Opting out.... and going back

I've written here in the past about my choice to opt out of my career. I spent five years as a full-time mom, but I wasn't happy. In July 2007, right around the time I stopped writing new posts, I went back to work.

I was cautious at first. I went back only part time working about half the day. I liked it, though, liked using my brain, being rewarded -- even praised -- for it. Praise! I hadn't heard that in far too long!

I worked part time doing a full-time job for about 19 months, underpaid but enjoying most of the work. Then I was hired "for real" to do the job I'd been doing for so long. I'm still underpaid, but not as heinously as I was before. I was able to negotiate a full-time position with benefits that still gets me home by 3:00 most days.

So I'm back in my career, sort of, but with a very different attitude, and still not sure it's right for us. It's good to have the extra income -- we now have college funds for all the kids -- but it's taking its toll on me and the family in ways I didn't anticipate.

First, the good things: the kids have a lot more time with their Papa, and he bears a lot more responsibility for household chores than he used to. He gets the kids out the door in the morning and, with his flexible-hours, work-from-home-once-a-week job, he deals with a lot of the doctor appointments and daytime tasks now.

I have the psychological independence that my own paycheck brings, feeling less guilty when I buy a pair of shoes or write the check for the summer camp that the kids completely adore but that Papa thinks is too expensive. I also have the satisfaction of being good at my job most of the time and being recognized for it.

The kids have the positive influence of seeing me do something that isn't in service to them, which is a very good thing. They come to work with me sometimes, so they know what I do, and I think it's good for them to see that, while they come first for me, I have responsibilities to other people that have to enter the equation.

Now for the less positive: time. I just can't seem to get everything done, and I crave solitude. I work in a cubicle in a busy, social office that is never quiet. I go home to a noisy, busy household that is happy and boisterous, which is wonderful, but the only divide is the car ride home. Before I went back to work, I spent time writing, playing the piano, singing, walking, reading, podcasting... the list goes on. I have had to drop all of those creative things that made me feel alive and learning.

I am learning, though. This job stretches me in ways I didn't know existed, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. While it's a technical job, it's also financial and managerial, which is fairly new territory for me. I don't like managing, but it gives me the freedom to work on exciting technology that I might not have if my work were more closely directed by my immediate supervisor. It allows me to channel my creativity in ways that aid the business, but because of my inexperience, sometimes those projects go awry and I pay the price. It's stressful, but when things go right it can be exhilarating.

I miss the hours I spent each day just contemplating the larger questions of life, but I enjoy the sense of purpose I feel now. It's harder now to keep the volunteer commitments I made when I was unemployed, but service to the community is important to me, so I do my best.

The hardest thing for me to accept is the very real limitations I now have on my career. The unavoidable fact of it is, I chose to put my career on hold for five years, and I can't get that time back. I'll never make as much money as I would have if I hadn't opted out, nor will I get the flexibility -- you usually have to prove yourself by working regular 8-5 hours for a while before you can get that. My job prospects just aren't as wide open as they were because I feel so strongly that I need to be home for my kids after school. I hate the fact that my DH makes twice what I make and has much more flexibility with the same level of education and experience (except that, while my degree is in the field he works in, his is not). It's very hard to reconcile the choices I made with the consequences, which seem to be more far-reaching than I anticipated.

I wish it weren't necessary for women to make these hard choices and then be criticized by *someone* no matter which option we choose. The hardest criticism, though, comes from ourselves. We know we can't be perfect, but we also know that the generations before us fought for us to have the right to choose how to spend our time, so we feel an obligation to make that fight worthwhile. Perhaps our daughters are growing up in an atmosphere where that struggle isn't something to feel guilty or grateful about, but where the results of it are simply a given. Where they really can choose a career in industry or in the home or somewhere in the middle and be respected either way. That doesn't mean forget the struggle, but acknowledge it and get on with their lives. I hope that is my legacy to my daughters.

Options

It's been a long time, and much has happened...

I've gone from being a tired, frustrated, angry stay-at-home-mom to a tired, frustrated, angry working mom.

Why the transformation? One word: options. Despite all the articles I read about professional women who took the career off-ramp to raise their children for a while, I saw my meaningfulness (is that a word? It looks to me like one of those German words that's just other words all pushed together, like gutenmorgenfahrvergnugen or something) dwindle to nothing. My children are growing up before my eyes, and pretty soon I'll be one of those fat, middle-aged meek mothers you see sitting quietly at graduation with a wistful smile, hands folded, hiding the desperate panic that grips her as she realizes that her entire reason for living is about to embark on the life she envisioned for herself all those years ago. That's right before her husband announces that he's flying to Bermuda with his administrative assistant for a "conference", if you know what I mean...

I started working part time last summer, a little over half a day, so I was home for my kids in the afternoons, and they got to spend the whole morning with their grandma, who needed to be needed. Win-win-win, right? For a while, yes. Then, in the fall, I expanded my hours a bit. I'm still home when my kids get home from school, but I leave before they get up in the morning, so their father gets them off to school. Another good thing: kids get more quality time with Dad, and Dad gets to participate more in the whole child-rearing thing. I never enjoyed the morning routine, so I don't really miss it.

But now the honeymoon is over. The job got harder when colleagues left and I had to do their work. I find it harder to get home on time, and to get the housework done in the time left. All the family teamwork that worked so well in the fall has fallen by the wayside, and the kids are back to spending hours buried in books while Mom does all the laundry and nags them to clean their rooms. Dad is resentful because Mom is more tired than before, Mom is angry because the house is a disaster and no one's doing anything about it, and the kids are either oblivious or in open rebellion.

How do people do it?? I am at a complete loss as to how the general public handles this dual-income thing without having a complete meltdown at least once a month. I visit the homes of families where both partners work, and they're uncluttered and spotless. I don't know how to do that without actually moving out of my house. I spend all my free time driving the kids to various activities, hammering away at the endless mountain of laundry, and paying bills. My husband handles most of the grocery shopping and cooking, and no one does the cleaning. It's a miracle that my son gets a bath every now and then.

Do I have to make a choice between having a job and having leisure activities now? Is that the secret?

I keep hearing about happiness studies that show a U-shaped curve, with the nadir of happiness occurring in the 40s. That's around the same time that most people are raising teenagers and tweens, working hard to keep their jobs in a questionable economy, and often taking care of their aging, ailing parents. Gosh, I can't imagine why we'd be unhappy dealing with those things. Do we really need a study for this? The one good thing about it is knowing that it will probably get better. If we're able to keep our jobs. And if there is affordable (universal? please?) health care when we reach retirement age. And if our children don't go off the rails and become drug addicts or homicidal maniacs or, worse, victims of a DUI on their seventeenth birthday. (My nightmares are vivid, count on that).

I need options. The means to send my kids to college no matter how much it costs. The wherewithal to go it on my own if my husband and I just can't stand each other anymore. The money to buy a piece of land in the middle of nowhere that I can leave alone and go visit when the planet just refuses to slow down.

Women so wanted these options, for so long. But now that we have them, how do we handle the family demands that haven't gone away, that aren't yet shared equally between the partners? I can handle the job, it's the parenting and housekeeping that I'm having trouble with. Amidst all of it, I'm trying to hold onto the person I was before all this started. I never knew it would be this hard just to stay me.

It's all about health care...

So many of our country's ills could be ameliorated or even solved by universal, government-run health care.

Ok, maybe not our country's problems as a whole, but certainly a whole lot of women's issues.

Take, for example, abortion. The New York Times has an article out today about the new tactic being used by anti-choice activists: abortion is bad for a woman, too. That's absolutely true; how many women go through an abortion and emerge unscathed? It takes an emotional toll that can have repercussions even decades later.

That tactic misses the point of the pro-choice movement, but let's leave that for later. For now, just think about how much universally-accessible, free health care could change the face of pregnancy and child-rearing. A single woman now has to work full time just in order to get health benefits for herself and her child; if she were unable to work -- put on bed rest for a pregnancy-related complication, say -- she would lose her health benefits and her doctor's care. So she would have to continue to work, jeopardizing her health. It's lose-lose for a woman, and it could affect her physical health and her career for the rest of her life.

Now, imagine that this same woman had free health care unrelated to employment. If she were unable to work, there would be a financial burden placed on her, but not an insurmountable one. If she had family or friends to help her out for a while, she could manage, because medical bills wouldn't send her into bankruptcy. She could take an unpaid leave, or leave her job altogether, confident that her health would be preserved and she would be able to find another job when she was able. The child she eventually bore would get the well-baby care that children need, receive all the necessary immunizations, and have all the physical advantages that good medical care provides. If the child had medical problems, the infrastructure would be in place to make life as manageable as possible. Everybody wins, including the woman's employer, who has not had to pay for her health benefits, at least not directly.

Now, to return to the actual point of the abortion choice debate. It would be nice if no one ever felt that they had to get an abortion. Of course it would. But this isn't just about abortion. This is about control and choices for women. Enacting laws to regulate how abortions are offered and to whom is discriminating to women; the real point here is that a woman should have ultimate, unilateral control over her own body and what happens inside it. Full stop.

So here's my message to anti-choice activists: instead of lobbying for legislation to make abortion illegal or unavailable, thus sending desperate women underground for dangerous "medical" procedures, give women the support they need to make choices you can live with. Rather than bring a fist down on abortion altogether, offer a helping hand by using your powerful lobby to fight for health care for everyone, unrelated to employment. Rather than taking away a woman's power over her own body, give her the tools to preserve her own life as well as her unborn child's so she has more options. Don't be paternalistic and patronizing; be collaborative and respectful of a woman's life and health.

And don't forget to line up at the adoption agencies. If you're going to insist that every embryo, wanted or not, be brought to term, then step up and take responsibility for raising them. Put your money where your mouth is.

Next post: health care and working mothers.

Day Care and the SAHM (or, Validation and the Modern Woman)

This is a debate that is never going to end. Studies will continue to be done, psychobabble televangelists will continue to expound with ever-greater pomposity, and women will continue to second-guess their career choices forever and ever, amen.

What we're all really doing is looking for validation. Did I make the right choice in staying home with my children? Would it be better for them if I went back to work and put them in day care, giving us more money for trips to Europe and piano lessons? We need someone to tell us that what we're doing is right for our children and/or for ourselves, and that it's okay to put ourselves or our children first, whichever one we've tried to do. Thank you, feminism, for giving us the choice, and thank you, Eli Lilly, for giving us Prozac so we can deal with the cultural/personal/financial consequences of that choice.

Why are we so dependent on this outside validation? Why isn't it enough that our family is happy with whatever our situation is? Are we all determined to be SuperMom and outdo every other woman on the planet? Or are we all vast sinkholes of need, requiring constant positive feedback to maintain our own self-esteem?

Because it seems that it's not enough for women to be happy with their own arrangements. We need everyone else to be happy with them, too, or we consider them a failure. How interesting it is that men are seldom plagued with these doubts. It is my impression (correct me if I'm wrong) that men are happy if they are happy, but women aren't happy unless everyone else is happy, too. And that's the thing that is going to keep women as primary caregivers until the end of time.

I am a SAHM whose children are all in school all day. I could easily go back to work; in fact, I was offered, and declined, a full-time job at a local college. The problem is, the full-time job I already have isn't going to go away. The house will still have to be cleaned, dinner will still have to be made, laundry will have to be done, child care will still be of utmost importance, but I'll have a lot less time to do it all in, and zero time to sit and contemplate a story idea, read a book, play the piano, etc. I have no illusions about how much my husband will do around the house: he already does pretty much what he's going to do, and I'm not ready to go into unending battle to get him to do more. But I still troll the job listings, just in case the perfect job appears out of nowhere. Niggling guilt hangs at the back of my mind, repeating the trope that, because I can work, I should work. I feel guilty because I like being home by myself all day, and somehow that translates into being selfish.

So I'm staying home with the kids, yes, but I have to admit, these days it's an excuse for staying home and doing what I want to do for a change. I could go back to work, sure, but I don't really want to. I feel like I should for future financial security, but if I do, I'll never get another chance like this. I started working when I was 13 years old, and this is the first time in my life that I've felt like I have time to follow some dreams, try out new things. When I was young and single, I was so desperately afraid of being without health insurance and a paycheck that I worked my ass off and went to graduate school at the same time. Then, when my children were tiny, I ran my own business while they slept until I just couldn't physically handle the sleep deprivation anymore. This is my first taste of freedom, and I'm not ready to give it up for a bunch of shoulds.

But there's this part-time job I found on careerbuilder....

Putting my money where my mouth is...

Well, now that I've vented my spleen about what I think is wrong with the current marketplace, let's get down to some solutions. Hey, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, right?

To recap, the family is so disrespected in the workplace that parents have trouble finding jobs, especially if they demand flexibility. Parents, mostly women at the moment, who choose to stay at home with their children pay the price in their careers, even if they choose to go back to work within a few years of leaving their jobs. Unless the string of employment is unbroken, it is difficult to break back in, more difficult than it was trying to find that first job after college or grad school. What is the solution to this?

Well, I have a couple of ideas. One has to do with anyone going back to work, the other refers to women specifically.

Health benefits for all
First of all, every family faces pressure to maintain at least one full-time career. Why? Benefits! How many part-time jobs offer full family benefits, or even individual benefits, at a level that will cover the basics without breaking the bank? At the same time, unless one pulls back from full time to part time without taking any time in between, it is impossible to find a part time job that uses one's skills; any professional job posting I've seen demands full time work. Part time jobs abound, but they are generally limited, at least in my area, to secretarial, clerical or health care.

These two problems go hand in hand, but they pose a chicken-egg problem: separating health benefits from employment would allow workers to explore job sharing and part time work as long as they could afford it, and a growing pool of qualified workers would allow employers to expand their part time job offerings without paying a price in quality of work. Imagine the possibilities! My husband and I (our fields overlap somewhat) could, in theory, share a job, or, failing that, work two part time jobs, making sure that our family's needs are met and the work gets done well. We would each have the intellectual stimulation and peer interaction we need, and we would each have roughly equal family time, leading to less resentment and more equality at home and at work.

Do you see where I'm going here? Universal health care fits like the last piece in the family values jigsaw puzzle. This promotes the family, helps the next generation see that both parents can have careers and still be available for them, and even helps to make the sexes more equal. What's not to like?

Equal pay for equal work
I promised you two potential solutions. It used to be that women were paid less, no matter what their jobs were, and no bones were made about it. Well, it's still true, but no one talks about it anymore; it's old news. It's gone underground. Women are still paid only about $.76 for each dollar a man earns, and access to management positions, which pay more, is still limited. Now, though, I think it is less due to the perception that women are incapable of doing the same work as well as men, and more to the assumption that every woman will, eventually, leave to have a baby. If she returns at all after that, it is further assumed that her commitment to her job will be compromised -- once again we see how parents, mothers especially, are penalized just for other people's assumptions. Men are still seen as breadwinners, while women's income is thought to be optional.

Then the demands of the family, whether children are involved or not, become burdensome. The sandwich generation can easily find itself between a rock and a hard place, and someone just has to stop working for money and deal with life. When a family has to make such a decision, which partner do you think is going to quit? Most highly-educated people partner up with other highly-educated people -- not universally, but more often than not -- so it's likely, everything else being equal, to be the woman who quits. (Yes, I know, there are plenty of exceptions, but I'm generalizing here. My mom always made more than my dad, so I hear you. Bear with me.)

Linda Hirshman's thesis in her American Prospect article is that this trend begins at home, that the inequality is due to imbalance in the housework. I argue the opposite: conditions in the workplace lead to a need for someone to be home to handle life while the worker puts in his/her 80-hour week. Because we can't afford to quit and lose our health benefits and 401(k)s (because, don't forget, companies don't offer pensions anymore -- we're on our own), women are more likely to leave their careers because they earn less, even if their jobs are similar to their partners'.

The solution? Universal health care unrelated to employment. Everything else will follow.