Akademik

n.

A mother who returns to work soon after giving birth. Also: stay-at-work mother.

In 2002 economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett created a stir with her book Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children. Her thesis-that too many women pay for their careers by forfeiting motherhood-was based on a survey of 1,168 high-achieving working women. The bad news: Among corporate types, 42 percent of those surveyed were childless at age 40, the vast majority not by choice. The surprising news: Among entrepreneurs, that figure plummeted to 22 percent.

Could this be the path to the holy grail of having it all? Maybe. At the least, it may explain why, as former Dateline NBC associate producer Wendy Sachs notes in How She Really Does It, women today are launching businesses at double the rate of men. "I interviewed hundreds of stay-at-work moms, and the happiest were those who owned their own business," says Sachs, herself the mother of two.

—Thea Singer, "The Be-Your-Own-Boss Solution," O, The Oprah Magazine, May 1, 2006

"Have fun asking Sarah some beauty pageant stumpers like 'What's the Bush doctrine?' or 'What causes global warming?' Or have Sarah hold her shotgun while talking to Levi (sold separately)! Or pop her into her stay-at-work mom ensemble!"

—Garry Trudeau, Doonesbury: http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/db/2008/09/24/, September 24, 2008

Because he was unable to find any books about being a househusband, Oberle, a writer by trade, decided to produce his own. Diary of a Mad Househusband is a humorous re-telling of the author's experiment in parenting, detailing all the changes that the caregiving father, stay-at-work mother, and active toddler experienced.

—"Happy Father/Mother's Day!," PR Newswire, May 29, 1996