Last week, I mentioned that I had attended a workshop entitled, “Forget Balance, Try for Sanity Instead” led by Lisa Belkin, the author of The New York Times “Life’s Work” column and now a blog/column called “Motherlode.” Belkin also wrote the controversial 2003 New York Times Magazine article, “The Opt-Out Revolution,” in which she chronicled a number of well-educated, successful women’s decisions to leave the workforce to concentrate on their families. She is the author of several books including Life’s Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom.
Belkin began the workshop (which it turns out was much like her book) by sharing her personal history, beginning with growing up in a Long Island suburb with her working mother (teacher first, later a lawyer) and her orthodontist father. After college, she landed a highly coveted job as a “clerk” at The New York Times. In between answering the phone, fetching coffee, and filing, she could write articles that the editors might accept. She LOVED this job and soon propelled herself into a real reporter position. She worked 24/7 -- her work was her life and she couldn’t imagine anything different.
Then she met Bruce and they quickly fell in love. Bruce was a medical student soon moving to Houston for a fellowship. Belkin tried to persuade the Times to hire her in their Houston office, but when they refused, she quit and moved to Houston with Bruce. She freelanced, discovering in the process that you don’t actually have to be physically in the same place as your editor.
She and Bruce got married, started a family, and moved back to New York, this time to the suburbs. After trying various unsatisfactory arrangements, she decided to quit The Times again and work freelance from home. Technology helped, but this solution also failed fully to satisfy. Recounting stories familiar to all of us who have ever been working mothers, she describes editing an article with a deadline simultaneous to a pediatrician’s appointment that included shots; she poured over the galleys in the waiting room while another mother glared at her. Another time, she conducted an important interview (by phone) in the midst of potty training her son; you can imagine his background commentary.
Her bottom line: big surprise, having children changes your worklife. All the babysitters, au pairs, nannies, home offices, flex time, and technology cannot make it possible to work the way she did when she began at The Times and be an even moderately effective mother. We can’t be fully present for work at the same time we’re fully present for homelife. “Not a one of us seems to be able to give 100 percent of themselves to their job and 100 percent of themselves to their family and 100 percent of themselves to taking care of themselves. . . . No one can do it, because it can’t be done.”[i] So we have to make some choices about how we allocate our time and energy.
I’ve often talked in this column about not worrying about being perfect, about choosing what we like to do, and only making the homemade cookies if we actually enjoy that excercise. We can’t be all things to all people. Belkin would certainly agree. “. . . let’s start forgiving ourselves when we cannot do it.” [ii] We need to give ourselves license to eat take out, have an untidy house, offer storebought whatevers, both because it is simply impossible to do everything and because we need to prioritize what’s important.
I would add that the 1950s, when many women devoted themselves to household management, were in many ways stultifying. The feminist movement grew out of this period for a reason. We should be grateful that we have choices, and make them, rather than trying to be both June Cleaver and Murphy Brown simultaneously.
Which brings me to one of Belkin’s most interesting and important points: gatekeeping. We all know the statistics about how much more time women spend on household chores than men. Working women and equal rights advocates bemoan this state of affairs and often implicitly blame men. However, several scholars, including Naomi Cahn at George Wasthinington University Law School and Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild whose book Second Shift pioneered its eponymous concept, argue that women themselves bear part of the responsibility. There are responsibilities we insist on keeping for ourselves, clinging to the belief that only we can do them. Belkin cites shoe shopping as her example – only she ever took her sons shoe shopping. But, as she points out, her husband wears shoes, shoes he purchases for himself. He’s probably just as capable of buying shoes for their sons as she is. Belkin claims the shoe shopping and then criticizes her husband for not knowing their sons’ shoe sizes. As Hochschild explains, “Certain acts of motherhood become hypersymbolized and we have to learn to let that symbolism fall away.” [iii] I had quite a long list of tasks I kept behind the gate; shopping for my son’s clothes was one of them. However, I can say that, over time and mostly out of necessity rather than humility, I have let most of them go (though, of course, not all – my son’s haircuts absolutely require my attendance). While I don’t always agree with everything my husband does, he is an enormous help and I try to hold my tongue and appreciate all his support.
What led GW professor Cahn to this topic was a realization that “workplace change will be hampered until women relinquish some of the power that they have at home.”[iv] Belkin believes that the “emotional and economic tug-of-war” that comes from “collisions that happen daily at th[e] intersection . . . of life and work” is “the central story of our generation.”[v] Whether it’s the central one, I don’t know, but I’ll grant her that it is an important one. I covet my family time, and dearly wish I had more time for them and for myself. However, I also recognize that I have the job I do out of choice; I could do something else with the same earning power that would give me more time. Plus, and this is even more important, I quibble with the distinction between life and work. Those of us who work outside the home spend a great deal of time doing it. If our work is not part of life, then we are wasting a huge percentage of our lives. I would hope that everyone would be able to find some sources of satisfaction in their jobs, if only in a task well done and the companionship of colleagues.
Most of us do not have careers that allow us to go freelance and work at home. I’m all for creating equality at home, but we also need to continue to work on workplace reforms that allow us to remain economically competitive while giving both men and women better quality of life -- meaning work and family. And this is only going to happen if women keep pursuing these issues while rallying male allies to help us. Belkin pointed out that academia and the law are two areas where the process for advancement are most disadvantageous for women because the timing for tenure and partner decisions conflict with women’s biology. Yet these are both areas where there are large numbers of women – as we all know, half the students in law schools are female. And even though the sheer number of women in these fields has been significant for some time now, little has changed. As a result, many women “opt out,” to use Belkin’s phrase. While this may prove a good personal decision, these choices are disadvantageous economically; we lose too many well-educated, talented women from the workforce. In addition, we lose the people who might fight for change.
In the midst of thinking about all Belkin has to say, I came across Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO’s commencement speech at Barnard College. She challenges the class of 2011 to take on what she calls “this generation’s central moral problem . . . gender equality.” She offers another angle on the same issues, and one we need to consider. Which we will, next week.
