Trading SAHM for SWAT?

Manamana — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:20:35 -0500

There's a new article by Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal that highlights an interesting trend:

The decision among some highly educated women to stay home with children is sparking a countertrend: The rise of the mommy "SWAT team." The acronym, for "smart women with available time," is one mother's label for all-mom teams assembled quickly through networking and staffing firms to handle crash projects. Employers get lots of voltage, cheap, while the women get a skills update and a taste of the professional challenges they miss.

This article seems mostly applicable to the MBA crowd, but similar things are happening in the law (Axiom Legal, for example, is a firm that provides flexible legal hiring). I'm not sure, however, if the trend this article discusses is a good or bad development--after all those long hard years getting a higher education and in the work force, should these women be contracting themselves out for bottom dollar (i.e., aren't they worth more than that, even on a part-time or temporary basis)? Or is this a good way for companies to get affordable troubleshooters and for these women to keep their fingers in the mix? And is this one way to help women who have elected to stay home (perhaps for a limited period of time) be able to "ramp on" in the future?