Working moms, what's stopping you from using your flex-time opportunity?

There's no doubt flextime is a working mom's perk and deserved benefit. Yet, for a mom who is fortunate enough to have it, it may not be the dream come true she once thought.

Reports say the working mom isn't using her flextime and for reasons that may surprise you. Sure she faces guilt at home as the kids grab onto her skirt bottom begging her not to leave as she heads out the door. What she didn't expect were feelings of guilt while at work-guilt fueled by envious co-workers who make sarcastic comments shrouded as cute remarks. Comments like "oh, nice of you to drop in" or "decided to put in a full day's work, eh?"

Forget the concern a working mom may have about losing her rung on the corporate ladder as a result of using the flextime benefit; her real concern may be overcoming the lack of support from her co-workers. The same co-workers who cheered her on when she first asked for and received the flextime opportunity, even thanking her for forging the path to career freedom-and yes, even told her to holler if she needed anything... anything at all because she had their support.

Truth is many of those co-workers want flextime themselves but are fearful of asking for it. So instead they beat up on their co-worker mom who does have it in hopes they can make her feel bad enough to give it up and rejoin them in their misery. Forget the fear of an unsupportive upper management; it may be the lack of support from co-workers that has so many working moms giving up their flextime and deciding to either stay home, freelance from home or return to work full time.

I want to know. Working moms, do your co-workers support you or do you feel like giving up your flextime opportunity due to lack support? Co-workers, do you support our working moms or make them feel guilty?

Pat Landaker is a small business consultant and President of the Pat Landaker Agency; she also owns the Think Pink Agency, a resource center and think tank for women career professionals, business owners, entrepreneurs and stay-at-home professionals. www.patlandakeragency.com and www.thinkpinkagency.com