Specifics of mothers’ behavior in the Russian labor market of 1990th, as well as those during ‘capitalist stabilization’ of the 2000th are reviewed. Data permit to make retrospective assessment of female strategies to combine labor activity with motherhood also during decades from 1940th on. Main accents of the paper are: in 1990–2000th motherhood was effected under conditions of gradually weakening role of institutional support and growing role of personal responsibility. In-formal kin and social networks became more and more popular, their strength, however, with regard to weaker institutions’ role failed to emerge. Women’s orientation to labor market participation was stably high independent of their ideas about ‘main role’ of woman in family and society. Mothers’ adaptation to changing situation was thus made to be flexible and asked for intensive labor efforts – combining domestic and paid labor.