Tag: having it all is a lie

#mommyfail

On By BekkiIn Pinned Posts, This is Feminism2 Comments

We started Z on formula today.  Part of me is relieved about this. It means that pumping will no longer be a nightmare measured in ounces. It means that I can stop desperately trying to stockpile three days worth of milk in the freezer for when I have to travel. It means that if a late afternoon meeting runs over, I don’t have to choose between getting home in time to bathe her and put her to sleep or staying at work to pump so that I have enough milk to feed her the next day.

Mostly, I feel like a failure.

I couldn’t make enough milk for my daughter. I wasn’t willing to work hard enough. To pump longer, or more often. I cared more about my own convenience than about her health. I’m worried that writing this down will make people think less of me.

My friends who post stories on Facebook about how breastfeeding is the best thing you can do for your baby. My friends and family who’ve had kids and breastfed all the through.

I could justify it. I could tell you how long I struggled with this decision. I could tell you I asked my husband to buy the formula, because I couldn’t do it myself. I could tell you I pump five times a day, starting at six and ending at midnight, and I still can’t always get enough milk. I could tell you I’m trying not to cry while I type this. I could tell you that we’re just supplementing, not switching over to all formula.

But none of that matters, because I still feel like I’ve failed.

The women of my mother’s generation fought so that their daughters could have it all. A career. A family.

The women of my generation need to fight so that our daughters have it right. Parental leave for both parents that’s long enough to get back to human. A culture that views parenting as work which is just as hard and important as any other job – and compensates parents for the time they spend raising their children. An understanding that if one partner in a relationship wants it “all”, the other will need to make sacrifices in equal proportion. A culture free of judgement, free of the mommy wars, focused instead on what works for each family.

#haveitright

Leaning Out

On By BekkiIn This is FeminismLeave a comment

Yesterday was the first day in forever that I didn’t have to work.  It was wonderful.  I cleaned the house and made a lemon chiffon pie.  Then A and I took a drive down toward Coney Island, stopped at Spumoni Gardens to grab a pizza, and came home to watch Game of Thrones.

It was pretty much a perfect day.  The kind of day that made me think, I’d be happy doing this every day.  Except that would mean I’d be pretty much a stay at home wife.  And wouldn’t that mean I’d somehow failed?

I feel like women of my generation are supposed to want the high powered career, to become the Fortune 500 CEO or the partner with the corner office or the next Secretary of State.  Between the Anne-Marie Slaughter article and the Cheryl Sandburg book, it’s starting to seem like even though we were told we had choices, we were expected to go down the career path.  Which, in its own way, is as strange as telling women their place is in the home.*

I’ve seen a bunch of theories lately about how to keep women in the work force.  They range from tax incentives (treat child care as a fully deductible expense) to work/life balance suggestions (don’t schedule meetings after school hours).  The problem is that all these suggestions go toward disguising the fact that the American workplace is inherently un-family-friendly, rather than implementing the kind of structural value change that would give women – and men – the ability to have both meaningful careers and rich family lives.

Maybe, then, we’re looking at this the wrong way.  What if women are leaving the work force because they aren’t interested in playing by the same rules that men do?  What if women would rather opt out of the system — some by starting their own businesses, some by staying home with the kids — because they don’t buy in to the corporate ethos in this country?

What if the solution is not for women to lean in, but to drop out?

Let the men run the rat race if they want to.  Let them pile up money they don’t have time to spend.   Let them miss the baseball games and the school plays.  And maybe, by the time I have daughters who are the age I am now, the question won’t be why women can’t have it all.  It will be why it took men so long to figure out that there was a better way for everyone.

*If this sounds familiar, it’s because I’ve written about the subject of women in the workforce before.

“Doll Parts”

On By BekkiIn This is FeminismLeave a comment

A few months ago, Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote a great article titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.”  If you haven’t read it yet, you should.  Go ahead.  I’ll still be here when you’re done.

My reaction to the article was somewhere in between “of course” and “there’s no way that kind of systemic change will ever happen.”  Then I went on with my life.

I’m one of those women who has been told, from Day One, that I can have anything I want as long as I’m willing to work hard enough for it.  So I did.  Husband?  Check.  Career?  Check.  Kids?  Not yet, but on the horizon.  Lately, though, I’ve been feeling stretched over too many places, as if there’s not enough of me to go around.

I feel guilty that I don’t have enough time to spend with my husband, frustrated that I don’t speak another language (or another two or three) fluently enough to work in, stressed because it seems like there’s never time enough in the day to go to the gym or to yoga class.  The only time I feel peaceful is when I’m writing — but that means waking up at early o’clock to claw space out of my day.

I’m fairly sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.  For me, so far, the balance has been in learning what things I can let go.  Getting fluent in Spanish?  Forget it. Nightly workouts at the gym?  Not gonna happen.  Even so, it feels like there should be a way to move to a place, not where we can have it all, but where we don’t have to feel guilty about letting it go.