Guess what, ladies! We still can’t have it all. Well, we could, if only the world of work adjusted itself to meet our requirements. As it currently stands, however, we just can’t have a really, really high-powered job and spend as much time taking care of our children as we’d like to — not even if we’re working for a feminist icon, in what is arguably the most aggressively woman-friendly presidential administration ever.
This sad news comes to us in a (ahem, rather lengthy) piece in The Atlantic by Anne-Marie Slaughter, who left her job as dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs to spend two years as Director of Policy Planning in Hillary Clinton’s State Department. After two years in Washington, D.C., Ms. Slaughter hightailed it back to New Jersey in order to, well, spend more time with her 14- and 12-year-old sons.
She had an epiphany, you see: spending the week in D.C. with only weekends at home to attend the Little League games and pick up the dry cleaning just wasn’t working for her, even though her husband is the guy we girls have been dreaming about since we first traded our aprons and sewing kits for laptops and legal briefs; he even cooks Hungarian! Her family was suffering. Because of her career.
Who’s to blame? You guessed it: SOCIETY. Because men are still socialized to blah blah blah. Studies have shown that blah blah blah. Young women are agonizing over blah blah blah. Older women are agonizing over blah blah blah. And what’s to be done? Right again: CHANGE SOCIETY. Change the way we work; change the way we value different kinds of working (through email, phone and videoconferencing, and not thinking that #hours-spent-in-office=drive and dedication). Oh, and arrange school schedules so that our children can be kept at their own desks for as long as we are at ours. If we do this, we will finally, finally, figure out how to achieve, you guessed it again, WORK-LIFE BALANCE.
Now, Ms. Slaughter very nobly includes a couple of paragraphs where she acknowledges that she is writing, as she puts it, to her “demographic” (i.e., privileged, educated women who have considerate husbands and household help) and that the women stocking the shelves or ringing up on the cash register at Walmart might have a somewhat different notion of work-life balance from hers.
And if Ms. Slaughter’s demographic requires a 12,000-word Atlantic article and endless back-and-forth Internet discussion, not to mention a front-page New York Times story, to air and analyze grievances yet again, doubtless the ladies of Walmart will understand.
Yeah, I thought it was a stupid article as well. Also rather vain and self indulgent: It seemed as though every other paragraph started out, "Meanwhile, my high paying prestigious job was not only preventing me from blah blah blah but was also keeping me from writing my academic books and doing my TV interviews and speeches." n nSpeaking as a guy: No, you can't "have it all." If you want children, and want to be involved with their raising, then that will be your Job #1 in life until they graduate high school (minimum) and often for many years beyond that. That is why MANY women, and men, tend to disappear for two or three decades in midlife. Because they are devoting themselves to something that they think is more important than their careers: their children. Not everyone is a Type A personality. n nThe bright side is that if you really want to do something, you will have ample opportunity once your kids are raised, and I speak from experience. Furthermore, your decades long self-abnegation can only work to your favor in terms of judgment, wisdom, and patience. n n
I suspect she may have harbored some jealousy that her children relied on her husband than on on her. Did she not think through what the weekends only relationship with her children would result in? I suspect her feminist side put more pressure on her to be gung-ho "I can do it all, but my kids will come in last". I remember back in early 70's the newly liberated feminists looked on me with scorn as I stayed home to raise my children.
You can't have it all. Sorry Feminists. That's why in the old days Nobility farmed their kids out to Nanny's, Governesses and Boarding Schools. They put their positions and power above their offspring but at least ususally had competent help raise them. Some people will put their spouses and kids first and their careers will suffer some. How big a house do you need? How fancy a car? Do you want to be there for your kids and to guide them so they become what you want them to be or not?
The first fallacy was women thinking that men "had it all" in the first place, and so they should too. My husband works hard to provide for us so I can be a homeschool Mom to four daughters, but he also wants to be a Dad. Aspirations in his current career (engineering) are put lower on the priority list so he can spend time with them. Aspirations he has about other careers (writing) are put off all together so he can continue earning an income that allows me to stay home. Hobbies are indulged minimally so that he can give me a break from full-time child rearing. It seems the least I can do is not complain bitterly about giving up a career in genetic research to be home with kids instead, even if once a day (usually while changing a diaper on a wriggly toddler), I have wistful thoughts about a paycheck, lunch out with friends, and going to the bathroom all by myself. Life is full of choices – you make them and you live with the consequences.
She is an elitist who speaks only for the elite of the liberals/democrats. She has, like most elitists, NO concern whatsoever for the average American woman. But everywhere she will claim the opposite. This is typical democrat-liberal deception.