DATE: Tuesday, September 16, 1997           TAG: 9709160039

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Elizabeth Simpson 

                                            LENGTH:   67 lines

GROUP HELPS MOTHERS ADJUST TO LIFE OUTSIDE THE WORKPLACE

PROBABLY THE MOST exasperating question Heather Fanguy hears is this:

``What do you do all day?''

And then there's, ``Well, you're a stay-at-home mother, you've got plenty of time to a.) Clean your house to an immaculate state. b.) Cook wonderful meals each and every night. c.) Pitch in on organizing the latest church fundraiser, neighborhood bazaar, or fill-in-the-blank-here-with-some-other-time-consuming-event.''

Those are just the kinds of comments that can cause the walls to close in on at-home mothers real fast.

While Fanguy loves caring for her daughter, 9-month-old Samantha, she also has to admit there are things about work she misses:

The adult conversations.

Being able to run her day according to a schedule.

Hearing feedback from customers and bosses that she does a good job.

Samantha's smiles and hugs are priceless, but she rarely tells her mother what a nice job she does cleaning up after her. Nor does she allow her mother the pleasure of following a schedule.

And being in a relatively new neighborhood in Smithfield, where it seemed that most mothers were working outside the home, Fanguy often felt alone.

One night while cruising the Internet, Fanguy ran across a web page set up by an organization called Formerly Employed Mothers at the Leading Edge.

And there, in the comments from some of the 5,000 members across the country, she found soul mates.

``It made me realize I wasn't alone,'' said Fanguy, who had worked since she was 16, most recently at a furniture store in Smithfield.

She decided to join the organization and start a local chapter. She had her first meeting earlier this month - with six other mothers - and plans to have them twice a month.

The national organization was founded 10 years ago by a former postal carrier named Joanne Brundage in her living room in Elmhurst, Ill. It's since grown to include more than 5,000 members across the country and 140 chapters.

Originally called Formerly Employed Mothers at Loose Ends, the last two words were changed to ``Leading Edge'' in 1991 to squash the notion that these women don't have enough to do.

They felt that, rather than being at loose ends, they are at the leading edge of the feminist movement that seeks to balance work and family. It also underscored one of the organization's missions, which is to make businesses and government more responsive to the needs of families.

The mothers also are making the transition from full-time work to full-time motherhood in neighborhoods that are not the nurturing environments that were the norm in the '50s.

``Everyone thinks your day must be easy and stress-free,'' said Catherine Carone Rogers, a Seattle mother who also handles publicity for F.E.M.A.L.E. at the national level. ``But I've never worked so hard in my life.''

The group helps mothers with survival tips, gives them a network of support, and also a group to talk about things other than children.

The group's guidelines set the chapters apart from the usual mom-and-tot play groups. For one thing, the twice-a-month meetings are for women to attend without their children. While they often discuss parenting subjects, they also try to include topics like stress management, computer skills and discussion of social issues.

``Everyone assumes when you have a baby that you're Mommy and only Mommy,'' Fanguy said. ``They forget you're an interesting person who wants to grow, to keep up to date, for the day you do go back to work.'' MEMO: F.E.M.A.L.E. meets the first and third Thursdays of each month

at 7 p.m. at the YMCA of Smithfield. For more information, call Heather

Fanguy at 357-6956.

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