Last summer, Anne-Marie Slaughter rattled psyches with a manifesto in The Atlantic that described how the American workplace is inhospitable to high-powered working mothers. It was titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” and it struck a chord because it contained the ultimate spoiler alert: You can be a careerist, or you can be a present parent, but the world isn’t designed to accommodate both.
Implicit in the headline is the suggestion that even though women don’t have it all yet, well, we deserve to. This week, The Atlantic followed up with a story noting which male demographic “has it all.” (Shocker: It’s men with stay-at-home wives.)
Comments
It is interesting that articles addressing this topic are never able to mention the most obvious--and important--question for our future (considering the perilously desctructive over-population we experience today): Can women transcend their biology and decide not to have children at all? Rather than trying to come to terms with the image of the stressed-out professional mom, why not cultivate the image of the professional woman who makes the conscious choice to live a full, rich career without children? Why are feminists not able to openly and publicly foster and celebrate the image of women who decide not to define themselves, and structure their lives, in terms of their progeny? They exist, but like atheists, they stay quietly below the radar because their choices imply the taint of questioning the merits of procreating. Or is in the end biology that prevents feminists from allowing this to surface in the public marketplace of ideas?
As a full-time working mom with two children who is extremely close to a much older former colleague who never married and never had children, I think that women should have many choices open to them and a culture that values a woman ONLY if she has children or a culture that values a woman (or man) ONLY for what they are able to achieve professionally is not sustainable. The world may be overpopulated but the fact is that in the US and Western Europe the birth rate is not keeping up at the "replacement" level and this is going to lead to major issues in our society. I firmly believe one reason for the reduction in the birth rate is that it is just so incredibly difficult to afford children nowadays, even with two parents working. I have friends from my single days who mock me for having kids - I tell them they can send my kids a thank-you note when they collect their social security checks!
I "bought" the feminist movement while in high school and college ( I recall a Professor describing African women having a baby, then being out in the field the next day...).
I had my first baby 17 days before my Internal Medicine Internship at a Harvard program... I was careful to never mention the baby at work, and to have nannies to cover for me when I got home late at night ( We paid them more than I made, by the the way!). My husband suffered, the baby suffered, and I never slept ( I was either on call at the hospital, or up with the baby at home, as I felt my husband should have time off w/ the baby).
I had a second baby, but because my hospital was "forward-thinking", I was able to spread my 2nd yr residency out for 2 yrs ( a fellow wanted to "job-share" the year). So, I was able to have my son and then have 12 weeks off w/out causing any extra work for my colleagues).
Now, as an aging Hospitalist, ( my daughter is a manager of a significant company, my son is a 3rd yr medical student and plans to be an ER MD), I think about all of this.
I advise my students to not do what I did; I also notice that my male students take paternity leave.
I also notice that my younger colleagues often say "Oh, I can't do that admission, or can't take care of that ICU patient because I have to get home to my children". I think, "Hmmm....I always took care of my patients, and just had to have a nanny available - I never would have exited before my patient was taken care of".
It is a great paradigm shift, with both good and bad outcomes.
The original sin in all this was a mistake made by the feminist movement of which I was and am a proud member. I too set out to have it all and discovered the fatal flaw.
We who were born in the fifties and who lived through the birth of modern feminism remember the previous culture that set the value of homekeeping and child-rearing at zero. A woman (or anyone) who did that was no-one, doing nothing. And the mistake is, we bought it, by thinking we could do that (because it's nothing) and add onto it the life that men were expected to have - because zero careers plus one career is only one career.
Turns out child-rearing and homekeeping do not equal zero. It's an entire, all-consuming career, and always was. Failing to notice that was an extreme sexist error made by everyone, all of us feminists included, who assumed, like the guidance counselor above, that we would just "get daycare."
Words of advice? Of course I hope for a day when that third career is shared out evenly between parents, if both want to or have to work, and when businsses step up to help because there is an actual cost and real work that gets done raising families. Still hoping.
Thank you. My mom is of your generation. It's an interesting negotiation coming at the career/family balance from a different perspective and retaining her respect.