Year of Yes

by Shonda Rhimes

  About two weeks after Jenny began working at the house, she looked at me thoughtfully and said, “You know, I’m your nanny too. Because, Shonda, you need a nanny.”

  I think maybe I should have been insulted. I mean, she did just call me a child. Right? I should have felt some outrage or some affront. Instead, what I felt, overwhelmingly, was relief.

  I had been out battling on the front line, doing the best I could against the enemy. But I was battered and bruised. Bombs kept dropping everywhere, I was tiptoeing around land mines left and right. I wanted to go home. I was losing the Mommy War something terrible.

  I don’t know about you, but the mistakes and missteps I have made since becoming a mother . . . before kids, my confidence could not be dented. Now it’s shattered on a daily basis. I don’t know what I am doing. There is no manual. There’s no checklist. There was no one to give lessons. These tiny humans have me caught up, trapped me behind enemy lines. I willingly enlisted, but did I do it for the right reasons? I worry that all I wanted was to look cute in the uniform. Or maybe be in the USO—sing for the troops. Well, I can’t sing. But I can play the oboe. Give me a chance and I will play the hell out of an oboe for the troops. Instead I am fighting. Front lines. Holding a weapon. I’m not as brave as the others. Not as smart or as strong or as sure that I can make it.

  You know the character in the old war movies who always gets shot because he panics and runs?

  That character is me as a mother.

  I needed help. I needed fresh troops. Or more ammo. Or a medic. Or even just a chaplain for last rites, for the love of . . .

  I got Jenny McCarthy.

  Jenny McCarthy is the SEAL Team Six of nannies.

  I cannot count the number of times some nice reporter has placed a little battered silver recorder in front of my face, flicked it on and, with a kind smile, asked me what I call the Big Questions: How do I manage work and home? What tips do I have for working moms? What is my secret to finding balance in a busy world?

  I get asked the Big Questions in almost EVERY SINGLE INTERVIEW I do. I hate the Big Questions. I hate being asked the Big Questions ALMOST as much as I hate being asked the Diversity Question—“Why is diversity so important?” (which ranks for me as one of the dumbest questions on the face of the earth, right up there with “Why do people need food and air?” and “Why should women be feminists?”).

  But as much as I hate the Big Questions, I don’t want to be rude to the very nice reporters who ask. I don’t think the reporters mean any harm in posing the questions—I think people genuinely wonder. It’s just that, before this Year of Yes, I genuinely didn’t know what to say. So I’d find myself smiling at the reporters and giving a lot of different, odd answers.

  “Why, Jane, I manage with a lot of organization and a label maker.”

  “I do laundry late at night, Susan.”

  “Gosh dangit, Bill, I’ve started meditating on a regular basis!”

  Yeah, right. Late-night laundry is the cure to getting three kids up and dressed, working a twelve-hour day, making calls to my kid’s tutor, scheduling doctor’s appointments and playdates on my only ten-minute break and then coming home to find that my one-year-old finally walked and I missed it?

  Late-night laundry, my ass.

  Late-night laundry is not a true answer to any question ever.

  There is one answer to all of those reporters’ Big Questions.

  I just didn’t want to say it.

  Because no one else ever said it.

  I’ve read a lot of books written by and about working women and I’m struck by the fact no one ever seems to want to talk about having help at home. Which I think is not so helpful to the women who don’t have help at home.

  Let me put this in completely irrelevant and strange hair-related terms:

  God bless the soul of Whitney Houston, but I spent an hour every single morning of all four years of high school in front of the mirror trying to get my hair to look exactly like Whitney’s hair. Hours and hours of my life given over to a hot curling iron and a bottle of hair spray and burned fingertips. To me, Whitney’s hair was the definition of flawless. As a teenager in Coke-bottle-thick glasses who barely spoke at school and spent all her time inside books, nothing about my life was flawless. I somehow believed that everything would be better if I could just make my hair look like Whitney’s. If my hair was flawless, my life would follow suit. Because clearly Whitney had it all worked out.

  I was at a hair salon in Los Angeles five or six years after graduating from college. For some reason, Whitney came up in the usual hair salon gossip. I casually mentioned to my hairdresser how much I’d loved her hairstyle when I was in high school and then spun the story of my morning Whitney ritual. I made sure that I danced around the sad determination and kept the story funny. Gotta lay that track, gotta burn that campfire. So my hairdresser was still wiping the tears of laughter from her face when she said it.

  “Girl”—she shook her head—“you know that was a wig she had on, right? You could probably buy it if you want to. Hold on. Let me get the wig catalogue and show you . . .”

  I did not hear another word she said. I was lost, thinking of the hours of wasted time and the gallons of wasted hair spray. I relived the inevitable misery, the feeling of failure and insecurity that came every morning when my hair wouldn’t do what I was trying to bully it into doing.

  And if I had known . . . if I had just been told . . . no matter how hard I worked, my hair was NEVER going to look like that . . .

  If I had only known that not even Whitney’s hair could look like that . . .

  I had to bite my lip hard to keep from bursting into tears right then and there in front of two ladies I didn’t know.

  Black hair salons are no joke—I was going to be sitting across from these two ladies for at least five more hours. I did not want to be known as the Fool Who Sobbed While She Got Her Hair Relaxed.

  I didn’t cry. But it hurt. The betrayal ran deep.

  But, I have to admit, there was also a small sense of relief.

  Because now I knew: I had not failed.

  I just didn’t own the wig.

  Successful, powerful working mothers who keep silent about how they take care of their homes and families, who behave as if they maybe have a clone of themselves or possess Hermione Granger’s Time-Turner so they can be two places at once . . . well, they are making everyone else get out their curling irons.

  Don’t do that. Don’t make me get my curling iron out for no reason.

  Jenny McCarthy is my family’s nanny. And I am proud to say so out loud to anyone who asks. I am proud to say that I do not do this alone.

  I don’t think powerful, famous women hide the fact that they have nannies or some kind of help at home because they are being unkind to other people. I mean, these women aren’t at home laughing and laughing at how everyone out in America is trying to do it all and can’t because they don’t know that the secret is that NO ONE CAN DO IT ALL! HA HA!! We fooled you! SUCKA!

  I don’t even think that’s why my idol didn’t tell us she wore the wig.

  Powerful famous women don’t say out loud that they have help at home, that they have nannies, housekeepers, chefs, assistants, stylists—whatever it is they have to keep their worlds spinning—they don’t say out loud that they have these people at home doing these jobs because they are ashamed.

  Or maybe a more precise way to say it is that these women have been shamed.

  Before my daughter Harper was born, when I was still filling out stacks and stacks of adoption paperwork, smiling for social workers and obsessing over baby clothes in stores—back when having a baby was more one of my brilliant ideas than anything else—a working friend asked me if I had started interviewing.

  “Interviewing for what?” I remember asking her.

  “You know. A baby nurse, a nanny.” She had a new baby herself, a little boy less than six months old. I can still picture her as she said this. She
leaned forward in her chair, more intense than I thought the discussion merited. As if she was trying to tell me something important. And of course she was. She so was.

  She was wasting her time.

  I am never more sure of myself about a topic than when I have absolutely no experience with it. So with no baby of my own anywhere in sight, I was incredibly sure of myself as a mother.

  If I could slap myself, just reach back in time and wallop a good one across my face . . .

  Because what I did next . . .

  Look, it didn’t feel like much at the time. In my defense, I wasn’t yet a mother. I didn’t yet know. I’m innocent!

  Ignorance is no excuse.

  What I did next was cruel. And from where I stand now, after thirteen years fighting deep behind the enemy lines of the Mother Hood, I can tell you with certainty: any tribunal would call it a war crime. What I did next was launch a violent emotional ambush that left my unarmed sister wounded in the field.

  I looked at my friend. She had dark circles of exhaustion under her eyes. I’m pretty sure her hair hadn’t been washed in weeks. She’d blown her nose with baby wipes earlier. I took all of this in. And I said:

  “Why in the world would I hire someone to take care of my baby? I mean, seriously? That’s just lazy. If I’m not willing to take care of my baby myself, why am I even having a baby in the first place?”

  I felt all the mighty righteousness in the world.

  Her face tightened. The air between us changed. I felt startled by her rage.

  Mom down, mom down.

  I can’t tell you exactly how that meal ended, what was said. But I can tell you that she did not speak to me again.

  Ever.

  It wasn’t until later that I got it. I had an eight-week-old Harper strapped to my chest in a Snugli. I was sweaty; my hair, which had been a cute Afro puff a week or so ago, was now not merely dirty—it was a matted, terrifying Afro-mess that was going to be both painful and time-consuming to try to restore. The pajamas I wore had a stiff, hard patch of dried formula on the front. That stiff, hard patch acted as a fine bug repellant, because it stank like nothing I’d ever smelled before. I was seated in front of my computer, alternately sobbing from an exhaustion so total that I felt sure I could SEE the air moving in blue waves around the room, and trying to write dialogue for the movie I was supposed to have turned in a month ago.

  That was how stupid I was. I adopted a baby and still agreed to turn in a script for a movie a month later.

  If you have no children, trust me: THAT IS BEYOND STUPID.

  Later that evening, Christopher arrived. This is Chris #2 for those of you keeping score—not my publicist, Chris. This Chris and I used to be roommates a hundred years ago when we were both broke and struggling. Now he’s a lawyer with a wife and an adorable son. I was best man at his wedding. He is Harper’s godfather, and he takes that job very seriously. Every Sunday for the past twelve years, he has showed up at my door to spend time with his godchild. Every. Single. Sunday. He got married on a Saturday, and the next day he was at my house. I told him to go home. He told me it was Sunday in a tone that allowed no argument. He’s not just a friend—he’s family.

  So when Chris #2 arrived that evening, he took one look at me and removed the baby from my arms. He gave me that smile you give a person who has the crazy, swirly eyes. He also took a big step back at the smell of me.

  “Go take a shower. Harper and I are going to watch ESPN.”

  When I woke up an hour later I was still in the shower, the now cold water causing me to shiver. I thought: “I need help. I need to hire some help. I need to hire a lot of help. Or I am going to lose my job and my child and I are going to starve to death. I need to hire help or I won’t make it.”

  And I suddenly thought of my friend.

  I thought of what I had said to her.

  Mom down, mom down.

  I thought of what I had done to her.

  I’d shamed her.

  We’ve all been taught to shame and be ashamed. And why wouldn’t we feel ashamed? How could we not feel ashamed?

  We’re not supposed to have any help. We’re supposed to do it all ourselves. Even if we are working. So if you have kids and you get help to care for them?

  SHAME ON YOU.

  Which is just . . . rude.

  And sexist.

  Caterina Scorsone (who also happens to play Amelia Shepherd on Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice) and I spend a lot of time ranting to each other about this issue.

  “No man,” she points out often, “has ever had to apologize for having help in order to take care of his home and his kids. Ever. Why do we?”

  She has a point. Why do we?

  I mean, let’s all remember that for most women, staying home is not an option. Most women have to work. The majority of women, unless they are wealthy or financially cared for by someone else, have to work. Historically, women have always had to work. Women worked in the fields. Women were maids. Women raised other women’s children. Women were nurses. Women worked in factories. Women were secretaries. Seamstresses. Telephone operators.

  What was different in the past was that people lived closer to their families. Your mother watched your children. Your aunt watched them. Your sister. Your cousin Sue. For some people, this remains true. For most people . . . you need help. And the crisis of child care in this country is brutal. And scary. And expensive. It’s a lot to handle. I’m betting you are having a hard time doing it all, feeling good about it and making it all work.

  So it would not help anyone to pick up this book and read that I merrily tuck a giggling toddler under each arm with effortless ease and skip to my office, where I run two shows and produce two more while developing others as I laugh and laugh and sip champagne with celebrities while we all eat mounds of food and never gain a pound . . .

  It never ever helps to think that Whitney’s hairdo is real.

  Leave no mom behind, soldiers. And even with help . . . I’m still in the trenches. Nobody has this thing figured out.

  Except doesn’t it feel like everyone else has figured it out?

  I don’t know about you, but it’s the idea that I’m not measuring up that gets me. I’m constantly worrying and wondering and feeling like I am failing because everywhere I look, everyone else seems to be thriving. The women around me are smiling and their kids are smiling and their houses seem clean and it all looks so great on Pinterest and Instagram and Facebook . . .

  I am not an “everything looks great” mom. I am a “barely hanging on” mom.

  I am a hot-mess mama.

  I have worn pajamas in the carpool line.

  Dirty pajamas.

  A long long looooong time ago, at one of the schools my daughter thankfully no longer attends, I was sitting in that back-to-school meeting that all schools have at the end of summer. After the principal gave a warm and rousing welcome, she invited the head of the PTA to the stage. Now, the head of the PTA was a school parent. A mom. A mom just like any other mom. If any other mom was tall, gorgeous, whip-smart and—I gotta say it—practically perfect in every way.

  Perfect PTA Mom very cheerfully began to tell us about the rules for the Friday bake sale rotation schedule that we were all expected to take part in. (Now, why we were filling our kids up with sugary baked goods and why we were selling them these baked goods in an effort to raise money when the tuition at this school already made me involuntarily shudder every time I thought about it . . . was all beyond me. But there was a weekly bake sale and we all had to join in. For Perfect PTA Mom told us so.)

  “Finally,” this PTA mom finished up, “just so we don’t have any problems like last year, I just want to be clear: all of the baked goods must be homemade, something you make with your child. That’s so much nicer.”

  Now, maybe it’s the Midwesterner in me.

  Or the common sense in me.

  Or the hot-mess mama in me.

  It was something.

  Bef
ore I even knew it was happening, my mouth had opened and I was speaking in a voice that carried loud and clear across the auditorium.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

  Really loud. LOUD. LOOOOUUD.

  Heads whipped around in my direction. Try being that mom at your kid’s school. I didn’t even know I had that in me. But I did. I was mad. I was insulted.

  I have a time-consuming job. A job that I love. A job that I love and that I wouldn’t trade for the world. But being a writer invades my brain twenty-four hours a day. I dream about the shows. The job takes from me in ways I never expected. And yet I am devoted to it. To the rush, to the track laying, to the work.

  I work. I have a job.

  People with jobs often do not have time to bake.

  “But being a mother is also a job, Shonda.”

  I can hear someone reading this book saying those words right now.

  You know what I say to that?

  NO.

  IT IS NOT.

  Being a mother is not a job.

  Stop throwing things at me.

  I’m sorry but it is not.

  I find it offensive to motherhood to call being a mother a job.

  Being a mother isn’t a job.

  It’s who someone is.

  It’s who I am.

  You can quit a job. I can’t quit being a mother. I’m a mother forever. Mothers are never off the clock, mothers are never on vacation. Being a mother redefines us, reinvents us, destroys and rebuilds us. Being a mother brings us face-to-face with ourselves as children, with our mothers as human beings, with our darkest fears of who we really are. Being a mother requires us to get it together or risk messing up another person forever. Being a mother yanks our hearts out of our bodies and attaches them to our tiny humans and sends them out into the world, forever hostages.

  If all of that happened at work, I’d have quit fifty times already. Because there isn’t enough money in the world. And my job does not pay me in the smell of baby head and the soft weight of snuggly sleepy toddler on my shoulder. Being a mother is incredibly important. To the naysayers, I growl, do not diminish it by calling it a job.