CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The "mommy tax" is a concept that's been talked about for years, where mothers typically earn less than men or even women without children. Working moms feeling the burden of the so-called "mommy tax" are often left asking, "where's the money?"
The Pew Research Center showed, in 2022, women earned about 82 cents for every dollar earned by men and pointed to parenthood as one of the factors setting women back financially.
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Carleen Haylett, founder of Enriched HQ, explained the responsibility of managing kids often largely falls to the mothers.
"So what's happening in the workforce and has been happening, is women are faced with impediments to growth within their profession," Haylett explained. "So whether that be they're passed over for promotions, or choice assignments, and largely driven by the fact that they're struggling to balance the needs of showing up to their jobs, fully productive, as well as being able to manage what's happening at home and care for their kids. So needing to leave the office at certain times, or to pick up and drop off or to be home or not be available for meetings."
In a recent survey of 10,000 of American mothers by the parenting online platform, Motherly, it found, in 2022, 18% of moms changed jobs or left the workforce. Of that number, 28% said they wanted to be home with their kids. However, 15% decided to stay home due to a lack of childcare options.
"I spent the first 11 years of my son's life trying to build this core of care that my son needed," Haylett remembered. "I joke and I say, 'You know, a strong wind and the entire thing came crumbling down.'"
After working in the technology sector for 25 years, Haylett said she had enough of the pitfalls of the "mommy tax."
Haylett said, as a single mother, she really felt those ramifications when needing to find care for her son after school.
"That largely feels like expenses that you have to incur for the right to have a job," Haylett said.
The technology expert said the amount can be upwards of a thousand dollars a month, which is why she helped found Enriched HQ.
"I just got to the point where it was enough, it was enough for me, I needed a solution, every parent I know needed a solution, and decided to found this company that brings together programs for kids, making it making it easy for parents to balance," Haylett shared.
Enriched HQ takes out a lot of the work for parents when looking for activities for school-aged children.
"In the United States, the largest demographic of working parents have kids between the age of 10 and 18, by a wide margin," Haylett said. "Our platform brings together an exclusive ecosystem of activity partners, and does all of the work for vetting these companies for things like teacher certifications, childcare, safety, regulation, compliance, things that take the onus off of the parents."
The company helps provide content for homeschools and activities for kids to do after school if they can stay home alone. That way, working moms don't have to worry about finding enriching materials on their own, while also balancing their own job.
"We focus on life skills, things that will empower kids and give kids skills that will help them thrive in life beyond school," Haylett said. "Things like financial literacy is an important one, how to budget how to invest, how to rent an apartment. Things like entrepreneurship, working problem solving, working as a team, program management are big areas for us, specialized skip STEM programs."
She said many of their partners offer virtual enrichment programs at 50% to 75% off saving parents money in addition to time.
They also have a concierge service to help parents facilitate a better work-life balance.
Contact Jane Monreal at jmonreal@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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