Finally, someone tells me I'm not an underachiever... And I believe them!

My friend E posted an amazing article today, that finally sums up, objectively yet passionately and honestly, what it means to be a mom and try to have a career.  The topic of the article is staggeringly poignant.  The author, Anne-Marie Slaughter, says:

I’d been the woman smiling the faintly superior smile while another woman told me she had decided to take some time out or pursue a less competitive career track so that she could spend more time with her family. I’d been the woman congratulating herself on her unswerving commitment to the feminist cause, chatting smugly with her dwindling number of college or law-school friends who had reached and maintained their place on the highest rungs of their profession. I’d been the one telling young women at my lectures that you can have it all and do it all, regardless of what field you are in. Which means I’d been part, albeit unwittingly, of making millions of women feel that they are to blame if they cannot manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life (and be thin and beautiful to boot).

Well well, in that final sentence,  she has finally summed up the way I have felt since Mini (my son) was born.  I won't reiterate.  Read the above again.  I read it and knew instantly that I am not alone in this world.  I mentioned in a previous post that my career immediately slid down the priority list the moment I saw my little boy's face.  In the three years since his birth, a day hasn't passed where I didn't feel both guilty for not spending more time with Mini AND guilty for not spending more time at work.  I have struggled every day to be the very best parent AND the very best professional I could be.  I have, not for one day, been able to achieve my expectations of myself in both roles.  Now that i have a second baby, I finally have admitted to myself that I will not be able to develop the relationship with my children that I long to have while simultaneously pursuing a career as a Director of Admissions.  I'm not saying I can't raise my kids and rise to the top of my field.  I'm saying something much different.

I can't develop the relationship with my children that I long to have 

while simultaneously rising to the top in my field.

If I'm being totally, brutally honest (which I always am), I don't know for sure that I can develop that relationship while even "aspiring" to mediocrity in the professional world.  I also know with some degree of certainty, after being home with both of them for the last ten weeks, that I probably can't do it while being a stay at home mom.  What I decided I could settle for is a middle of the road gig, with some level of challenge and intellectual engagement/fulfillment, that will allow me the right to put my family where they belong- at the top of the list.  The sad thing is that I have *no idea* what job that might be.  Certainly I can't imagine showing up to an interview, having someone ask "why do you want to work here" and responding with "well, my family is #1, and I need an employer that not only understands that, but supports and encourages it."  HA!  You're hired?  I don't think so.  Because, as Ms. Slaughter says in this article:

I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured.

On Monday, I am going to sit down with my boss and tell her I won't be returning to work at the end of my maternity leave.  With all the trials and tribulations of a semi-dysfuntional workplace, I truly do love my work.  I love my work and I believe deeply in the place I work.  But I know, for a stone cold fact, the my family and more significantly my children will be worse for the wear if I continue to work for GW's Admissions Office.  I can't continue the travel, the evenings, the insane amount of overtime from January through March.  I refuse to continue having to justify why I need to take a break, on a SATURDAY, to be with my family.  And I will no longer feel guilty when I need to spend a day nursing a sick baby instead of chairing a committee, running an admissions information session, hosting a "VIP" visitor, or reading 50 applications.  What I have learned is that my children have no replacement for me.  I am their mother and they need me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Me.  No one can replace me in their lives.  And if I place them on the back burner for three months while I am putting my career first, they are missed.  Missed in the worst sense of the word- missed as in "lost," "set aside,"... "skipped over."  But, thanks to this article, I'm not beating myself up about this.  I'm honestly not beating GW up over this.  And, unfortunately, I can't really even beat up my boss about it.

This article asks why this is the norm.  It doesn't judge women for the choices they've made.  It doesn't advise me to cease my career aspirations because I have children, and it doesn't fault the women who have round-the-clock nannies raising their children so they can make partner in a large law firm.  This article very simply states that America is flawed.  Our values are flawed.  What we ask of the American mother is flawed.  And the author proposed some solutions to this, that, I'll be honest, will never come to fruition because America's leadership can't agree on ANYTHING, especially not a non-partisan paradigm shift and cultural change that would benefit the entire country.

It was freeing to read a perfectly logical and very intelligent overview of why I can't have it all- and that the fact that I can't has nothing to do with my own abilities and strengths as a woman, mother, and professional.  When I read this article, I get so frustrated that we have an unsolvable crisis in America that is forcing me out of a job next Monday- that is going to take from me the very rights that I have been promised since this country's inception.  The fact that I have to choose between raising capable, loving, confident humans and seeking self-fulfillment in a career (while also contributing to the GNP) is America's fault.  Not mine.

What's worse is that America is pitting mothers against one another.  We foster this competitive culture that keeps us looking in the mirror to find the culprit of our struggles as moms.  Time Magazine asks us if we are "Mom Enough," and every doctor we go to- Dr. Sears, Dr. Ezzo, our own pediatricians- not to mention La Leche League and Abbott Enterprises, gives us a license to pass judgement on the parenting choices we all make for ourselves.  But, as this brilliant woman says, and then is said again in today's brilliant article, we all need to look further than other moms as we start to wonder why we feel so utterly torn, and why we struggle so much to find our fulfillment and purpose.  I agree with these two women- it's because our country and our culture have set us up to feel like consistent underachievers.  Either that, or to live our lives in utter exhaustion because we are made to feel that we don't have what it takes unless we "have it all."

Let's support each other, moms.  Let's support our families, America.  Let's support our employees, bosses.  Let's support our husbands.  Our colleagues.  Our friends.  Let's not just "allow" ourselves to make the choices we need to make for our families.  Let's CELEBRATE and SUPPORT our obligation to our children by setting up systems in the workplace that enforce the need to raise strong, intelligent, capable adults.  

Now THAT would be revolutionary.