Recently, the media has been full of stories about the struggle to balance work and family, and whether women can have it all. Anne-Marie Slaughter restarted this discussion with her article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” Then, a number of articles dealt with Olympians and the obstacles they have had to overcome to find balance between parenthood and the time and focus necessary to train. Most recently, Marissa Meyer has assumed the position of CEO of Yahoo. After making public that she is pregnant with her first child, she made it clear that her maternity leave would only be for a few weeks, and she will simply work “through out it.”
A few observations before I begin:
1. I am not entirely sure what “have it all” means.
2. Although the socio-economic implications of this argument are often an afterthought, the vast majority of these articles focus on upper-middle to upper-class women in well-paying, professional jobs.
3. The unstated, underlying assumption seems to be that men in similar circumstances do not face this dilemma, or do not face it to the same degree as women.
4. Gender roles and gender inequality are pretty much discussed in a vacuum. Little or no mention is made of the fact that gender is interrelated with other variables such as race and ethnicity, age, and social class. Also, the implication is that children are children; when in fact some children can be much more demanding than others for a host of reasons.
To begin with, two work/family experiences immediately come to mind. Our youngest, Jimmy, was diagnosed with autism early in life. Needless to say, both my wife and I were stretched. I remember getting up early to work on my doctoral thesis, around 4 am or so. I knew that once Jimmy got up, I “was on” until I left for work. When I did leave for work some three hours later, I knew who had the harder “job” that day, and it clearly was not me.
After Jimmy was initially mainstreamed in a nearby school, my wife got a job. Both my wife and I told those in the front office at Jim’s school that if Jimmy got sick or needed to be picked up for any reason, I should be called, since I am a college professor and my schedule is much more flexible. Sure enough, when Jimmy needed to be picked up, they still called my wife, and this happened on a number of occasions.
To be continued…