“If she wants children and a job, a woman’s life is only as good as the man or woman she marries,” Moran writes. “That’s the biggest truth I know. All too often women are marrying their glass ceilings.”
This statement leaped out at me from a Marie Claire article I read recently about how family responsibilities – particularly a woman’s choice of a spouse – affects women’s career progression.
The author Caitlin Moran in talking about her latest book “More Than A Woman“, talks about how she was only able to complete her first book “How to be a Woman” (published in 2011) because her husband took on childcare duties full-time for several years. So she was able to completely devote herself to writing.
I thought about a world in which I could get up and just focus on my work and nothing else. I am married to a man who is hugely supportive of me and my work, but even with that, I find myself taking care of the minutiae of the family matters from doing the school runs to making sure the children are ready for school and that we left the house on time.
On most pre-COVID days, I found myself dragging my children out of the house – particularly my daughter who would typically go through several wardrobe changes before settling on an outfit that she was satisfied with.
By the time we hauled ass into the car, I was sweating my make-up off, my heart pounding and I was already tired.
After that, would be a fight through traffic to drop the children in school on time, get to the office and once in the office, racing through my work to ensure that I could leave on time to pick my children up from school. As a result, my work days were fairly short, manic and to the point. I had no time to faff around.
By the time the world descended in the COVID-induced lockdown, the truth was I was ragged with exhaustion so I welcomed the respite whole-heartedly amidst my anxieties for mine and my family’s well-being.
The first few weeks of the lockdown were blissful, truth be told. The children happily played by themselves all day and I could move from my bed to my desk and commence my work and continue uninterrupted until the evening.
After a few weeks, the excitement of unfettered play wore off for my children and then started the frequent visits to my “office” (a corner of our upstairs common area, where I planted my desk).
“I’m booooooored” my daughter would whine.
I couldn’t even wrap my head around that statement. As someone who found innumerable ways to amuse herself right from girlhood, I was never bored. And now, as an adult, I’m too busy to ever be bored.
But now I was faced with having to keep my children occupied through the day.
Please don’t mention homeschooling. I was a total fail at that. I attempted homework time with them at some point, but my unrelenting schedule of meetings and deadlines pulled me away from that. My children are young (2 and 4 at the start of the lockdown) and so I figured that the absence of schoolwork for a period would do no major disservice to them. Afterall children in Finland don’t even start school until 7, I have heard, and yet they have the best educational system in the world.
It got to a point that my time at home became as busy than pre-COVID and I was left wondering how it happened.
So, firstly, it has become clear to me over the years that I am that sort of person who derives a sense of fulfillment from busyness and activity. So perhaps I am always doomed to be busy.
Then, by dint of being a woman and having more of the child-rearing and household running fall to me, I working that “second shift” described by Arlie Hochschild in her 1989 book of the same name. In it, she found that women still take care of most of the household and child care responsibilities despite their entrance into the labor force. The couples studied in the book who were affected by the “second shift” reported feelings of guilt and inadequacy, marital tension, and a lack of sexual interest and sleep.
I can definitely speak about the emotions of never feeling enough. Not enough of a hands-on Mum and not as much time spent on work as I would like. Just not enough of anything.
Then, one day I decided that enough was enough. I realised that my work would never end. I would never get to the end of my To Do list. Work (especially when done well) begets more work and opportunities. This is a good thing, but I realised that trying to do it all was really shortchanging myself and the work. Did I really want to try to accomplish everything, but fail massively or worse still, be mediocre?
I recognised that my children would always want as much of my time as they could get (at least at this age). So I should not be fooled into thinking that I would be the best parent ever by giving up my work and spending all day with them. Ultimately, anytime I spent with them would be appreciated, especially if it was time focused on them (and not my SMSes and WhatsApp messages).
So now, I do what I can. I have set limits on my work day. If the typical office day lasts 8 hours, I don’t see why I should do more than that at home – just because I can.
And each part of my life enriches the rest of it. I am focused and laser-sharp when I work, because I don’t spend all day at it. Because I come to it refreshed after playing with my children or going for a walk. I can take crises at work in my stride because work is not the be all and end all of my life.
Like the phenomenal Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a 2016 New York Times opinion piece:
My success in law school, I have no doubt, was in large measure because of baby Jane. I attended classes and studied diligently until 4 in the afternoon; the next hours were Jane’s time, spent at the park, playing silly games or singing funny songs, reading picture books and A. A. Milne poems, and bathing and feeding her. After Jane’s bedtime, I returned to the law books with renewed will. Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.
So although I still wish I had more than 24 hours in a day, a little less work and a little less expected of me, you know what ….. it is what it is. I will do what I can and adjust (i.e. lower) my expectations so that I am happy with what I can do at this season of my life. And maybe in the next season of my life, I will be dealing with a whole new set of issues. Good ones, I pray …
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