Working Mothers: Letting Go of Anxiety As A Compass

Doing the impossible:
Le Passe-Muraille, Place Marcel Aymé
Montmartre, Paris

Sunday breakfast on a warm and sunny day. "The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In" by Judith Warner is staring at me from the pages of the New York Times and I am mostly ignoring it.

Like all mothers, "at home" (as if those of us who "work" are not at home) or "working" (as if those of us "at home" do not work), I am exposed to forests' worth of literature on cutting back, leaning in, opting out, having it all (an expression I'm allergic to already as a fundamental existentialist), not having it all etc....

Here is what I know, from experience and from exposure to some genuine experts in work gender equity:

First, if you think it's hard to "work" and "raise a family", you are not being a wimp. It's hard for most women and for modern men according to several recent studies, especially in countries, like ours, where maternity leaves, sick days for when children are sick, flexible work hours etc...are far from standard.

Second, if you're trying to sweat things like the immaculate perfection of your laundry room, the 100% fabulousness of your home cooked meals and the sheen of your windows, mirrors and wood furniture, the cupcakes for the school party, it's not hard... it's close to impossible, unless you are outsourcing, which requires considerable resources.

Third, if you are spending time agonizing about what your lifestyle choice means for your children, I can tell you a thing or two as a child development specialist.  There really is no science demonstrating that children are ruined by day care or that they end up with worse jobs and relationships if you don't spend as much time with them as another parent with a different balance. It's the big things that appear to potentially thwart kids: our happiness or lack thereof, your confidence or lackthereof, deviant and malicious childcare, our relationships with our co-parents, our level of connection with our children.

Big pictures are often complex to figure out: e.g., whether on the whole your work impacts your relationships positively or not depend on many factors, some of which can be more eminently tweakable than you think before just "opting out" or "staying put" exactly as is.

So, no...I don't need to read the details of the "Opt-outers" wanting back in: that seems painfully predictable.

Years ago, I was attending a lovely Halloween party, where the host had hired a "psychic". She was sitting at a table, with her perfect props (glowing green crystall ball and turban) and a long line of women stretching in front of her. Ever the psychiatrist when confronting interesting or perplexing human behaviors, I informally interviewed the women in line: "What do you want to ask the psychic?".  Most of them wanted to ask if....they should go back to work.

So, yes, it's hard, impossible with certain unfeasible game plans, but mostly it's not just your anxiety that should ever be calling the shots about these important, complex, often different across families and couples' decisions.

Till Later,

Anne