Tina Fey, I hear ya. As working moms, we’re asked an unfair question when we are asked about “juggling it all.” And I’m with you on the angst about working and parenting, except your triannual sob is my quarterly crisis.
Tina Fey, about-to-be-Momma-again-hilarious-comedian-“ridiculously-successful-and-famous”-deserving-it-girl, was showcased in an article in yesterday’s New York Times. It was in The Sunday Styles section, a portion of the paper I fondly refer to as the “Ladies’ sports section.” I can’t remember who coined the name, but the section is defined by wedding announcements, articles about junky TV, and snapshots of random strangers carrying coffee or poodle accessories in Manhattan. But I sincerely don’t mean to marginalize it. Often the section houses little storytelling gems that sit with me all week. Yesterday’s piece about Ms. Fey got my heart pounding. There she was, one of the funniest people on the planet, saying the same things that I do. Well kind of. Our only similarity really may be that I’m just another working mom. But it made me want to listen to her even more.
Tina, like the rest of us, is asked to defend her work, her “juggle,” her parenthood differently because she’s a mom. Curtis Sittenfeld writes that in Ms Fey’s new book Bossypants (dying to read it–can you find me 4-5 hours?) Ms Fey asserts, “‘The rudest question you can ask a woman’ is, ‘How do you juggle it all?”” Simply put, it’s archaic to think of life this way. Women are continually reminded to question their choices differently than male counterparts in the work place even when we share parenting responsibilities. The questions alone arguably bring the working-mom struggle back to our windshields. And it ultimately perpetuates gender inequality. Why is it any different for me than it is for my husband? He works just as many hours as I do. But no one asks him about balance. Or commitment. True, this struggle really doesn’t tug on him like it does on me. I believe cultural norms play a role in this.
You know how I talk about my quarterly Working Mom Crisis (sitting in circles, being smoooooooshed, mother’s day, for example)? It’s not going away. Because ultimately juggling/balancing/negotiating working and parenting is an unsolvable riddle. How to do good, feel good, work hard, parent exquisitely well, and feel comfortable with your choice all the while enmeshed in a culture which continually asks you to question your role. Ms. Fey mentions that when people ask her how she “juggles it all” she says, “Of course I’m not supposed to admit that there is triannual torrential sobbing in my office.” And then smarts, “But I have friends who stay home with their kids and they also have a triannual sob, so I think we should call it even.”
A Mommy Wars truce then. Perfect.
What about you, do people ask you? With what frequency do you question how to work and parent? Quarterly/monthly/weekly/daily?
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Kelly says
I’m currently in school but have been a stay-at-home (as if that means I’m ever home!) mom for 15 years. There is no way to answer anyone’s question about being a mom honestly. It’s way too complex. I haven’t been working out there and I feel whiny complaining about how hard it is. I will be working and can’t imagine how I’ll do it. But others do so I’ll get up and do it.
I keep coming back to something I read a while back. We moms need to stop judging and support each other instead. With a few exceptions, we all want to be the best parents possible. We all want to give our kids the best example of women that we can. We want to raise respectful, honest, loving, independent adults.
My best advice is to be as honest as possible with each other about how freakin’ hard it is! Own up to your mistakes and your flaws. It makes it paves the way for other moms to own up to it too. Not having to keep up some kind of impression of perfection will eventually make it just a wee bit easier.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
@Kelly
Exactly! What Tina Fey points out illuminates our similarities (we all have our triannual sob) rather than our differences. We all have the sob-fest (I think). We’re all working so hard to do this right! Aligning ourselves, rather than perpetuating and highlighting our differences, will make it easier. And likely let us enjoy it all a bit more, too.
Dana says
Wendy, These days I’m having more and more of these moments, but I think that’s just life as a woman with kids — trying to give the best to my children, my husband, my family, my job … the list goes on! Great post and insight, as always!
Dana
Lisa says
I’m new to the blog thing – how do I just ask you a question? My 6-year old son has to have surgery next month for a thyroid duct sist. How do I tell him? How much should I explain? Where is the line between treating him like a person and freaking him out? I could use some help!
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for the question. I’m working on way to have questions responded to publicly. Will possibly put this up in the future. For now, trust your instincts about providing age-appropriate explanations to your son regarding his upcoming surgery. Explain timing, what to expect, how he may feel the day of the surgery. Tell him where you’re going, what time you’ll leave your house, when he can last eat. Provide good specifics when you have them. Encourage him to ask questions when he needs to. Your experience (your fear, anxiety or strength, courage) is very important for his own understanding. He will learn a lot from how you act, what you say. Avoid talking about what you are scared of. Ask him what concerns him or what his worries are and do your best to answer his questions honestly. Do you best to empower him to have expectations but be able to ask for reassurance or explanation when something isn’t what he expects on the day of surgery. But I’ll work on a heartier response for a possible future blog post! Further, talk with your son’s pediatrician for more help if you’re not feeling ready.
A Working Dad says
Thanks for another thoughtful post. Just wanted to add 2 cents from the Y chromosome…
As a working dad in a two-income family, I would suggest that life’s balancing act is harrowing for men, as well.
As you state, men are less likely to be asked about life balance. Society’s lack of acknowledgment of this struggle can leave men isolated in their juggling acts without the benefit of the support networks that exist on both sides of the mommy wars.
In the spirit of truce, I ask you to please consider a parent war truce – acknowledging that the task to thrive as a parent as well as thrive professionally and personally is herculean, regardless of gender.
Viki says
I don’t have sob-fests anymore. It’s not working versus being at home. I know plenty of SAHM who sob on a regular basis, too. I think if you take on herculean tasks and you’re not Hercules, then you suffer. I had to work hard to deprogram the overachiever when I switched to being home, too. I couldn’t stand the house a mess, laundry not done, wanted to take every enriching, fun opportunity to explore with my kids. Today I’m wearing slippers because the house is $%^-ing mess from the crumbs my kids made at breakfast. I just shoved all the dirty clothes into the laundry room and closed the door. I have NO idea what’s for dinner. Oh, and aside from preschool, I canceled all the activities because I just didn’t want to have to be at all these places. I started to feel like being a SAHM could be a real drag if you let yourself become a Stepford Parent. The ONLY improvement I want to make as a parent (wife, sister, wife, person)… I’d like to learn to be more patient. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll test my patience by trying to get my 2 yr old to be less disruptive while we wait for his sister’s ballet lesson. Maybe. Or maybe she can take a class in future when her Dad can take her. How much is there to get right, anyway?
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
@Viki,
I think you get to the point of simplicity parenting. That distillation of life into that that really matters: those you love, time to cherish them, time outside, time to eat, time to rest, time to thrive. Simplicity, at times, seems an outrageous luxury. Patience feels the same way to me…
E. Ai B. says
Wow, Viki, you pretty much summed up what I was thinking.
If what you do isn’t in itself considered “work” like the case with homemaking, you end up pushing yourself sometimes.
Enriching things are great…I try, but with multiple kids it is hard (because, due to the whole different types of people thing, not every one of your kids will find said activity “enriching” or…bearable…) and cleaning the house gets a back-seat a lot of the time so I can keep the kids taken care of. As far as I can tell, my job is taking care of the kids, and trying really hard to make my husband’s life easier…because being a working-class male (or anything for that matter) can suck it pretty hard as well…
I’m also working from home, writing now, but I was a graphic designer when my first was young for a long time. And WAHMing is not a ecret to success. You NEED a babysitter to work from home. At all. Or you can stay up later, and suffer sleep deprivation to get anything done. Working, staying-at-home, or working-from-home, the entire ladder of parenting and bread-winning is just plain hard for most of us (who are not Hercules and/or also millionaires).
Christina says
Perhaps I can offer a new perspective here, the single working mom… the bottom line is that people just make a lot of assumptions.
assumption #1) you are married. after people hear i am a resident and a mom of 2 young ones, the next question 9/10 times is, ‘what does your husband do?’. I wonder if they are hoping i’ll answer something like, ‘he stays home with the kids’, but more likely they are probing, ‘do you have money so someone can watch over your kids and they are not thrown to the proverbial daycare wolves (and by the way, i am a huge fan of daycare). Either way, its a horrible question because it assumes so much- what if my husband died? What if I was an IVF mom? What if I have a female partner? It’s just not a good thing to ask people!!
assumption #2) you are making a choice to work. Maybe we are on some level, but as you correctly point out above, not many people really expect at day 1 of medical/law/college/high school that their ultimate ‘profession’ will be full-time child rearing. i think it is the hardest job i’ve ever done, but they certainly didn’t teach me anything in medical school that is particularly relevant to it. i’d like to do what i’ve studied for 8+ years to do- be a doctor. and my biologic nature makes me want to be a mom. And furthermore, financially life would not be viable without my income. So I don’t really see it as a choice.
assumption #3) that you do juggle it all. Maybe you don’t participate in parenting, or maybe you are really barely hanging on at work. either way, we all have reasons why we structure our lives the way we do, and questions like, ‘how do you juggle it all’ are really assenine in terms of making a genuine effort to assess what those reasons are.
All this being said, I think the comment mostly comes from a place of reasonable admiration and occasionally, form inferiority. No one wants to feel like their plate is less full than the next persons, or that they are less ambitious than their neighbor. So when they run into someone like Tina Fey, they are a little starstruck to think someone really is taking on much more than seems humanly possible. The truth is that we are all capable of more than we ever think possible, everyone just has different tolerances to how much stretch they want to feel. Currently I feel like Saran Wrap, and I am looking forward to a time when I can get a little thicker, especially around the middle.
Great topic!
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
@Christina,
Thanks. I agree about assumptions. Although misaligned assumptions seem to pop up everywhere. And yes, working isn’t always a “choice” and for most on planet earth, it isn’t…and even when going to work is a choice, it doesn’t mean it’s entirely a selfish one. Sometimes work is about giving back. Or just giving. Other times it’s about ego and reward. Nonetheless, only those making the choice to work truly know the motivations at play. The rest is speculation.
I like what you said and it has me thinking. Thanks for commenting here!
Katie says
Well, like Tina and several comments above me have said, these moments of self-doubt are universal. If a mom claims that she doesn’t have moments of doubt about how she manages her parenting and working (or not) outside of the home, then she is either LYING or I want to know the name of the pharmaceutical product she is taking, because it’s a good one.
I think parenthood in general is just tough, tough, tough. The Mommy Wars extend way beyond whether you work in or outside of the home. It goes to breastfeeding (ever seen the smug glance a nursing mom gives a mom who is feeding her baby from a bottle?), to snack choices, to how much or little your baby sleeps, to potty training, to preschool selection, to sport teams, to. . . ugh. I’m exhausted already, and my kids aren’t even in school yet, where it’s bound to get even worse.
And men might worry about this stuff, sure, but they don’t talk about it. Now, I am not saying that fathers don’t get competitive, because, boy howdy, do they, but it’s different. And while it’s perfeclty “acceptable” for a father to get all riled because his boy (or girl) isn’t getting enough field time, it’s not as kosher by society’s standards for that same dad to talk about how he doesn’t feel he gets enough Dad time with them. My own husband laments the hours he is away from our two kiddos, but it’s not something that he says to other people, just to me.
So, again, I think this is all universal. And why don’t guys get asked the same questions? Well, because men and women are wired differently. That’s just a biological fact. My husband can walk away from our house every morning and it’s almost as if he puts our kids in a little “box.” It’s not that he doesn’t care, but he can compartmentalize and deal with work stuff, and then come home, and deal with kid stuff. Whereas I can’t leave the house and just focus on what needs to be done while I am away, I am always thinking about what should be done while I am not there. I don’t think this is as much about what others say to us, so much as it is about that little voice in our heads is saying to us.
I asked my husband how often I bring up the “should I go back to work outside of the home” conversation with him, and he says it’s quarterly, so I guess I’m right with you, Dr. Swanson. I usually feel a lot better after I remind myself that what we are doing doesn’t have to work for everyone. It works for our family for now and that’s what matters. But it seems like my quarterly sobs come like clockwork, and perhaps they are just a good reminder to take stock of the situation and decide if it’s still what I want. If not, I am not trapped to my current situation, and I can take steps to change it. Last time I had my quarterly sob, I ended up getting my part time work from home job. It helped.
Of course, looking at the calendar, I see I am about due for another sob.
Viki says
I sympathize a lot with the men-folk. I worked in high tech and was the only woman in my group for years. Majority of the men worked past dinner. Until men seek balance, women will look like crusaders. I attended the funeral of a colleague who died suddenly at age 42. I was sitting in the audience, 5 months pregnant, listening to his teenage daughter eulogize her dad. She said that she was incredibly proud of her father. He was widely recognized for his contributions to his field, dozens of which are patented. She admired his passion and brilliance. But she also wished he’d been a little less passionate because some of his accomplishments came at her expense. She simply wished that her dad had been home for dinner more. How many times had I dropped a problem with a tight deadline on her father? I knew he’d probably work late. Never considered if someone was waiting for him at home. That eulogy hit home with so many in my group. It made me into a “home for dinner” and “no weekends” vigilante. I used my influence with interns and folks I mentored. Go to the gym, join a club, get a hobby, do anything you can to carve time for yourself. One of my former colleagues got a shout out in the WSJ for his SxSW presentation on changing corporate culture to achieve better work/life balance. I was thrilled to see that because this particular colleague doesn’t have kids. Work/life balance is part of life for everyone.
Jenny says
For me, juggling doesn’t involve keeping all the ball in the air. It’s just a matter of deciding which balls to drop and which ones to keep in play. I used to kill myself trying to juggle everything and eventually learned that, other than killing myself, I was also setting unrealistic expectation for my family, which took my efforts for granted and didn’t appreciate anything. Now that my family knows that I am not going to be doing EVERYTHING for them, they work harder to help the balls in play. I think it’s benefited the kids in that they have become much more self-sufficient, and my husband appreciates my efforts a lot more.