Going Grey

There are certain lines you never forget.  Sentences so hard, meaningful, profound or just so plain true (or not true!) that they come to punctuate your decision-making, anecdotes and advice.  As I've engaged in the complex issues of working parenthood, whether they were my own dilemmas or somebody else's, there have been a few zingers that stopped me in my tracks, and then set me down a better path.

I am so grateful for them.  For the comments, and for the friends and family who made them.  My personal board of directors who have always bravely told me what I needed to hear, whether or not it matched what I wanted.

One of my favorites was advice to 'stop looking at everything in black and white, and learn to live comfortably in the shades of grey'.

It's the Either/Or ultimatum that gives oxygen to working mom guilt.  When you program yourself to believe that there are only good outcomes or bad outcomes, right decisions or wrong decisions, you are sunk as a parent, working or not.  Rationally, I always understood this.  It's sometimes harder to shake the mindset.  

Tonight my husband and I both had funny stories to share from this week about no longer being the hot young thing in certain contexts.  We laughed about the grey - and I remembered this line.  Grey - whether it is years of experience, or an ambiguously defined set of rules - is something I can embrace.  Finding and enjoying the grey - the good enough, the not so bad, the win-some-lose-some-who-cares-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things, has been priceless advice.

What advice made a difference to you?  Have you passed it on?

Moms Under the Influence

"Well maybe you should just put your kids up for adoption and get a goldfish instead!"

Over the holidays, as we caught up with loved ones and talked about our plans for the new year, we let our friends know that my career break (which had been so enthusiastically welcomed by the crowd) is coming to an end and I'm gearing up to return to work.  Let's just say not everyone is keen on the idea.

And I can handle that - mostly.

The comment above was an obvious tease from someone I love.  I laughed politely.  Ha ha ha ha!  But hours later, I found myself wondering, preposterously, if maybe I shouldn't be going back to work yet?  Even though I am excited - like, really excited, about rejoining the working world.  Luckily I caught it, and was able to link the thought to the comment and discard it. I haven't always been able to do that.

I haven't always been clear on my choices as a working parent.  I gain a lot from exploring the topic.  But not all of it is helpful.  Sorting through the masses of opinion to pinpoint your own can be a bit of a minefield, especially for new moms in demanding fields.  For anyone with even a hint of conflict, the opinions of others can be as tempting and treacherous as forbidden fruit.

Much has been said of the influence mothers have.  Aren't we collectively responsible for the future of therapy as an industry?   As parents, as consumers, as a voting block, moms are an influential group.

But what about all the things that influence us?  Whether we are aware of it or not, we are influenced by a barrage of information and opinion from the media, advertisers, bloggers, online communities and friends, families, and of course, most powerfully of all, our own mothers.

Judith Warner's 2006 book, "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" in part recaps an exhausting history of dominating opinions about where and how mothers should fit into society and the socio-political factors that have ebbed and flowed over the last century and longer.  And how often, the attitudes of a generation of mothers is driven by the desire to avoid the perceived misery of the mothers before them, whether that was being stuck at home, or working full time.  Reading it you can't help but feel like a little bit of a chump for falling for any of it.  What a frustrating relief to find that generations of women have.  How liberating to recognize when the noise is, well, just noise.

How do you filter out the noise?  And what are some of the soundbites that have rattled you the most?

Daughters of the Revolution

I am the Gen X daughter of a Boomer, and the mother of a girl who, I learned today, is on the trailing end of the newly named Generation Z, or the iGen. Lately I have been thinking a lot about what one generation of mothers gives to the next, and how some of our challenges are timeless, while others are shaped by the times. What will my daughter take from my choices and experiences? And how will those choices and experiences shape the advice I give her?

Our Boomer moms were the first generation of liberated women, and they raised us Gen Xers to forge new paths, follow our dreams, maintain some degree of financial independence and yes, pursue successful careers. Because of them, we are the lucky beneficiaries of the Freedom to Choose, finances aside, whether to work or not. But lots of moms (grandmothers) have strong opinions about the choices their daughters make when they become moms themselves - especially when there is already a working spouse in their house. The question I've been mulling is: Do Boomer Women's attitudes around working women and working mothers shift when they become grandmothers? Or have they simply shifted with the trends of our times? Or are we all collectively grappling with the newer complexities that freedom and choice give us?

Yesterday I read Kate Bolick's provocative and well-researched article All the Single Ladies in the Atlantic about the rise of single working women and the dearth of conventionally-defined "eligible men" as an unintended consequence of the rising success of women. I was struck by the parallel path I had been taking with this post, and how the issues our generation faces are as thorny for those who marry and mate as they are for those who do not. Bolick writes how her "future was to be one of limitless possibilities" and how "this unfettered future was the promise of my time and place." Amen - I hear that! But when she added, "What my mother could envision was a future in which I made my own choices. I don't think either of us could have predicted what happens when you multiply that sense of agency by an entire generation" I sensed it wasn't just the single ladies who wondered if maybe there needed to be an asterisk to the promise of limitless possibilities* (like, *they all come with trade-offs). And at what point do I start incorporating that asterisk into how I inspire my children about their futures?

The Boomer voices in my world - not just my mother's - repeat the chorus 'It goes by so fast.' It resonates. I can move myself to tears just imagining an empty nest years from now. But it seems to me when this truth is spoken in the context of career choices - the implication is if you work too hard, you'll miss it. It's worth noting that I don't know a lot of Boomer women who sustained successful, demanding careers through motherhood - and I certainly haven't had Boomer moms as mentors or sponsors in my professional life. So I'm supplementing with the views of two prominent feminist Boomer grandmothers who have had their cases made in the media this summer - Elisabeth Badinter and Erica Jong.

Soon to be released is Badinter's latest book, Conflict: the Woman and the Mother which was profiled at length in the New Yorker (in an article by Jane Kramer that I recommend paying to download if you have to) and more briefly in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in which she takes aim at "motherhood fundamentalism," laying out a number of themes that have driven women back into the home and away from work. In response there were several pieces by Erica Jong published in the Wall Street Journal ("Mother Madness") and the New York Times this year about today's mothers - including the assertion that we are so focused on family that we are shunning sex. (To this there was a lovely response from a young mother named Hallie Palladino, in the New York Times' parenting blog, Motherlode).

Essentially they both argue that motherhood - with the rise of attachment parenting, co-sleeping, year-long breast-feeding, cloth diapers and home-made baby food have trapped mothers into an impossible set of expectations, all of which are keeping us increasingly tied to the home and feeling guilty when we provide any less than a 100% of ourselves to our children. Jong asks, "Is it even possible to satisfy the needs of both parents and children? In agrarian societies, perhaps wearing your baby was the norm, but today's corporate culture scarcely makes room for breast-feeding on the job, let alone baby-wearing. So it seems we have devised a new torture for mothers—a set of expectations that makes them feel inadequate no matter how passionately they attend to their children."

Still, when I surveyed my peers about what their mothers think about managing both career and family, there was a wide range of perspectives, some surprising, some inconsistent, but almost always coming from a supportive, well-meaning place. I wondered, when they discourage us, however subtly, from trying to juggle it all, is it because they falling victim to the same trends we are? Or, I wonder, it is a highly personal response - one that thinks of what is best for the grandchild first, then the daughter? Or is it simply a perspective that can only come from having a generation's worth of experience in parenting - that childhood is fleeting, and you don't need to have it all, all at once? Or that they see how hard the juggle is and wish it wasn't so? I've come to believe it is mainly the latter, but perhaps elements of all those things are true.

A college friend hit it on the head for me: "Overall, I think our mothers have the perspective of knowing there is no perfect/ideal choice and there are compromises to ourselves or our family, whatever path we may go. What my mother has stressed to me is how the level of contentment a mother feels directly correlates to the harmony of the family. For me, I believe this is an absolute truth - and my choices are, and will continue to be, a function of my families' unique needs, at any given time. I hope I can maintain that mantra...and maintain myself at the same time. I think my mom is most troubled by the amount our generation of mothers is attempting to juggle. Put to a simple example, our mothers (working or not) used playpens and didn't for a moment feel guilty about it -- that type of dynamic has completely changed and the impact to the family is very real. My mother-in-law seems saddened by all the pressures we have to be mothers and career women as well. There are serious growing pains with the choices we have - and our mothers are witnessing it. (italics mine)"

Do you think your children's well-being depends almost exclusively on you? Does your mom? How does she advise you about juggling it all? What's the most encouraging tip she's ever given you?

Before you respond, and I really want you to -- here's are my own mother's thoughts on this particular conundrum:

"The predominant factors that influence the advice a mother gives to her daughters are drawn from personal experience. So in my limited way, I gleaned “wisdom” from my own personal experience and passed along my feelings, observations, opinions and aspirations to my daughters. I felt happy, lucky, and very fortunate indeed to be able to stay at home and care for my daughters during their formative years. I surrounded myself with caring, upbeat, educated, professional women who had made the same choice that I did. We loved caring for our children and relished in bonding lifelong friendships. That was a magical time of discovering what really mattered in life. We volunteered in the community, engaged in creative activities, took classes, learned to cook, worked part time, and visited every child-friendly resource available. We stopped and smelled the roses. It was an option that today’s women and most men never have the good fortune to experience.

But all was not like the life of June Cleaver. There were days when being a full time mom felt trying and stressful, frustrating and limiting. While I was busy building my family, other women were busy building their careers. Being an achievement-oriented person, I sometimes felt that my life could have taken a different path, one that led to making lots more money, or one that led to more prestige, responsibility, accomplishment of things more highly valued and rewarded by society. I was outside looking in, and saw the glamorous, rewarding side of being a professional woman. I knew that excelling in a profession demanded concentration, hard work, time and energy, but because I had not chosen that route, I never gave much thought to how that concentration, hard work, time and energy could affect one’s life as a mother.

Throughout my formative years, I remember hearing over and over again that teaching was such a wonderful job (not career, profession, but job) for a woman. That, in fact, proved to be true. I could have it all. Or did I? I did feel that that career choice (did I have a choice?) in itself, was limiting. I don’t remember having a choice of what I wanted to do. It was always assumed that I would be a teacher.

When I returned to teaching full time at age 40, I was able to juggle my time, vacations, and experience success and fulfillment in my teaching career. What I did not have to do was work late, commute long distances, find daycare during school holidays, travel, worry about building my resume, posturing myself for raises or promotions, or keeping an eye out for future career opportunities for climbing the corporate ladder.

The advice that I gave my daughters over and over again, was that they could make whatever choices they wanted when choosing a career path. The world was theirs. However, this advice was heavily slanted towards keeping their options open for advancement, increased earning capacity and accomplishment in that path, something that was not available to me in my career. If you love teaching and stay in the classroom throughout your career, you are doing the same thing at the end of your career that you did on the first day of your career. And whether you are a rock star at teaching or a slacker, you are receiving the same pay as everyone else. I wanted my daughters to have choices that I felt I did not have. The advice that I gave never focused on careers that would be good for a woman, or for that fact, for a family.

Late in my career in education I moved to a position as an administrator in the central office of a large school system (15,000 employees). This position was similar to one in a large corporation - with it came stress, long hours, pressure, extreme visibility, politics, management and budgetary issues. I found myself so busy and consumed with work that my husband had to step up to the plate and manage the plans and arrangements for our daughter’s wedding!!! Was there such a thing as work/life balance? I was caught up in what my daughter is now experiencing, only I was doing this as an empty nester and she as a mother of young children. I’m not happy about the choice I inadvertently made to “opt out” of the wedding plans. Can I go back and redo it? That moment in time is lost forever.

We only get one chance to raise our children. There are no do-overs. But there are continuing opportunities to get back into the job market and a time to devote yourself to your career with a vengeance! When reentering the workforce, one might find, as I did, that I had the total support of my husband who was secure in his own career and shared family responsibilities and believed in me, maturity to make good decisions and the time to carry through and execute ideas flowing from those decisions. It’s true, I envisioned great opportunities for my daughters, but I could not have possibly imagined what it would be like to walk in their shoes. Times, economic conditions, attention to unique situations that arise in the family, nanny issues, and other outside influences all contribute to the stressors that make up life for a working professional and a mother. That said, seventeen years later, the house is very quiet. A person could feel drained and empty if all their eggs had been invested solely in the mommy basket for all those years."

She ended with, although we are not overly religious, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 - 'To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven'. So this isn't new afterall. I guess doing it all, all at once, has been fraught with difficulty for thousands of years.

Commuting [is] for Dummies

In my twenties, I moved around a bit. My first move, I moved 5,126 miles, from New York City to Chile. Then, I moved 7,246, from Chile to London. But by far the scariest move I ever made was the 12 miles from Manhattan to the New Jersey suburbs. Suburban life is all about trade offs, and many of them were terrifying, but ultimately rewarding for me. But one trade off that still smarts is the c-word. The commute.

So for those working city moms dreaming about play basements, backyard bbqs and free, fantastic schools, let me lay this out for you as best I can. Here is the truth about transit.

The Good:

- Ask any working mom about personal time and you will hear a low, scary cackle begin to form in her throat. It's hard to come by. But the commute can be a great escape - consider it Forced Relaxation. Read your mags, catalogs, play a little scrabble, you name it. Go to sleep. Goof off. Enjoy your coffee.

- Time, personal or otherwise, is precious and the train or bus provides nice, 40 minute chunks of it. You can also be incredibly productive with work work or home work while commuting if you can't bear to relax.

- It's greener than driving yourself.

- There's a unspoken solidarity amongst commuters. You all have to suffer through the snow days and signal failures. And whether you realize it or not, all those peeps are your neighbors so perk up!

- There are really cool, interesting, challenging jobs in the Big Smoke. And there are beautiful places to live in the suburbs. Commuting lets you have both. Amazing! Fantastic!

The Bad

- Mother Nature. Rain, wind, sleet or snow, you still have to go to work. But you will not, I promise you, get there on time. You will get there after shovelling your driveway, slipping, falling and cursing to the station, and waiting through extended delays in 2 degree weather with ice boogers in your nose.

- The Lunar Calendar. Thanks to daylight savings you will be doing all or part of this commute, for half the year, in the dark. And in your really cool black city outfit, you will be completely invisible to motorists, unless, of course, it's snowing again.

- The bookends. It's not just the train, or the bus, but getting to the train and the bus, and then getting to your office. Forget about in arriving in those new platform heels, mommy - because you'll be rocking flip flops for 9 months of the year.

- The Buzz Kills. Not that there is a euphoria to commuting but there are always those folks who just make it worse. You will identify them for yourself, but for me it is these guys: the ones who sit on the aisle with their bag in the center seat who make you ask if you can sit there, then roll their eyes, pick up their bag, stand, step aside, so YOU can sit in the middle, instead of scooting over and letting you sit down. Also, smelly people (includes coffee breath), drunk people and people who berate their girlfriends/dump people on their cellphones at 7AM.

- The schedule. Again, "Time" makes the bad list. No matter where you choose to live, it is unlikely that you will have train service running every 15 minutes throughout rush hour. No, you will have about 4 options inbound and outbound, which means you will spend a lot of your morning and evenings, hustling, I mean hustling, to make your train. It's about as fun as it sounds.

- Delays. As if the limited schedule was not bad enough, whether you are driving, busing or taking the train, delays are inevitable. If you are really unlucky you will get to spend this extra unplanned time in beautiful Port Authority or Penn Station. The clevercommute will fill your email with warnings so you can alert your partner, nanny, kids, boss that you will not be where you are supposed to be at the intended time.

- Driving. Driving is good if you go off peak - no traffic, reasonable parking rates. But by off peak I mean 6 AM in and 9 PM out. Otherwise, be prepared to remain in first and second gear for an hour, not look at your blackberry, get car sick anyway, pay an astronomical toll and then an even bigger parking fee. Oh yeah, and gas.

- The Drunk Train. Work dinner? Long, overdue catch up with old friends? Have a blast! But if you don't feel like spending $70 on a ride home too, be prepared to catch the 11:12 with a whole bunch of people who partied more than you. If you manage to stay awake and get off at your stop, you still have to get home, alone, late at night, in the dark.

The Ugly

-Squandering your most precious resource. This is the true calamity of commuting. No matter how much relaxing, emailing, texting, reading or planning you do during your commute, for working moms caught between trying to succeed at the office and be an engaged parent and spouse, commuting time is a black hole of 2 - 4 hours a day that are not furthering your career or making you a better parent. Because it's all about being present, and you can't be present when you are on the train. It's just a fact. And it sucks.

I don't know any moms who like commuting, although I know a few who don't seem to mind it. If you're out there - let us know how you do it. Me and all the other moms who want it all - or at least of lot of both - would like to know.