The case for getting married when and if the time is right to get married.

Why do people feel like they need to prescribe to us the ideal age at which to reach some milestone or another?  I guess the marriage topic is hot these days because I've recently seen articles making "the case for" marrying "young," marrying after you are "established," and not marrying at all, each full of silent judgments about the choices not advocated within their margins. 

I did not and should not have married "young."  (Although, from the vantage point of 43, age 37, the age at which I did get married, seems dewy and fresh, like a blooming daisy on a sunny spring morn.)

Had I married "young," I would surely have also divorced young, and maybe multiple times.  I did not want a divorce.  None of my early boyfriends (and I think those of you guys with whom I am still friendly and who read this blog will agree with me) would have worked out as a lifelong commitment. There were personality problems or aspirational problems or timing problems or maturity problem -- or some combination of all of the above -- with both of us. So it's best I didn't marry young.  Life has worked out well because I waited until I was "established."

But, truthfully, it wasn't a conscious choice to wait to age 37. It just happened that way.  But I'm glad that it did. I'm glad of the fortuitous break ups of ill-fitting relationships before time and obligation turned them into ill-fitting marriages.  What actually happened is that I had more-or-less decided that life might not have marriage in my cards by about age 34.  And then The Working Dad started working in my office. And....a little under three years later, and the turning of several events in the meantime that are none of your beeswax, and, ta-da!, we were Mr. and Mrs.  There was no grand plan, but I'm glad the thing worked out the way it did.

And I will go out on a limb and say that I, at least, wonder whether The Working Dad and I would have clicked at all, and if we had clicked, whether we would have made it long term, if we had met a decade earlier. People change, and maybe we wouldn't have been right for each other in the 90s the way we were in the Aughts.

That being said, I know folks who married "young" who are doing just fine. It was the right thing for them to do. They shouldn't have waited 'til middle age like me. 

And I know people who have chosen to remain single who are living happy, fulfilling lives. That's the right thing for them. 

Why must we be so prescriptive?  Whatever your path to happiness, isn't that the right way?

So here is the last thing I'll say:  if something within you makes you read an article to justify your path, maybe it's your path that's gone awry, not those of the men and women who have chosen a different one. Maybe ask yourself why you need validation of your choice from a piece of fluffy trend journalism rather than by consulting your own heart. 

The American Family

I read an article yesterday (forgive me, I can't link to it using the Blogger iPhone app) on Slate that more women in their 20s are having babies out of wedlock. Most of these single moms have lower education levels.

Among those holding college degrees, the story is completely different. These women are getting married later, having babies after marriage, and then staying married.

The article suggests that an explanation for both phenomena is that marriage has become a "capstone event" in people's lives. Rather than being something that happened along the path of one's life, marriage is now the cake-topper. First you go to college, then you explore the world, then you get married.

And this idea that you need to progress up a life achievement ladder to marriage also explains why some people have babies and yet feel unready for marriage. They haven't reached the premarriage rungs yet, so they're not "ready" to slap the capstone of marriage on their lives. The existence of babies apparently doesn't change this.

This is a fundamental shift in the conception of marriage in just a generation.

But it makes sense:

When my parents got married, birth control was in its infancy (pardon the pun), abortion was illegal, and not a lot of women completed college or had demanding careers.

But that wasn't the case for my generation. We had the opportunity to prevent unwanted pregnancies. And we were encouraged by our mothers to get educations and delay marriage until we'd done some stuff.

This shift in the conception of marriage from a place where babies happen to a place where personal fulfillment is realized is a direct result of ladies like me delaying marriage and family in favor of education, personal exploration, and career.

Which brings me to gay marriage....

The argument goes that gay marriage will threaten the fundamental shape of the American Family by decoupling procreation from the marital unit. Leaving aside the obvious arguments that such a position fails to take into account infertile heterosexual couples or those heterosexual couples who choose not to have kids, the argument that gay marriage decouples marriage and children and turns marriage into an emotional and relational achievement is false.

Gay marriage does not and will not do that because it has already happened. And it happened under everybody's noses, and to many a parent's delight, as girls like me went to law school and delayed marriage and childbearing until we were in our 30s and 40s.

So don't blame the gay folks for the reimagining of the marital state. Marriage changed when your daughters went to school and work. Blame feminists for the change in the conception of marriage. Blame me. I reimagined it first. They're just following my lead.

Weekly Chores for The Working Mom

I'm sure you're familiar with Pinterest....

Every so often, I'll see pins from my buddies of a weekly chore list. Basically, it's a list of items that Mom should do each day to keep the house sparkling, and the list is always "so doable."

This week, one of my friends posted such a list for, get this, "The Working Mom."

!

My own list of chores!

Here's what I need to do every day to have a sparkling house, and this is "sooo doable."

Everyday before work:

Make beds

Empty dishwasher

Put in one load of laundry

This is an hour's worth of stuff, honestly. (Maybe I should institute an auto-sort laundry system as has been suggested on certain Pinterest pins. Do I trust The Working Dad to correctly sort?)

Anyway, I already get up before 6 a.m. to exercise (or I'm supposed to). Should I make that five in order to fit in these daily chores?

Then there are once a week, presumably, after work chores....

Monday: clean bathrooms

Tuesday: dust

Wednesday: vacuum

Thursday: mop floors

Friday: free!

Saturday: swing day

Sunday: free!

Seriously? I get home by 6 each evening. I need to feed The Boy, do potty time, bathe him, brush his teeth, do book time, and then put him to bed. (While The Working Dad gets dinner started and does whatever odds and end around the house that need attending to on whatever given day while I'm getting The Boy ready for bed....)

Ta-da! And just like that, it's 8 o'clock at our house. Time for The Working Dad and I to cook our own meal (if he's not already done it), eat, visit for a few minutes and then go to bed. Should I dump the chatting with my husband part to do these chores? What if we just order in every night so we skip the cooking part. That's healthy. Anyway, any real cleaning or dusting or vacuuming of the house beyond a lick and a promise is going to take another hour of time, at least. Even a lick and a promise may take an hour or so.

And footnote: I've been working all freaking day, it's 8 p.m., and I'd like a glass of wine and a little relaxation time.  Sure, there are two "free" days there, so I suppose you get to relax two evenings a week, but that's about five too few for me.  This schedule would have me going until 9 p.m.

So in addition to your eight hour work day, you, working lady, have two hours of house cleaning to do before you get to put your feet up.

But wait!  There's more!  There are swing day chores!

Swing Days:

First week - clean oven, microwave and fridge

Second week - wipe down walls baseboards and doors

Third week - clean inside windows and blinds

Fourth week - wipe down cabinets

Swing day, Saturday, the one day of the week The Working Mom has with no commitments, free time to spend with the family.  No, the cleaning calendar has your day filled with big projects and "catch up."

Fundamentally, the whole concept of the working mom's cleaning schedule rubs me the wrong way. Dad doesn't have to pitch in? The creator of the working mom's chore schedule says that her husband "is a manager" and works 60 to 70 hours a week, "enough said." No, it isn't enough said! He makes half the mess, he eats the food she no doubt cooks, he can pick up a broom at 8 p.m. as easily as she can. And what about working women who have "big important jobs," just like boys do. I've got a female friend who easily makes twice what her husband makes. I suppose that means she doesn't have to wash a dish since she works longer hours and makes more money. Guess what really happens at that house.....

Heck, if the morning and evening chores were divided between mom and dad, it's just 30 minutes a piece, in theory. Instead of mom slaving away while dad watches the news and unwinds after a hard day at his important job, maybe they both do a little cleaning and then hang with each other too.

Moreover, if the kids are old enough to swish a toilet bowl, where are their chores on this list?

And, by the way, where's the time for exercise in this schedule, or an avocation like playing a musical instrument or writing a blog or both? Where's fun?

Obviously, this schedule works for its creator, but to me, I see utter slavery to the family. I see a ready-maid (pun intended) basis for martyrdom on the part of the creator too.

But, I suppose, there is a grain of usefulness in the calendar. If you are not fortunate enough to be able to afford a cleaning service, having a plan of how to get the chores done is a good idea, for both working parents and the kids (if they're old enough).  Study after study shows that working women, on average, still carry a disproportionate amount of the household duties, even though they are bringing home half or more than half of the income for the family. We work just as hard as dad does at work. He should pitch in at home. If there's going to be a chore calendar, the calendar should have his assignments too. If dad doesn't want to help mom out, when, arguable she's helping him out by carrying part of the family economic burden, then that's a problem with dad.

The New Normal

I missed this article when it was first published in November 2012, just before the election.  A law school pal posted about it on Facebook today and it caught my attention.

A little girl with two dads wrote to Barack Obama to thank him for supporting gay marriage.  In her letter she relates how her classmates think her dads' relationship is "gross and weird."  She writes, "[I]t really hurts my heart and feelings.  So I come to you because you are my hero.  If you were me and had two dads that love each other and kids at school tease you, what would you do?"

Bless her sweet little hurt heart.

I have some gay friends.  Some of them are single.  Some of them are as married as gay people can be in Texas in 2013.  Some of them are somewhere in between.

Some of them have kids.

And their kids are gorgeous little creatures, just like my gorgeous little creature.

And these gay parents, they experience all the same things that The Working Dad and I experience:  They get puked on. They stay up late with infants and/or sick toddlers.  They have to juggle work and family.  They delight in giggles.  They get terrified when the baby runs a little too far and a little too fast and a little too close to the street.  They play hide-and-go-seek.  They're just like me.

Except no one ever looks sidelong at me and The Working Dad when we walk through the mall with The Boy.  No one ever asks if The Working Dad is The Boy's uncle or if I'm his auntie.  It has crossed no one's mind to suggest to The Boy (though he is yet too young to understand such a comment) that it would be wrong to have the parents that he has.  I can't walk in those shoes the way they can walk in my parent shoes.

Far be it from me, a straight lady, to even try to understand what it must be like.  But I do know a little bit about discrimination and being the odd person out.  I've been the only woman in a courtroom of men . . . and in said courtroom where the three letters, P-M-S, were uttered by my opposing counsel on the record in an obvious jab against me.  (Thankfully, the Judge -- who happens to be gay, by the way -- made it quite clear that such comments were neither welcome nor helpful.)  Anyway, I understand a little bit about standing out in a crowd of otherwise equals.  So I have empathy.

And I sure know what it's like to be a parent and never to want your child to hurt or be teased.

One of my gay friends -- one of two dads, a work colleague -- once expressed concern to me about how kids and parents may treat his kids when they enter school.  It's an understandable concern, here in The Bible Belt.  And I have had another friend relate that someone once told her child that it was wrong to have two mommies.  That letter above illustrates that it does happen and it does hurt the children to whom it happens.  I'll never have to face this particular heartache head-on.

No matter what you think of the morality of same-sex relationships, imagine how much that teasing hurts the child.  She loves her parents with all of her heart.  Imagine how much it would hurt you to see that sort of pain in your child.  The good news is that a lot of people do seem to be sensitive to the feelings of the child, which, to me, is the most important thing.

Personally, I am so very glad that The Boy is going to grow up thinking that families look differently.  He will never have the experience I did of asking a little boy in preschool whether the color of his skin rubs off.  (Yes, the pre-school me really asked that question.)  The Boy will always understand that skin comes in a rainbow of colors.  And gay people will not seem exotic and scary to him.  They will merely be part of the canvas that is his American world.  And some of them will be his friends' parents.

It's not just a cultural diversity point I'm trying to make.  It seems silly to even feel the need to say this, but the kids with two dads or two moms are just kids.  They are just like the kids with heterosexual parents.  They act the same way, like the same things, and love the same way.  And their parents are just parents too.  This is the world we live in and these are the people in it.  They deserve respect.  They deserve to be treated like every other parents, and their kids deserve to be treated like every other kid.  And as for our children, this is the world they are growing up in.

Whatever value structure you may instill in your children, I hope that it contains that component of sensitivity, even if your family disagrees with the concept of a homosexual parenting unit.  These are just kids and they deserve to be treated like kids, no matter who their parents are.  These kiddos -- the letter-writing little girl -- do not deserve to be bullied and teased because their parents are gay any more than a kid deserves to be bullied because of the color of her skin or because he has freckles or speaks with a lisp.

I hope my gay friends' kids never hear, "that's gross and weird."  I hope that their sweet little hearts never hurt like the little letter writer.  But, realistically, they probably will.  I know where we live.  But  I also know that my friends will be prepared to handle it with grace, patience and love.  I hope that the parents of the kid that may make such a comment will also be prepared to handle it sensitively and gracefully.

Ferberizing

So.

Several months ago The Boy got sick.  The Boy got off of his sleep schedule, and we were never able to get him back to the old schedule.  The Boy, for several months, has been waking several times during the night.  Lately, he will be awake for, literally, hours in the dead of night wanting to play.

It's difficult not to love the fact that he wants to hang out with us.

Still.  We are exhausted.  My exhaustion culminated on Monday, July 23rd when I couldn't get a particular computer do-dad to work at the office and I burst in to uncontrollable sobs.  I'd only had about an hour and a half of sleep, after all. And it was not the first night of too-little sleep for me, The Working Dad, or The Boy.  I ended up going home for the day and sleeping, using way too many hours of my ever-dwindling leave balance . . . needlessly, really.

When we first got The Boy on a sleep schedule, we didn't have many tears.  I would simply put him in his bed and every time he stood up, I'd lay him back down until, eventually, he fell asleep.  Then I left the room.  Admittedly, this took a big chunk of the evening, but it would work eventually and we were proud that he was "sleeping through the night" around age seven to eight months.

But that was back when a night waking might go on for 30 minutes to an hour with a kid who was still learning to crawl.  Hours-long night wakings with an out of control toddler have literally been wearing The Working Dad and me out . . . weakening us to the point that we actually were getting sick.  It was affecting our ability to function at work and, indeed, The Working Dad and I were arguing in very irrational ways that I can only attribute to exhaustion.

Besides, the method we used before no longer worked with The Boy, now a toddler.  If you put him in his bed, he would scream, not merely stand up and look at you, but scream.  So in the last several weeks, we have employed a variety of ever-more elaborate techniques to get The Boy to sleep and those techniques had developed some bad sleep habits and associations for The Boy.  Those inappropriate associations needed to be corrected in order for him to be able to have a restful night's sleep.  He had become dependent upon, inter alia, The Working Dad dancing him to sleep to do-wop music, for instance.  This was untenable in the long run.  We needed a new way.

I had heard about the Ferber method, but had rejected it because I thought allowing a child to cry was cruel.  Plus, it hurts me to let him cry like that.  But desperation and not having any other answers led me to reconsider.  Also, at our last pediatrician appointment at 15 months, The Boy's doctor said that we might need to employ a little "tough love" to get him back into the habit of regular sleep.

So.  I bought Dr. Richard Ferber's book for Kindle.  We implemented the strategies set forth in Chapter 4.

It has been like magic.

The first night, The Boy cried for a little over an hour.  Here's how the schedule went down:

7:30 p.m. -- Bathtime.
8:00 p.m. -- Read books in The Boy's bedroom floor while listening to music.  This part was just lovely and so much fun.  The Boy, who is usually so rambunctious that getting him to sit still to read had been a real challenge, was very happy to sit in my lap and allow me to read several books to him.  (We listened to Rock-a-bye Baby, Beatles, by the way, which was a shower gift from a high school friend and college sorority sister.  Thanks, again, sweet friend who knows who she is!)
8:28 p.m. -- Music off, night light on.  Cuddles.
8:30 p.m. -- Bedtime.  Hugs. Kisses.  "I love you.  Night-night."
8:30:30 p.m. -- The Boy commences screaming.

I and/or The Working Dad went back to check on him, hug him, reassure him (but never lifting him out of the bed, per Dr. Ferber's instructions) that we were there at three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes and then . . . at 9:39 p.m., The Boy instantly fell silent.  Standing at his door, you could hear the deep breathing of sleep.  At about 10 p.m., I crept into his room to see him cuddling his lovey, sound asleep with his tushy in the air.  It was amazing.

He awoke at 12:30 a.m.  I checked on him at three minutes and five minutes, but he fell silent before the next seven minutes had passed.  At 12:50 a.m., I again went in to check on him:  sound asleep with his lovey, tushy in the air.

He awoke again at 2:30 a.m., but was silent again before we even made it to the three minute mark for the first check.  Around 4 o'clock a.m., it was the same story.

The Working Dad woke him at 7 a.m., his normal waking time, and he wanted to go on sleeping, even though he had had between 9 and 10 hours sleep that night.  This is a child who in recent days and weeks had been averaging 6ish hours of sleep a night.  (Kids his age need between 12 and 15 hours sleep a day. He was no where near getting that much.)

We are now on Day 2.  The evening ritual went down the same way as above, but this time, we waited five minutes before the first check.  The second check was supposed to be seven minutes later, but he did not cry again after the first check.  In fact, when I checked on him at the five minute mark, he was rubbing his eyes and he voluntarily laid down on his back to sleep.  He did not cry again.  I just crept into his room to check on him, and he is sound asleep.

I know that this method is controversial, and people think it is cruel to allow a child to cry.  Hey, I thought it was cruel too.  But The Boy is, we are told, among the easiest kids to put down for a nap at School.  If this is the case, then he already has the skills to go to sleep on his own.  It was The Working Dad and me, with our well-intentioned but apparently ill-advised interventions, that prevented that from happening.

(I will say this, though, I think that it is important to read the book, or at least heavily skim it, in order to understand what the sleep issues are and to determine whether your problem is merely bad habit, or something more serious.  It's also important that you understand the method so that you can implement it properly.  You might even want to throw in a call to your pediatrician if you're not sure whether it is a problem of habit or a health issue.)

Now, perhaps, it will all fall apart on Day 3, but so far, it seems to be working for us and we seem to be on our way to having a happy well-rested family again.  I will report back in about a week with our one-week results.

Why Women Still Can't Have It All

Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote a piece for The Atlantic Monthly entitled Why Women Still Can't Have It All.  I had thought to write a true, point-by-point response to it, but to be honest, it took me days (okay, weeks) to finish the six page article, and I just don't have time to read it again, and even a third or fourth time, in order to give it a considered and true point-by-point response.  I am, after all, a working mom whose job is not writing responses to other writers' essays.  (I do this sort of thing in my spare time for fun.)  But the article got me thinking about a couple of things and I thought I might as well type a few lines about those thoughts.

The article has gotten all kinds of backlash from all kinds of feminists.  Among other things, Slaughter suggested that women and men react differently to their children, which is at least part of the reason why talented, well-trained, otherwise ambitious women choose "softer" or "easier" career paths than do their male counterparts.  Ms. Slaughter  suggests that the difference in the way men and women react to their kids, is both biological and sociologically programmed.  In other words, girls are too different than boys.

This is, classically, antifeminist.  But I also think that it is at least a little true.  By way of example, I always feel guilty when I take a little time for myself and leave The Boy at daycare.  The Working Dad never feels that same guilt.  He told me that he feels that those little breaks make him better when he's with The Boy.  And he's absolutely right about that.  But I still feel a twinge of guilt every time I do it.  Some feminists don't like the admission that women and men are in any way different because it might lead us down the Larry Summers path that ladies' brains just aren't wired for math and science (I paraphrase).  And that's a fair point.  But Slaughter also has a fair point that we need to recognize that there are differences in the way the sexes react to situations.  The recognition, to me, is not a sign of capitulation or an acceptance that one way of reacting is better than another, but just that they are different.  In recognizing differences, we can begin to attempt to create a workplace that is friendly and helpful to both men and women.

And that's a point I want to stress:  we should strive for a workplace in which men and women can have "it all."

But first, what the heck is "it all?"  How are we defining that?  Because if we're defining "it all" as being the partner at a law firm who shows up to work the day after Christmas to get the call from a new client or the Night Creature who sends e-mails to associates at 2 a.m. when all good, sane people are sleeping (not that I'm thinking of any particular gentlemen I've known in my life, she said sarcastically), well, thank you very much, I don't want "it all."

And, in doing those sorts of things, these men did not have it all.  They had powerful careers that made them a lot of money and took them away from their families.  They left the care of their children to their wives while they pursued careers to the exclusion of nearly everything else.  One of these gentlemen once related that his kids said that they were going to put on his tombstone "He lived.  He worked.  He died."  They were joking, I think, but to even pose that sort of joke seems very, very sad.

"It all" is not having ultimate career success at the expense of one's family life and health.  "It all" is having success in both.  And we can all have that, men and women.

But it requires a recognition on the part of employers and society that both parents need support in being parents and employees.  Slaughter says, "Ultimately, it is society that must change, coming to value choices to put family ahead of work just as much as those to put work ahead of family."  That's true for all of us.  Slaughter is right that there should not be "face time" macho.  Slaughter talks about flexible schedules and the ability to work from home as ways by which one might balance work and family.  But it's really not that easy.  How does a doctor, for instance, or a police officer, work from home?  Still, a recognition in these professions in which flexible schedules and telecommuting are not viable options that parents will be called away to the very important task of raising the next generation of citizens would help.

And even employers who offer the benefit of flexible scheduling -- in those sorts of jobs that can accomodate flexible scheduling -- often have restrictions on their use.  My organization offers "telework," which allows an employee to work from home up to two days of every two-week pay period.  I take advantage of the telework plan.  My telework day is every Wednesday.  Having a set day to telework does not offer the sort of flexibility that being able to work from home as life demands would offer.  But it's a start.

This sort of recognition of the reality of family responsibilities is needed for the family, for moms and dads.  I think that The Working Dad and I are lucky that we work where we work and have bosses who largely understand that we both will be toting the load when it comes to The Boy.  The Working Dad stays home with The Boy just as much as, if not more than (given that I barely have any leave after my pregnancy and maternity leave), I do.  I've written before about The Working Dad's contributions to our home.  It is not a question of me, the fabulous lady lawyer, getting ahead in This Our Man's World, but of our family forging ahead in a fashion that allows The Working Dad and I to have professional successes and personal rewards.  This is what our society and our workplaces need to come to grips with.

Feminism did not bring about the day of the dominant woman.  It has brought us companionate, co-equal marriages.  It has brought us to a place where men and women share the responsibility for rearing children and earning a living.  It has brought us equality.  Or at least, it approaches that equality . . . .  (I should note that I am aware that not all women are married and so this co-equal marriage thing does not apply to, let alone work to the advantage of, a single woman.  But I'm writing about my particular circumstances, which are that of a wife and mother.  I do not discount that society needs also to address the needs of single parents too. I'm just not "screeding" about that today.)

And I think that our feminist foremothers need to recognize that if we have equality in the home and in the office, that means that both the mom and the dad are going to have obligations and responsibilities in both arenas.  And those responsibilities are probably not going to allow either of them to be the Night Creature shooting out e-mails to harried associates in the dead of night.  We, both sexes, will have to compromise and sacrifice a little to gain the greater good of a satisfying work/life balance for both partners.

To me, that's having "it all."  Because if I had ultimate power and success in my career at the expense of my spouse's career, that would not be a mutually satisfying arrangement.  Likewise, if he had a triumphant career while mine foundered, well, that would not be nice either.

Now, to my last thought, which really does not fit with the foregoing discussion of "it all."

Slaughter observed that the older generation of feminists -- those to whom I owe quite a lot -- feel disappointed in women like me who check out of the high power/high stress jobs favoring ones that offer more flexibility and work/life balance.  My experience with this attitude is mixed, but Slaughter is not wrong that that attitude exists.

An anecdote from real life:  After a two-year federal clerkship, I went to work for a large law firm for which I still have great affection.  I have friends and valued and respected colleagues who still work there.  I worked there for between three and four years.  I tended to work 10 to 12 hour days.  I was single had very little time or energy for a social life.  We were extremely busy at work.  I was gaining weight at an alarming rate because I did nothing else but work.  I was extremely unhappy and burning out incredibly fast.  Maybe this was my mistake because I didn't set good professional boundaries, but I was a young lawyer in my early 30s and I believed in that whole face time thing.

The bottom line was that I needed a different life:  one in which I could do good legal work that I was proud of and still have time for regular exercise, hobbies, and even, dare I hope, romance.  I got my resume together and eventually found a position as a government lawyer.  I tendered my resignation.  I was 33 years old.

On my last day at the office, as I was leaving the floor for the final time, one of the female partners -- a woman 15 to 20 years my senior, who had spent most of her career as a single woman -- called after me, "Give us a call when you get married!"

I had no prospect for marriage.  I wasn't even dating casually.

Now, perhaps she was being sincere, but to my ears it sounded taunting and derisive.  It sounded like code for what she perceived to be my lack of ambition, as demonstrated by my checking out of that particular career path.  And I didn't even have the excuse of "but I have a baby at home."  I did this for me, for my health and for my sanity.

And anyway, why must our ambition be focused only on career success?  Can't we have an ambition to have a family someday?  Isn't that also valid?  And if it's not, how can you argue that women can have "it all"?  Isn't having "it all" premised on the idea that you can have a successful career and a satisfying home life?  And if it's not, then we've been lied to by the older generation.  I sincerely hope that is not true.

Leaving law firm life was the best decision I ever made.  I am happier and healthier as a result of the move and, in fact, I met my husband at the very job I left the firm for.

It is not failure to recognize that you want more in your life than 12 hour work days, whether or not you are a mom or a wife.  It is not failure to want to define yourself, not just by the terms of your education and training, but by your avocational interests, family life and friendships.  And, in fact, it is not failure or lack of ambition to desire to get married and have a family, nor is it failure to recognize that your current situation is a suboptimal path to attaining that goal.

I am ever grateful to our feminist foremothers for opening the doors and giving us choices.  When we, however, choose not to walk through any particular door, it should not be seen as failing to succeed or an abdication of power so hard won by the generations before us.  It should be seen as the exercise of a bona fide choice . . . a choice that really did not exist 40 years ago.

How to Put Your Wife Out of Business

Perhaps I missed this op-ed by Michael Lewis back in March of 2005 because I was, in fact, not at wife at the time.  But I heard it discussed recently on a podcast I listen to, so I decided to look it up.

You know Michael Lewis:  author of Moneyball, author of The Big Short, former bond trader, husband of Tabitha Soren.

Oh yes, that Tabitha Soren, the cuter, feminine Kurt Loder.

So that's what happened to her after MTV News:  her husband put her out of business.

But what does that even mean?  And is this the destiny of all working women?  And the secret goal of all of their husbands?

It's all tongue-in-cheek -- or at least I hope it is -- but Lewis offers three basic guiding principals to put your wife out of business:  (1) never mention money because she knows the value of it, having earned it herself, and she suspects that you may use your money-making as a weapon against her; (2) cushion her fall because she will suffer psychologically from stepping out of the spotlight of a dazzling career; and (3) lie a lot, mainly about the fact that their unemployment is temporary.  "The longer you have her believing [that she can go back to work whenever she wants and that demand for her skills is higher than it ever was], the less true it becomes."  It's a short essay and worth your time to read it.

Here's what it really says to me, though:  It's really hard to choose to be a stay-at-home-mom after being a very powerful professional . . . or even a semi-powerful professional.  And, indeed, women may suffer psychologically from the shift from, say, a seat before the Court to a seat before a highchair.  The loss of financial power can also be acute and, indeed, can be weilded as a weapon by some men against their formerly-working wives.  And, certainly, there is a belief among lots of SAHMs that they'll go back to work when the kids are older.  And I believe that some of these women harbor a secret (and probably well-founded) fear that their skills and professional usefulness are deteriorating while they are out of the workforce.

Love for your children is a powerful thing, but it is not the only thing.  I do worry about the women who want to step out of careers "temporarily."  I wonder how temporary it will really be.  For me, it has never been a question, because I never assumed I would leave work.  And that's partly because I like to work and partly because I feel like my skill set would diminish if I left the profession for a time.  There are lots of article about women having trouble re-starting their careers.  And if those article are worrisome to me, they must be terrifying for the "temporary" SAHM.

I also wonder about the concept that Lewis puts forward of the new sort of trophy wife.  Used to, the trophy wife meant smoking hot (by a certain metric), big boobed, empty vessels.  Lewis suggests that the new trophy wife has a Harvard MBA and that it is an accomplishment to acquire her brain and then ensure that that brain is not gainfully employed.  I wonder if some men really think that way.  Maybe men want to marry the Harvard MBA because she's more interesting to talk to than the empty vessel.  But it's still hard for me to understand why the Harvard MBA would want to quit work.  Why get the Harvard MBA if your career is going to be SAHM?

Anyway, as I said, the essay is very much tongue-in-cheek . . . but it tweaks, it disturbs, it rankles.  Just as, I'm sure, he meant it to.

And, P.S., Michael Lewis didn't put Tabitha Soren out of business.  She just changed the sort of business she was in.  Take a look her photography.

The Working Dad

My husband is awesome.  I think that he is typical of a lot of modern husbands and daddies.  The dads of the mid-twentieth century sort of left the heavy-lifting of parenting and housework to the mommies, even if the mommies worked outside the home.  It was the curse of economic equality for the ladies:  you get to have your job, ma'am, but you've still got to cover all the bases at home.  That's not the way we are, now, not at my house, and not at a lot of houses I know.

There's been some criticism of the "companionate marriage" in which the husband and wife are contented friends as much as, or even more than, lovers.  (Does anybody else hate that word?  I couldn't come up with a better one.)  These sorts of marriages are criticized for being sexless and devoid of romance and excitement.  Rather than romanceless, I would say that a companionate marriage, like mine, is realistic, practical, fun . . . and still very loving with room for romance.

I think that our mid-twentieth century mothers helped us out by raising their sons to be helpmeets.  My mom has often spoken with pride about how she taught my brother how to do the laundry and other "women's work" sort of chores.  And I know that my brother is an awesome daddy and househelper.  He does not leave it all to his wife.

Neither does my husband.  My husband is also a lawyer.  His job is, pretty much, just like mine.  It's stressful.  It's demanding.  It's frustrating.  It's enervating.  And, just like me, he's got to balance that job with home and family.  He definitely does not leave it all up to me.

Here's a typical evening at our house:  I come home first, with The Boy.  I try to get dinner started for my husband and me, if The Boy will let me.  I may throw a load of laundry into the washer or dryer.  I feed The Boy.  At some point during the feeding, his dad comes home.  Dad immediately gets to washing all of the bottle parts and other hand washing stuff.  He loads the dishwasher.  After that, he either starts dinner, or picks up from where I left off.  Meanwhile, I finish feeding The Boy, change his diaper, give him a bath (or at least wipe him down really well), get him dressed for bed and then put him to bed.  My husband, during this time, also cleans up the kitchen, cleans the floors and, sometimes, even changes my cat's catbox.  He helps me fold the laundry.  He pays the bills online.  And sometimes, when The Boy is cranking, he comes to help me settle the little guy down and put him to bed.

In the mornings my husband gives The Boy his first bottle of the day so that I can attend to The Cat, who is diabetic.  He fixes The Boy's bottles for school.  He makes his coffee-addicted wife a cup of coffee every morning as she scoots out the door so that she can get to the office early.  If I have not had time to change The Boy and get him dressed for school, he does that too.  Then he takes The Boy to school.  Only then does he get a shower himself, get his own breakfast, and get to work.  And maybe he will play his piano for a few minutes before he heads to the office.  He deserves those few minutes for himself.

Honestly, sometimes I feel guilty that my husband does so much.  And here, in this blog, I have been calling him "Mr. The Working Mom."  Well, that's not fair.  He's not just my husband, defined solely by his marriage to me.  He's his own person, just like me.  And so, he shall be called in this blog, from now on, The Working Dad.