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Sunday, Aug. 9, 1998
A success as single mother and a manager
Long hours she spent on jobs she loved hasn't hurt her children, executive believes
By MAGGIE JACKSON
Associated PressCLARKSTON, Mich. -- Deborah Lowis was never a soccer mom or the class mom.
She couldn't be, raising five children solo while earning bachelor's and master's degrees at night and climbing from receptionist to manager in the corporate world.
It's a work-family challenge that few would envy. Yet she's kept both her career humming and her family together, managing, as she says, ``to make lemonade out of lemons.''
She did it confidently -- and unapologetically. And in an age when parents, especially mothers, often second-guess themselves, and more and more parents are balancing work and home on their own, hers is a story worth telling.
``We've tried (as a family) to look at the big picture, and not be caught up in the pettiness of everyday disappointments,'' says Lowis, a manager for Chrysler who lives in this Detroit suburb with four children ages 11 to 22. The oldest, now 24, lives on his own.
She's had her share of disappointments. When her first husband left her nearly 20 years ago, Lowis was an unemployed college dropout and the mother of four young children. (She later had a fifth child with her second husband, from whom she also is divorced.)
She and her first husband had been living in a commune -- a time in her life that Lowis looks back on fondly. She chopped wood, baked bread and learned not only sharp survival skills but how to sit back and take what comes along.
Even after decades of corporate life and years in the male-dominated auto industry, she still sounds like a flower child, with a singsong way of talking and an office voicemail that begins, ``Hey there, this is Debbie Lowis.''
After her husband left her, she soon landed a secretary's job at a company that later would become part of ABB, a Zurich-based engineering conglomerate. In an era before widespread daycare, she paid neighbors to watch her youngsters.
As she climbed up the ladder, winning promotions and finishing her studies, her hours lengthened. At times, she traveled five days a week.
``When I was younger and she was working so much, it was hard,'' recalls her 21-year-old son Joshua.
But he also remembers his mother being there for the children. ``She doesn't come home from work and go out to a bar with her friends,'' says Joshua. ``She's always at home after work.''
They made family time count. Once a year, no matter how strapped they were, Lowis took the children on a vacation, even if that meant simply renting a cottage in the woods for $100 a week.
She also told them often how much she wanted to spend more time at home. ``I never got to be the class mother, see all the soccer games, but they understood there was no choice,'' says Lowis, a tall, thin woman with an angular face.
Still, she feels certain that the rewards outweighed the sacrifices. By working to survive together, she believes the family has stayed close. By expecting her children to help out, she's convinced that they learned self-reliance.
``Just because I wasn't the one to cook them a home-cooked meal every night doesn't mean they didn't get it,'' says Lowis. ``All my children can cook, clean, do their laundry, get themselves from Point A to Point B.''
As importantly, Lowis was sure that loving her work and doing it well -- even if that meant absences from home -- wouldn't hurt her children.
Work-family studies increasingly back up that idea. Researchers from Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania found that mothers with authority and control at work and fathers who are satisfied with their careers have children with fewer behavioral problems, no matter how many hours the parents work.
Still, many people remain ambivalent about working women. A recent five-year study of the workforce found that while most people think working mothers are just as devoted to their children as homemakers, 40 percent think women should stay home and men should be the breadwinners.
Perhaps the biggest test of Lowis' work-family juggling skills came this year after she designed ABB's winning $330 million bid to help build a Newark, N.J., Chrysler factory for painting cars.
Coming into the project after a Japanese competitor dropped out halfway, Lowis worked seven days a week for months managing 12 contractors working in an 850,000-square-foot building.
To complete the project, Lowis split her family. Her 11-year-old and 19-year-old moved with her to Newark while her three older children stayed home in Michigan. One of the oldest is an engineer, another is a laborer and a third just graduated summa cum laude from college and is entering nursing.
In characteristic style, Lowis took the challenges of the split in stride, saying that it broadened her family's horizons and taught her children -- especially her youngest, Matthew -- to be adaptable.
``Matthew was a little apprehensive, but he took to it like a fish to water,'' she laughs.
Her work led to a job offer with Chrysler, which Lowis accepted in early June. She will be moving to Toledo, Ohio.
``It was really her can-do attitude that brought it all home,'' says Ed Mercer, construction manager for the Chrysler factory. ``Five minutes after I met Debbie, I knew we had a leader.''Post your comments about local news eventsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web