by Robin Romm
It’s this tacit denial of the tragedy of the human condition that I’ve come to resent in the contemporary literature about “balancing” career and family. This literature is full of demands for Justice and Equality, its authors motivated by ideas of social perfection: to finally place a sufficient number of women in the ranks of management and government and to effect true gender equality in the workplace as a whole. Engaged on a quest to change the world, they write with a fervor generated by a political ideal and employ the language of political advocacy, as if the divided desires of our souls can be unified by Reform and Revolution. There is a solution for everything, they imply; we just haven’t found it yet.
But this simply isn’t so. I know from personal experience that this conflict in the soul does not go away, no matter how pleasant and accommodating our colleagues may be, or how flexible our schedules. We are limited, embodied creatures. These limits mean that we cannot do everything to its fullest extent at once, and certain things we may not be able to do at all. The tragic aspect of this is that both excellence and nurture are real, vital goods, and the full pursuit of one often, and perhaps inevitably, forecloses fully pursuing the other.
Leaning In, Leaning Out
ALLISON BARRETT CARTER
For some, North Carolina summers are beautiful in their laid-back, sultry, teen romance way. But for a struggling stay-at-home mom, they’re hell in a diaper bag. It is sweat, sunscreen, and mosquitoes outside, or being trapped inside with a toddler climbing the walls.
When I was pregnant, I worked full time and barely noticed the seasons at all. I was consumed with my growing child, planning how I’d excel at motherhood. I’d keep the house clean, only serve organic meals, and split all the real parenting duties with my husband. Motherhood would not slow my intellectual contributions to the world at large.
Then I had the baby. Two years later, during a sweltering summer, I found myself eating microwaved green beans and suggesting to my son that we dine in front of the TV because it was just the two of us, again.
That year, the Olympics were in full swing with an impressive American swim team that had the nation in its grip. Between races I found myself continuously confronted by a commercial honoring the athletes’ mothers. In a barrage of touching images, mothers were seen lifting their fallen children again and again, driving them to early morning practices, and watching nervously from the sidelines. The scenes celebrated these women as the silent, unsung force behind the amazing athletes who appeared on our television.
The commercial aired constantly, and each time it affected me. Those moms were elegantly quiet in the background, full of resolve and emotion, yet completely overshadowed. Was their legacy that they gave everything they could to someone else, so that person could swim one hundred yards? They were nameless, lumped into a group of generic “moms” in a commercial, while their children became household names and international sensations.
Was that all I was to be now: a shadowy figure who bandaged others’ knees and helped them to their greatness?
I never dreamed about being a stay-at-home mom. I attended a top public university, the University of Virginia, where I graduated with distinction and loved the legacy associated with the school. As an undergraduate, I poured myself into books, forgoing a social life. I had my sights set on academic achievement, led a student-run dance company, and was a founding volunteer at the Center for Politics. I saw myself as an eventual newsmaker and powerful leader, my name in the headlines and bylines.
After I graduated, I found an amazing job at PBS outside of Washington, DC. I worked my way to senior contract negotiator, privy to inside conversations and decisions. I enjoyed it, bragging to friends that the shows they and their children watched were procured by my negotiating skills. I was about to enroll in a nighttime law program to further advance my career when I met the man who would become my husband. I followed my outdoorsy engineering beau to the hills of North Carolina while I worked remotely.
Before I knew it, I was married and pregnant. The swank job suddenly no longer fit my life. As my belly grew and my baby kicked, I felt maternal love overwhelming all the other desires I’d had. Contracts and deadlines mattered less as my pregnancy progressed. My priority became my son before I even held him in my arms.
A couple we were very close to had their baby months before I was due to deliver mine. They both worked full-time jobs they loved, but they were beyond exhausted and fought incessantly. Every time we met to listen to live bluegrass music or watch a football game, I saw them battle over their baby’s head. Their fights were varied but constant: whose job was more important, who needed to go to the grocery store bleary-eyed after work, who needed to reschedule their meetings to stay home when the child was sick, who needed to communicate with the nanny.
My anxiety skyrocketed as I listened to their arguments. One night after they left exceptionally angry at one another, my husband and I admitted that we wanted something different. He was willing to stay home if we decided it was best, but he was doubtful of his ability to be fulfilled doing so. If we both kept our jobs, we saw ourselves turning out like my poor, stressed friends. I knew that law school, the only way for me to really move ahead at work, was not a reasonable option with a newborn. Also, we had a warm house and could afford our weekly groceries without such tensions. I decided not to return to work after my maternity leave ended.
This decision, of course, drastically changed our financial situation, but I realized that my values allow for a smaller budget. If all the little things I gave up had really been valuable to me, I would have made a different choice. If I truly cared enough about better-fitting clothes, age-defying makeup, spontaneous vacations, the newest iPhone, or even to be in the best school district or private school, I would have changed my mind. If I wanted to impact the face of public television and guide it into the next century, I would have changed my mind.
It turns out that I don’t mind Target clothes and makeup from the grocery store. With research I can organize smart budget vacations—maybe not to Spain or Amsterdam, but we’ll still have fun. Public television would continue on without me, but my family felt like a different story.
When my son’s ongoing struggle with ear infections required multiple surgeries, I knew where I needed to be. When my son’s sweaty knees snuggled into my side as we read books in the late afternoon, I didn’t want anything else. I loved every single new face and lip curl he made.
But soon, even though our domestic lives seemed more balanced than those of our poor arguing friends, doubts about lost possibilities began to worm their way in. I’d wanted to write and travel, bring television into the digital age, argue points of law in superior court.
Even though I loved spending time with my growing son, I came to miss vice presidents of departments calling me for information only I knew, having Au Bon Pain while on a conference call with a brilliant legal mind in Boston, arguing details of contract language, researching digital trends in broadcasting, and proposing language to capture those rights. I missed an expendable income. A part of me—my independence and freedom—had started to disappear.
I wanted to stay relevant intellectually, but I didn’t know what that meant when it came to charting my path as a stay-at-home mom. Cultural clues were unhelpful. Though our society claims to admire the hard work of women who decide to stay home, when it comes down to it, that respect isn’t genuine. The same summer as the Olympics, I watched Modern Family after my son went to bed. Claire, the stay-at-home mom, was portrayed as a frantic, controlling killjoy. When women stay home with their kids, they’re not seen as respectable intellectual equals. They’re either oppressive and crazed or an untouchable martyr, the women who willingly dissolve behind the images of their children.
I happened to read Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In during this time. Many stay-at-home moms I know detested that book. They seemed to feel that Sandberg’s call for women to embrace their talents and get help (as men do) was a passive-a
ggressive attack on women who left the workplace.
I, on the other hand, loved it. I underlined, underscored, and highlighted like a dutiful student. Why couldn’t I apply what she said (get a mentor, sit at the table, speak the truth, be the best, don’t do it halfway) to motherhood? Here I was, privileged enough to make a decision for the life I wanted; I needed to embrace it.
Sandberg wrote, “We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in.” And later, “If I had to embrace a definition of success, it would be that success is making the best choices we can . . . and accepting them.”
That stuck. So I leaned in to motherhood.
I approached my role like I did my comparative politics class back at UVA: researching who looked happiest, who seemed to be doing it right, who was turning out accomplished kids, and, from there, extrapolated what steps they took. I’d find the winning formula and follow it.
Step by painful Pinterest-fueled step I tried to mold myself into the Internet’s image of the perfect mom. I prepared crafts based on the season and holiday, hosted luncheons, volunteered on every board, cut sandwiches into fun shapes, took my child to all the museums and every available adventure outside our door. I could barely keep up with myself.
One terrible day I was at home preparing for a group playdate. Overcome by my son’s relentless cries from his crib, I sobbed through a shower I desperately needed. Thirty minutes later I was wearing shorts with high heels (which I felt was the required uniform) and desperately trying to get a kale and white bean stew simmering on the stove (even though I actually ate frozen French bread pizza most meals). All the while, I tripped over my stupid shoes, sprinting back and forth from the stove to my wailing child who, I learned later, had a double-ear infection. I’d spent money we didn’t have on expensive candles so my house smelled like a Christmas tree farm, although it was nowhere near the holiday season.
And I was utterly exhausted. I’d stayed up too late the night before, despite knowing multiple nighttime soothing sessions were coming, preparing a craft project for all of the twelve- to eighteen-month-old children coming over the next day. I was determined to master the image, to win.
Except, I was miserable and frustrated. I didn’t want to be in heels. I wanted to pull my greasy hair back into a bun, throw on sweatpants, and meet friends at the coffee shop before excusing myself early for a midday snuggle with my tired child.
Why, if I was working so hard to be the best mother, wasn’t I happier, more confident, and proud of myself? Shouldn’t I have been leaning way in to self-confidence at this point?
When I really thought about it, I realized I’d received a lot of praise and a significant pay raise from my boss every single year in every one of my jobs as a reward for hard work. In my new role for my “new company,” no matter how many crafts and cookies I conjured up, no one really cared. No one valued my efforts. It deflated me to pour all of my energy into the single goal of being a spectacular stay-at-home mom and have no one notice.
After the playdate fiasco, I realized that my ambition couldn’t be fulfilled by stews and crafts. By this time, my husband and I had brought another son into the world. We were now a family of four and the demands were even greater. I reentered the workforce in a part-time capacity as a content marketer and writer for an Internet company. Working didn’t go well either. While the job was acceptable, trying to balance it all back home meant that my husband and I were much like that couple we didn’t want to be. We fought too much, the kids were ferried from one place to the next so we could get it all done, and our time became so filled with chores and must-dos that we barely enjoyed each other.
That wasn’t what I wanted, either.
Had I now inadvertently created a legacy of failure? I failed at being the world’s best stay-at-home mom and then promptly turned around and failed at being a working mom.
And I was sort of missing my kids. I remembered mornings when I buried my face under my pillow, muttering I couldn’t do it one more minute, then came downstairs to my sons dressed as pirates, preparing a concert on kazoos just for me. I did my best as a mom, without impact bonuses or promotions, because when I clapped at the end of their show I knew that my love and attention changed their world. I missed that feeling.
I craved happiness and a quieter life with my family, but I still wanted a legacy outside of my children. I couldn’t accomplish any of this according to someone else’s rule book. So I wrote my own.
I admitted that while my children will not wait to grow, I can get a job later. I am smart, creative, and useful, and those traits will not abandon me.
I had been ashamed of myself as a stay-at-home mom for a long time but for the wrong reasons. I let the Internet, television, essays, books, and blogs define how I thought motherhood should look. I spent years of my early motherhood feeling as though my ambition had to die because I made the choice to stay home with my children. The truth that finally changed my life is that ambition and being a stay-at-home mom are not mutually exclusive concepts.
Today I no longer let shame stop me from embracing things the stereotypical stay-at-home mom does. Some may think that version of motherhood is outdated and unhappy, but I actually love whipping up chocolate chip cookies while explaining detailed narrative arc to my sons, then taking a phone call about nonprofit management for an organization I volunteer for. And I do it in sweatpants with my hair pulled back in a messy bun.
Sometimes I write, join important and impactful groups, teach group fitness, train for 5km races, sporadically blog, sign up for reading challenges, and always push myself to learn something new. Even though I no longer have a full-time job I love to brag about, I always have something interesting to share at cocktail parties.
I finally allowed myself the freedom to admit that I have no regrets over being with my sons. Every success sounding out a new word, every time their eyes lit up because they read something new about hummingbirds, every tear shed at the hands of a bully, they’ve all been mine to witness. Not only my heart but also my physical being has been beside my kids nearly every day since their birth.
Ironically, my fierce ambition, which seemed so toxic to me in early motherhood, makes me a better mother and role model to them. My desire to achieve and be seen, to emerge from the invisible life of chores and house, makes me happy as a stay-at-home mom today.
Just because those moms in that Olympics commercial were in the shadows for the thirty-second spot doesn’t mean they weren’t out the next day running an executive meeting or feeding the needy. The commercial wasn’t the full story. Perhaps my legacy isn’t just one big thing I am leaving behind. My kids are certainly a big part of my legacy, but they’re not the whole of it either. Maybe my legacy is more complicated, a rich and messy sum of all the things that have mattered to me, and that matter to me still.
The Price of Black Ambition
ROXANE GAY
You never know when or if you’ll get a big break as a writer. You write and write and write and hope that someone out there will see something worthwhile in that writing and then you write and write and write some more. I think I am having my big break right now. In 2014, I published two books—a novel, An Untamed State, and an essay collection, Bad Feminist. Both books received overwhelmingly positive critical attention. The latter book was on the New York Times bestseller list regularly in the eighteen months after it was published. Articles about me keep telling me I am having a moment, my big break. My friends and loved ones tell me that I am having a moment. Part of me recognizes that I am having a moment, while the more relentless part of me, a part that cannot be quieted, is only hungrier, wanting more.
I began to understand the shape and ferocity of my ambition when I was in kindergarten. Each student had been given a piece of paper in class bearing an illustration of two water glasses. We were instructed to color in one-half of the illustration. I suspect we were learning
about fractions. I diligently shaded in one-half of one of the glasses and smugly turned my work in to the teacher. If it had been the parlance of the day, I would have thought, nailed it. I had not, of course, “nailed it.” I was supposed to color in an entire glass. Instead of the praise I anticipated, I received an F, which, in retrospect, seems a bit harsh for kindergarten. I couldn’t bring such a grade home to my parents. I had already begun demanding excellence of myself and couldn’t face falling short.
On the bus ride home, I stuffed my shame between the dry, cracked leather of the seat and assumed the matter had been dealt with. The driver, a zealous sort, found my crumpled failure, and the next day, handed it to my mother when he dropped me off. She was not pleased. I was not pleased with her displeasure. I never wanted to experience that feeling again. I vowed to be better. I vowed to be the best. As a black girl in these United States—I was the daughter of Haitian immigrants—I had no choice but to work toward being the best.
Many people of color living in this country can likely relate to the onset of outsized ambition at too young an age, an ambition fueled by the sense, often confirmed by ignorance, of being a second-class citizen and needing to claw your way toward equal consideration and some semblance of respect. Many people of color, like me, remember the moment that first began to shape their ambition and what that moment felt like.
A big break often implies that once you’ve achieved a certain milestone, everything falls into place. Life orders itself according to your whims. There is no more struggle, there is nothing left to want. There is no more rejection. This is a lovely, lovely fantasy bearing no resemblance to reality. And yet, I have noticed that my emails to certain key people in my professional life are answered with astonishing speed whereas they were once answered at a sedate and leisurely pace. There is more money in my bank account. I enjoy that.