You Can Have It All - Take It by the Slice

The responsibilities of home and to family, our profession aspirations, community service, personal goals.  We are constantly trying to have it all and find a balance between all that we’re trying to do.

As moms, it’s as if we envision ourselves as some type of Lady Justice holding onto this scale balance with our professional pursuits on one side and our home on the other, not letting it tip too far in either direction. Put in 8 hours of work and we push ourselves to get in 8 hours of happy family time, and squeeze in eating, sleep, reading a book, and working out in the other 8.  This notion of balance also leads us to think that we can continually pile more on, as long as we keep it even.  A promotion at work? Better bake some more cookies for the school party?  New office in the PTA?  Put in an extra hour on the job so folks don’t think you’re slacking.  And what happens? The weights get heavier. And eventually, it’s all too much of a burden and we fall.

Perhaps, it’s not a balance we should use in this metaphor.  Perhaps instead, a pie is a better image. Pecan, if we want to get specific.

We can divide our life, our days, into slices – all the things we want to, need to, feel like we have to do.  Work, household chores, hanging out with the kids, volunteering, laying around reading, time to drink coffee in our garden, visiting friends, getting to the gym.  A slice for every little good thing we want to fit in.  Now, you know how to construct a pie, right? You’ve got an 8” pie pan, you can only get so many pecans in there.  Whenever I make a pie, I’m tempted to add just a bit more – just another ½ cup of pecans.  But that extra’s not going to make it better; instead it’s going to overflow into a syrupy, nutty mess all over the bottom of the oven.

Just like with our days – we can only get so much to fit. At some point, we’ve got to decide that the next project, another task, another “yes” is going to make us bubble over.  Instead of adding more ingredients, we have to adjust our slices.  If we want to spend more time hanging out with the family, where’s that time going to come from?  You might decide to take it from Chores and hire a housekeeper, if you are financially able to do that.  Perhaps you will seek more flexible work hours or work from home, gaining an hour or two in commuting.  Or maybe you want to put more hours in at the office or in your own business.  Perhaps its worth your personal goals to spend a little less time at home, let the kids hang out with Daddy or the grandparents – nothing wrong with that.  You may put in some slices that I would never think of and vice versa.

The size of my slices will surely look different than anyone else’s, and will be a different flavor than many.  But that’s alright.  Mine is for me, and your’s is for you.  You keep your fork over there and I’ll do the same.  There’s many options with the size of the slices, but one thing for sure - we’re not getting a bigger pie pan.  So let’s fill it ‘til its full – no more, no less – and enjoy the sweetness of life.

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Could the Dads Be Right?

For as long as I've been a stay-at-home mom - okay, well long before that since I didn't invent motherhood - there's been the stay-at-home vs. working mom debate.   Who was the better mom - the one who fully embraced her domesticity or climbed the corporate ladder? Should women hang up their college degrees or ignore the baby bottles? Clearly those mothers who gave up their jobs and career goals to run around the playground and volunteer with the PTA were a disappointment to all the women who fought and struggled for their equality in the corporate world. Or was it that the moms who pursued their career plans, establishing themselves as experts and commanding respect in their fields, with their own pocket change, were the ones who were doing a disservice to their children, left in the care of some strangers?

And then, to mix it up a little bit, there were the moms who confused the argument by taking their babies to work or taking their work home. Were they cheating, trying to unfairly have it all?

Let's throw into the ring those used-to-be stay-at-home moms who are looking for their old job back. Those who, in the terms of a recent New York Times magazine article, "opted out" and now want back in.  Of course, the three women in the article represent the whole of stay-at-home moms going back to work, right? Divorced or with an unsupportive husband regretting that they left their great jobs in the first place as they try to get back into their cubicles.  They woke up and realized that having to ask hubby for funds to go buy that new pair of shoes wasn't fun anymore. What about the moms who stayed home, had a great time, and don't ever want to go back to work?  The message from these moms is that it's just a matter of time before they'll be begging for their old 9-to-5.

Not to be left out, the single-by-choice moms are putting in their 2 cents.  Now had the other moms skipped the whole marriage and husband bit and kept their jobs all along, they would be happy and at peace right now, with their perfect, non-crying babies and all the freedom to do whatever they wanted with their kid. Formula or breastfeeding, cloth diapers or disposable, organic or totally processed food? They don't have to ask anybody else nothing.

This doesn't even account for all the other mommas out there - you can fill in the blank and all the missing categories.  It's a big momma brawl.

But it doesn't really have to be this way, does it?  We don't see the dads fussing over staying at home or working, opting in or out, getting married or staying single.  Yes, they do make these same choices, but it doesn't seem to be at the level of public discussion as for the moms.  Maybe the guys don't care? Maybe they just do whatever they (and their wife/partner/spouse/baby momma) feel is the right move for them and go with it, not really giving much care to what all the other dads are doing and not feeling the need to tell the other dads that they're doing it wrong.

Hmmm... do the men actually have something right, this time?

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"Lean In" Isn't Such a Bad Message

Lately, two of the top tech-y women in our country have been in the news.  The Yahoo! CEO and new mother, Marissa Mayer, shook up her employees' routine by disbanding the work-at-home / telecommuting model and, at the same time, building a nursery in her office.  Telecommuters and moms, alike, were all in a tizzy.  (You may recall this previous post, I wasn't too crazy about her 2-week maternity leave, but it wasn't really any of my business.)  Her Silicon Valley neighbor, Sheryl Sandburg, the COO at FaceBook, has a new book telling women to "Lean In" and apparently, because she's a bazillionaire and Harvard grad, detractors suggest that we should disregard her message.

Instead, learn from her.

I watched Sandburg's interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday and it was interesting to see the interviewer try to poke holes in Sandburg's advice.  Yes, there remains gender and racial bias in the workplace (you can google the data on women and minority CEOs and corporate executives, if you really need proof.)  Yes, a Harvard grad woman has a few more advantages then someone who went to a non-ivy clad school, or, especially, someone who didn't go at all.  Yes, you do have a few more resources when your husband is also a techy-CEO.  And, you could even argue that as a White woman, she has at least one step up over African-American or other minority women.  Okay, so let's put all that aside.  Consider some of the points of her message.

(These are not direct quotes, but from my notes and memory of her interview.  And no, I have not read the book yet, but it is one of the few non-fictions that I'm putting on my list.)

Women give their family and children consideration in planning their careers - this can hold them back from the higher levels of the corporate world.  Consciously or not, I do believe this is true.  There are few women that I personally know who have not given some thought to the hours, the intensity of the work, the travel involved in taking a particular job in relation to whether they can pick their kids up from the bus stop, make it to PTA meetings, and have dinner on the table.  As women, we often debate on what type of career we will have, if one at all, depending on the type of home lifestyle we desire.  I'm sure many of your mom friends, and possibly you yourself, have faced similar decisions.  There's no judgement there, it's just the way women who are mothers, or wish to be, often think.  And by placing these "limitations", for lack of a better, less charged word, does keep women from the highest rung that they may otherwise reach.

Women don't negotiate for what they're worth.  In her interview, Sandburg admitted that she was going to take the first offer given to her by FaceBook.  It was her husband and brother who convinced her she should negotiate for something higher, for the salary they would pay a man.  Whether making millions or minimum wage, do we, as women negotiate for our true value?  Speaking for myself, I'm a terrible negotiator, even my kids can outbid me.  I will fold in a negotiation because I am nervous about walking away from a good deal, not ready to risk it for maybe something better.  And I don't want to hurt the other person's feelings.  Are most women like that?

Women attribute their successes to luck and help from others, rather than their own skills.  I'm interpreting this as we don't accept the credit for our own merits.  Whether its having well-behaved children or being the smartest in the class or the best employee at work, how often do we shake off compliments and suggest that there was something else that contributed to our job well done.  When was the last time you claimed, "yes, I did it because I'm the best at what I do" rather than "my team/coworkers/nanny/stylist/husband did most of it."  I don't suggest, and I don't think Sandburg does either, to be downright arrogant, but, as I tell my own kids, take some pride in your work.  Yeah, I know what they call women who are too boastful, but whatever.  Men don't care about that either.

Lean in.  Sandburg says by this she means "be ambitious."  Who's arguing with that message?  Yes, some women are ambitious already, so I'm assuming they wouldn't take offense to that.  Is it the unambitious ones who are upset?  Oh, maybe because we are reading it as "...and then you too can be a  COO and a bazillionaire."  I don't know if that's what she meant, but that's not the way I'm taking it.  Let's just think about putting our all into whatever it is we're doing, whether its being a tech-mogul, a partner in a law firm, or a super-cool mom.  Let's tell our girls that - lean in.  Be the smartest in the class, the highest scorer on the team, the class President.

We're willing to ignore and tear apart Sandburg's message because she's rich and smart and, yes, lucky as heck.  The interviewer on 60 Minutes asked if we should listen to her because she's a rich executive. I laughed and said to the TV, "uhh, yeah, she obviously knows what she's doing."  But also, because I like to look at people's successes (bazillionaires or really together moms) and figure out how they can help me be a better me.

Babies, Breasts, and Books - Yes or No?

Did you hear about the university professor who brought her sick baby to work, then nursed her during the middle of class?  It's a lot of issues all wrapped up in that one little story - the values of nursing, challenges of being a working mother and a single mother, what's appropriate in the workplace, and, yes, that ongoing debate I've chatted about before - can we have it all?

Despite the professor's assertions that this is not news-worthy, it has become news.  I've got to admit, its not earth-shattering, but at least its more interesting than which reality-show-wanna-be-celebrity is breaking up with which other reality-show-wanna-be-celebrity.  And Professor Mom teaches a feminist anthropology class, so that just makes it all the more ironic and interesting.

The discussion centers around several decisions and choices she had to make (and many working parents have to make) and folks may agree or disagree with some, all, or none of them.

#1 - What do you do with a sick baby?  As a mother, she had to decide what to do with her baby and her cold.  Go to work and leave her with her childcare provider; take leave/a personal day or whatever is the day off procedure at her university; or take the baby with her to work.  She reasoned that she didn't want to take her to her regularly scheduled daycare (and most likely it was against the health rules) and she didn't want to cancel the first day of class, so she went with option "C".  Okay, plenty of folks take their kids to work, whether they are cleaning office buildings or working behind a desk in one.

#2 - What do you do with the baby now that you are at work?  Let's see, Professor Mom could have left the baby in her office or brought her to class with her.  Easy, right?  This would be a whole 'nother argument if she left the baby sitting in her office and she'd probably be giving an interview from a jail cell.

#3 - Baby's hungry - now what?  Sometime during the lecture, baby got hungry because baby's don't realize its not really a convenient time for a snack break in the middle of work.  Assuming Professor Mom tried to distract baby and convince her she wasn't hungry (moms - you know you've done that when you're busy), she could have given the baby a bottle or breast-fed while sitting in the front of class giving her lecture.  She choice the latter and that's when the milk hit the fan.

The university said they didn't have a policy on such a situation.  Note - I always find it funny when you see what seems to be an obvious rule or warning posted somewhere, because you know someone did something to make it necessary to post it.  "Warning: Contents are extremely hot" on a coffee cup?  Okay, back to the topic...

So, the University didn't have a policy, but don't work places have some general rules about professionalism and what's allowed or not allowed at work?  Breastfeeding is of course, the issue here; this would not have been news if she had popped a bottle in baby's mouth and kept going.  And I do admit - I wonder if she had changed the baby's diaper in class would this have become an issue?  Or what if Professor Mom taught Accounting rather than Anthropology - would she feel as justified in her choice?

Wherever one falls on this debate, it does raise that question again - can we have it all?  I say no, but that's okay.  We just have to choose what's the most important, grab that, and try to get as much of everything else that we can.

Who said we could have it all, anyway?

As a college student, I frantically studied compound interest rates, internalized queueing theory to the point that, even now, standing in a line, I look around for a more efficient way to manage all the waiting people, and calculated and recalculated linear programming models to optimize moving crates on a ship to port.  Like everyone else in my classes, I imagined one day sitting at a grand desk, sitting atop the broken ceiling glass, as the COO of a major manufacturing corporation, an international one so that I could and would be required to travel regularly.  At the same time, I would be a mom who showed up for the chorus performance, baked cookies for the Valentine’s party, taught Sunday School, and kept an immaculate home.

I soon came to the realization that all that wasn’t possible, at least not for me.  This realization became evident to me as I worked 12 hours a day, on the late afternoon/night shift in a production facility.  I almost forgot what my husband looked like awake.  But I thought that if I changed my professional goals and realigned my plans, I could have more of what I wanted – a career and the life of June Cleaver - if I was a teacher.

When my daughter was born, I had all intention of going back to work and I did.  I enjoyed my job, I really did love teaching, but I couldn’t wait to get back to her.  I was so anxious about what she was doing and what I was missing in her little teeny life while I was at work.  So, I eventually quit.

And that was hard.  Because it’s hard to answer that inevitable question at alumni events with “no, I’m not working, I’m staying home with my daughter.”  It’s hard to explain to folks why I was sitting at home playing pat-a-cake and Itsy Bitsy Spider with an MBA hanging on the wall.  It was hard watching my friends’ careers take flight.  It was hard walking around empty handed at my husband’s work events while everyone else was passing out business cards.  Being a stay-at-home mother was a very hard transition, almost more so than becoming a mother.

But it was a choice that I made, with 100% support from my husband.  I weighed the options.  I could be a working mother, at whatever career level I aspired to, or I could be a stay-at-home mother.  (Now, as an aside, let me say that both of these terms are a bit inaccurate as every mother is “working” and not too many “stay-at-home”.  But, back to where we were.)  It was obvious to me, that I couldn’t “have it all”, not if “all” was defined in the way I had framed it in my head when I was 20-something years old – a high-level, travel around the world, executive career and a be-there-for-every-moment motherhood.  There was no way that was possible as far as I could see it.  Many women are still striving for this holy pink grail of womanhood, but  I still don’t see it - not for me, not for anyone.  At the risk of annoying or insulting any of my acquaintances, I don’t know anyone who does have it “all”.

I have friends who have dynamic, interesting, awe-inspiring careers and no children, friends who are fully and wholly devoted to their house-full of children without a career in sight, and friends all along the continuum in between.  We each have made some crucial, important, and very personal decisions and choices to be at our particular point in life.   There’s not one that I think has it “all”, but I do believe that most of my friends are happy with their lot, whether heavier on the career side or the family side, or somehow balanced.  Even the idea of a balanced work-family combination, it still considers a selection of choices.  I know women who have good, mid-management careers who have forgone the climb up the ladder because they would rather spend some time cheering on basketball games and sitting through dance recitals.  I don’t know if that’s having it all, but it seems like a pretty good mix.

The entire discussion of having it all is interesting, because it seems almost faulted at its root.  In what other aspect of life, can we have it all?  Yes, I do lament that I can’t have a perfect hourglass, size 4 figure while by-passing the gym and eating chocolate cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Not ready to offer me a solution, are you, because that’s just ridiculous.  Even Jesus couldn’t have it all.  He begged His Father for some other solution – could He be the Saviour of mankind, but not have to die as prophesied for the past couple thousand years?  Apparently not.  So who are we to think that we can have the corner office and the corporate jet, and still make it to school for the sing-along and have a ready plate of brownies every time the little folks get off the bus?

I think we all can strive to find the mix that works for us.  That configuration of professional existence, motherhood, wifey-ness, and our own personal self that defines who and what we are.  Instead of worrying about how to have it “all”, I think we should focus on having what we want, really and truly.  Do we really want to be a corporate executive or do we really want to be a mom or do we want something in between?  There’s no right or wrong, and there’s no need to rearrange society so that everyone can have all of both.  And we shouldn’t make it seem like there’s something wrong with any woman (or man, for that matter) who isn’t trying to grab all the crayons in the box.

I don’t have any scientific numbers or quotes from highly intelligent people to bolster my position.  Partly because I’m writing this post in the middle of the night, while eating a peanut butter & jelly sandwich for dinner because we were at a swim meet until almost dark and then came home and watched the Olympic trials long after my children should’ve been in the bed.  Partly because I will forget to look for any factual evidence by the time I get everyone to their activities and return to my computer for a few quiet moments tomorrow.  And partly because, well, I figure I’m intelligent enough to at least come up with my own opinion, without anyone telling me what I'm supposed to want.  And so are you.