The Maternal Wall in Libraries?

Once again I find myself pounding the pavement as it were looking for a new position as a librarian. This time however I find myself having even less success than the last time I looked for a job despite a new gung ho attitude and a positive new spin on marketing myself and ironically three more years of experience. Every time my phone calls are not returned yet again I start to get suspicions why.

You see, since I last worked as a librarian, I have gained five years of more than full time experience in another highly demanding field. You could say that I have experience working with children in a particularly intimate way. Yes, I am a stay at home mother to a five year old girl and a three year old boy. Naively I thought I would stay home with the little ones until they were ready to go back to school and then carry on where I left off. That was before I heard about the Maternal Wall.

Not that I know for sure that this is the issue in my case, just that I know anecdotally from other stay at home mom librarians that it can be hard to get back in the field once you've been out and I also know that discrimination against mothers is widespread in business and the professions. With the wage gap between non mothers and men being narrowed, discrimination against mothers is in large part to blame for there still being a wage gap at all. I also have experienced particularly in academic libraries that the value placed on the so called ideal worker, ei one without outside obligations is huge.

So, where does this leave me? So far I'm learning Spanish and taking a multitude of continuing education courses in my "spare time". It has also left me wondering if some of the continuing education I take should not possibly be in the direction of a new career.