The other morning Theo and I talked about going to the library. After cereal, though, he wanted to play with his castle and make Lego sculptures. When we finally left the house, we decided to romp around a park, walk the labyrinth at the cathedral, and eat lunch on the plaza.
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Heading back to our car, Theo said, "Now let's go to the library!" But it was naptime; we'd had a full morning, Sylvia was tired and we needed to get home. I explained this. Theo lost it. I tried again: "You know how we've been talking about time, and how we can do a lot of things in a day, but we can't always fit in everything?" He nodded but he didn't really get it. "We decided to do other things this morning that were fun, and we can choose to go the library first another day." He still didn't get it.
I don't always get it, either, this constraint that choosing one thing one moment means I can't do another thing at the same time. It fetters mind-racking trifles: Music on the Hill and/or backyard pizza? Flip flops and/or sneakers? And it occupies larger questions, like the whole work/life balance thing.
How can I be the engaged, present parent I want to be and still pursue meaningful work, not to mention make time for my marriage, friends, family, exercise and a twice-yearly haircut? Do I figure this out over the course of a month, or the course of a lifetime?
These conflicts are inherent in the notion of “having it all,” that vague, towering promissory phrase equating feminist success with personal fulfillment. It’s an over-entitled phrase, but it’s been an important goal for women fighting for professional parity with men and also wanting to have a family. A recent article in The Atlantic by Anne-Marie Slaughter has re-launched this shorthand into national discussion.
Dr. Slaughter served as director of policy planning for the U.S. State Department before returning to Princeton, where she was dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and remains a law professor. Part of her decision to leave D.C. was "to be with my family and my conclusion that juggling high-level government work with the needs of two teenage boys was not possible."
Since appearing on The Atlantic ’s website, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” has triggered almost a million visits and hundreds of thousands of comments, Facebook “likes,” blog posts and Twitter ripostes. Its title, cover art and framing are tiresome, as others have noted. It’s also really long: It took me a ridiculous three days and four sittings to read.
Despite this, and Slaughter's narrow focus on elite, highly educated, financially secure women at, or with access to, the upper echelons of their fields, she raises substantive issues about integrating parenting with professional work.
Most importantly, her article has engendered a discussion that goes beyond the particular variables of Dr. Slaughter and her high-powered peers. If "having it all" was helpful shorthand in the 1980s, it's the more diverse longhand about finding—and better sustaining—balanced lives that's compelling now.
"Balance" is as subjective as "it all," and in this economy, "getting by" seems what most of us are trying to figure out. I am leagues removed from the superhuman women Slaughter references, but I find it encouraging that she addresses how flexible schedules better support the kind of professional and parent she wants to be.
In a culture that is less hospitable to family-work-life balance than most other industrialized countries, this acknowledgement by a person with real power is notable. That more flexible work schedules can allow us to be more present parents and happier, often more productive, workers is not applicable only to members of the elite—or to women.
One reason we live in Santa Fe is that it affords us flexibility. Many of us live here because we want to; we certainly didn't come for lucrative jobs. Santa Fe's cost of living is high and, notwithstanding its progressive living-wage ordinance, its salary standards are low. Our fabled artistic and creative class is not made robust by money earned here. Yet there is room for self direction, for creating something new or simply building a life that accommodates professional goals as well as the other pursuits that make us whole people. As a parent who is post-one-career and pre-whatever is next, I find this reassuring.
After I had Theo, I worked a flexible 40ish-hour week. I felt harried (again, no superpowers) but mostly okay working this schedule and spending focused time with Theo and my husband. I was wracked with guilt at times, too, like when Theo's wonderful daycare provider gently suggested that it would be better for him to spend more time with me than with her. This was undoubtedly true, as was the fact that I was the family breadwinner. It is impossible to devote 100 percent of one's self to both of these things; we make choices.
After Sylvia was born, I returned only to contract work. For all the luxuries of this arrangement, zero separation between work and home/kids is awkward. But it has been possible to schedule phone calls and writing time during naptimes, and Theo recently was able to sit through a two-hour office meeting by tattooing ballpoint-pen ship's ladders from his fingertips to his shoulder. So, you can see I'm being super professional and teaching my kids real skills at the same time.
I'm grateful for the perspective of having been on both sides of full-time-work/full-time-parent experience. At my best, I hope it makes me more respectful of the many ways in which people balance their priorities. At my worst, I feel defensive and insecure about my choices. But the fact that I have access to such choices puts me in a privileged demographic.
A memorable remark about Dr. Slaughter's article simply noted the chasm between Dr. Slaughter's position and the commenter's: "Her article does not resonate for me at all, in any way. I work because I have to, I do not love or even like my 'career.' And I feel like I have no choice."
Choice is an operative concept in this discussion. Very few American parents have the kinds of professional and childcare choices available to Dr. Slaughter; many have precious few choices at all. Yet a primary goal of the women's movement was to give women more choices, and more freedom to make our choices about whether, which and to what degree we might pursue diverse careers and/or have families.
But the thing about choices—acknowledging the luxury of having them and working to make more choices available to more people—is that they have consequences, and making choices involves owning the consequences. Engaging in our lives, even for the superwomen out there, involves trade-offs—balancing, juggling, second-guessing and sequencing are always at play.
Flexibility, accommodation and collaboration are essential, but we still can't visit the labyrinth, park and library at the same time. We can't buy all the toys at Target, where the sheer quantity of cool plastic things overwhelms Theo to the point of tears. I feel the same way about all the interesting endeavors I might have chosen, and might still choose, to do in my life.
As the lucky child of a "you can do anything" generation, I sometimes tell myself I've failed by not doing enough. But what I want for my kids (and myself) is what Barnard College President Debora Spar wants for her graduates: "The wisdom to know that having the opportunity to do anything doesn't mean they have to do everything." (Still, there is that e-card that says, "I see all these moms who can do everything and then I think…I should have them do some stuff for me"—and I kind of want to sign up for that.)
Since her article exploded, Dr. Slaughter has said she will never again use the phrase “having it all.” She cites the suggestion that #havingalife is a better Twitter hashtag for this conversation. I am only vaguely aware of how hashtags aggregate Twitter debate topics, but I like the idea of “having a life.” It seems an infinitely superior—more inclusive and more realistic—headline under which we might talk about pursuing our choices.
