They keep the peace between employees (kids), keep their workspace tidy, and work from the dust past dawn. Wake up and repeat. They’re woken up throughout the night from phone calls (kids crying). There’s no question it’s a lot of work and it’s time to flip the script.
Great stay-at-home parents make sacrifices, have incredible self-discipline, and are resilient, organized, selfless human beings. Never discount those qualities and their ability to be amazing leaders in the workforce. Embrace them, knowing they’ve been growing into better versions of themself while being a stay-at-home parent.
Getting up every day at the crack of dawn to care for others is selfless. Giving up a career to aid in being home every day for their child(ren) is a sacrifice. To continue going when their kids are all yelling because they didn’t get pizza for breakfast, or for any other reasons that don’t make any sense, takes resilience. There’s no boss to reward them for completing tasks around the house or keeping everyone’s schedules organized, or treating their “co-workers” with the utmost respect, they have to motivate themself every day for years. Do not ever underestimate a parent's self-discipline, resilience, and persistence to do this day in and day out! If you think, even for a second, that the tasks of a stay-at-home parent are simple things and everyone can do them without any outside pressure- retreat to the pandemic when everyone was staying home. How well did everyone do “simple” tasks? How many people who didn’t even have kids find the motivation to complete the “simple tasks”?
Discounting stay-at-home parents’ work as simple and easy- and therefore has no place on the resume is the wrong way to look at it. Focus on how he/she grew during that time? What skills blossomed? How did they stay motivated? A really good stay-at-home parent will have a host of skills they honed in on during that time- skills that will make them a tremendous addition to the workforce when they decide to return. Stop viewing this time as a negative, and interview them on the positive gains they incurred during that time.