Take it from an expert: "The only thing more stressful than working on a copy desk is being a mother."

A decade ago, as a young up-and-comer, Karen Caputo Craft '77 was grammar's last line of defense at Capitol Hill's most influential news source, The Washington Post. Today she is a full-time mother who takes issue with the June Cleaver image and the stay-at-home vocabulary of the old economy.

"I hate the term 'stay-at-home mom,'" said Craft. "You will not find us at home. My life is full of deadlines, every hour. I am constantly on deadline. I never stopped working, but I completely changed the way I work."

From her Bethesda, Md., home, she works as a freelance copy editor for a trade magazine, Psychotherapy Networker, and as an occasional freelance reporter for the Post. "We need to get out of this mindset where you leave the house at nine and come home at six. The traffic is killing us. Gas prices are killing us. We don't need to do this anymore. We can be flexible," Craft said.

Two decades ago, Shelby Coffey (who would later become editor of the Los Angeles Times and president of CNN Business News) begged Craft's advertising supervisor to transfer her into the news department. She bailed on a management position at the Post to take a job on the copy desk because she thought it would be more fun, and she readily admits developing an addiction to the newsroom, to coming in early and staying late. On the one hand, it might be surprising that she jumped ship in 1989 to raise her first son. On the other hand, Craft has always been willing to make a change.

Fresh out of Colby as a Spanish major after studying for a year in Rome, Craft had no idea what she wanted. "I kind of thought I would be an actress," she said. "But I walked into the right employment office on the right day." That landed her with the Post.

"I stupidly thought I would have a baby, then go right back to work," she said. "But here's what no one tells you: You become addicted to your baby. I became addicted to babies and kids, and nobody was more surprised at that than me. I think the more focused you are on your career, the more you'll become focused on your baby."

Craft does not see herself as a traitor to the women's liberation movement. In this digital age of independent consultants, home offices and telecommuting, she says, women can have a career and still be there when their children get home from school.

"I think mothers should have paid work outside of the home. But maybe that means you get up, go to work and come home at three. You can have an evening together as a family from three to seven.

Her husband, Bill '75, and sons, William, 12, and Max, 8, take up most of her time now, but Craft says she's thinking about making another tire-screeching turn into a new career: "I want to do more freelance writing, but I'm seriously thinking about being one of those people who leave the business world and become a teacher."

-Matt Apuzzo '00