The Way We Live Now

(With apologies to the New York Times Magazine)

I have three children. Let's just get that out there right now. They're a big part of my life, and they dictate how I spend most of my time. I also have a husband, two aging parents and a mother-in-law. Now you know my dirty little secret.

All of my children are now in school all day, so I thought I'd go back to paid work. I worked part time for six years, running my own consulting business until I burned out from the exhaustion of caring for little kids all day, trying to get my work done at night, and, most importantly, my husband's attitude that my work came, at best, third, and my clients were supposed to understand that. It's been four years of SAHMing since I closed the business, and I've had enough of endless housework with nothing to show for myself at the end of the year. No raises, no respect.

Well, hah! Just *try* to find a job if you admit that you have a family that's important to you. Parents have gotten such a bad rap for taking time off for doctor appointments, school functions, and *gasp* family vacations that no one wants to hire us. Why hire someone like me when they can get a single, carefree recent college graduate to work longer hours, probably for less money and fewer benefits? They'll take longer to do not quite as good a job, but by golly they'll warm that chair for the right eight hours, and that's what counts.

Families are the new dirty little secret. Everyone has them, but no one dares acknowledge that they enjoy them or consider them important. Society would literally stop without them, but, hey, "it's the economy, stupid." If it doesn't help the bottom line, it's not going to happen. So, even though I could do a better job in a particular position, getting more done in less time, I won't get the job because I need some flexibility in my time. We're not talking about critical, fault-intolerant systems here, or bizarre work schedules. I don't apply for those jobs precisely because the hours are fixed and I understand why that's necessary. I apply for jobs where the work has to get done, but you don't have to be there 9-5 to do it.

I'm told that I shouldn't even mention that I need flexible hours. That seems disingenuous to me. I know that I want to be home for my children after school, which means working early hours -- not excessively early, just something like 7-3 -- and it seems reasonable to me to make that clear from the start. Is that wrong? Otherwise, I feel like I'm pulling a bait-and switch, and I hate those. But I'm expected to act like I have nothing else in my life but this potential job, like I live only for this company or that. Is that really what we've become??

This is a scary trend, with the Linda Hirshmans of the world telling us that caring for our own children is wrong and the child-free movement telling us that even having them is a bad thing. Just how does civilization continue if families and children aren't valued? And it's not a problem within the home, as Hirshman posits, but in the workplace; parents have trouble balancing work and family because their work environments don't value their families. They see families as a drain on our energy, not restorative. People in this country don't even take all their vacations anymore, largely because they're afraid of being dispensable at work!

Hirshman decries the highly-educated women of today who opt out of the rat race to enjoy their children. Who can blame them? When companies routinely lay off the employees that do the actual work in order to lavish bonuses on the top few, why should we give them our loyalty? Where is the real reward here? A paycheck, yes, but with a certain soullessness to go with it. You don't dare invest yourself too much in any job because it will just devastate you when you lose it. The problem isn't with staying home with your children when they need you. The obstacles come when you want to go back to paid work but you don't want to devote your entire life to it. That's when you find it impossible, and that's true across the board.

Most of the current "opt-out" generation hasn't found that out yet. They blithely think they can go back anytime, and perhaps many will, depending on their professions and their locations. But their children are still young, so it's on the back burner. What they don't understand is that they will always want to be there for their children, so going back to 80-hour weeks is not going to appeal to them, nor will it even be an option. They will be forever tainted.

They might as well wear a scarlet 'M'.