When you're covering the legislature, for instance, you often don't know when your day will end, so you may not make it to the day care before it closes. Like other newsroom managers, she offers no single theory on why the proportion of women journalists hasn't risen much in 25 years. Pratt, who is the mother of a preschooler, says parenting issues aren't the only reason women leave the Journal newsroom. Some follow their partners w hen his work transfers out of town. Others move away to be live nearer to family.
Men tend to stay.
They're married, their wives work, they're not as inclined to go elsewhere. I enjoyed that time at home with them. Having just concluded a 15-month leave, she says her adjustment is helped by the knowledge her kids feel happy and loved by their nanny. Most of the freelancers whose work Wilkinson includes in her feature sections are mothers who've forged a working life around their child-care schedules. A lot of women quit, thinking they can make freelance work out for them.