In September I saw my words in print for the very first time. The Princeton Alumni Weekly published an essay of mine called “A Foot In Two Worlds.” The essay explores one of my most fundamental and lingering fears, which is that by choosing to work part time and ‘stay home’ part time I’ve in fact done a poor job at both. By refusing to let go of either “world” I have failed at both. It is worth noting that I think the bifurcation between “home” and “work” is a bit antiquated, and that that categorization is simplistic and fails to capture what is in most cases a complex dance rather than a binary distinction. Still, the fact remains that I have chosen to work part-time in business settings since my children were born, and I’m full of doubts about this path.
My friend Lacy wrote me a thoughtful, provocative email yesterday responding to the essay, full of her classic sensitivity and intelligence. She posited that in fact the point I make isn’t about a choice at all but about being present and really surrendering to whichever experience I’m in at a given time. And I think she’s right. After all, I do say this:
I think it’s about my wiring, my frantic restlessness, the way I struggle to be fully engaged in one thing at a time.
I’ve been thinking about Lacy’s comments, and about the distress I feel about my work/home choices are maybe, in fact, a red herring. Maybe I just regret not really immersing myself in anything, fully, for the last many years.
This summer, being home full-time with Grace and Whit for the first time, was nothing short of a revelation. My part time schedule meant that I have always been able to do the random Tuesday afternoon birthday parties, and the doctor’s appointments, etc, but the day-in and day-out participation in the mundane details of my children’s lives was new. It was only when I capitulated to what I might have previously called monotony that the divinity revealed itself. And now, somehow, the details of this domestic life are newly bright to me.
I hope I can likewise find myself fully present and committed to a professional challenge. My new job, maybe, a book, maybe, who knows. I frankly ache to feel in the professional realm the same sort of deep peace, combined with a fundamental opening, that I’ve felt towards my life with my children.
I’ve heard from many readers of my Alumni Weekly piece, and am happy to know that others relate. I’m sorry, though, that the note that we seem to resonate on is one of malaise, of fundamental restlessness. I find myself wondering if this is not about the work/life balance mothers are aiming for, but instead about some profound truth about the human condition. Surely the challenges of working and mothering, of meeting the needs of myriad people, of trying to navigate the choppy waters of identity, personhood, and fulfillment contribute to this sense of frustration and unhappiness. But maybe they aren’t actually its fundamental source.
I don’t know – I am thinking through this as I write it. I sense something greater here, in the debate about work/life “balance,” a grander theme. The topic is fraught and complicated, for sure; Lacy called it “volcanic” and I agree with her. But the reason it’s so charged, I think, is because it probes at our innermost fears about how we are living our lives. These fears are projected onto the scrim of professional/personal choices, but I suspect they run even deeper than that. These fears are about the way we engage with the world and with those we love best, and about the way we spend our only true wealth: our time and our attention.
There are so many important questions stitched into this one post. I am off to read your Princeton piece and try my best to process all of this. A tall order indeed. Thanks for getting my brain working this soggy Wednesday morning.
As a full-time working mom this post struck a big chord with me. As a kid my own mother (a SAHM) often commented that you can’t schedule quality time with kids. Quality comes from quantity. The “divinity reveals itself” in moments of its own choosing. I don’t often question my decision to continue my career. But I expect that there will come a day when I become a SAHM for a time, and I look forward to that day as well.
I feel compelled to say here that i am ONLY speaking about my experience, and that if I’m sure of one thing after 8 years of this it’s that everybody’s choice is their own, and that many, many options can work … so please know I intended no judgment at all here or anywhere about this. I’m a passionate advocate of everybody leaving each other alone on this because at the end of the day I think SAHM and WAHM and WOHM and whatever else the acronymns are all have FAR more in common than not ….
And there it is, in black and white. The very core of my depression. Not being able to be all the things that I want and to be good at all of them. Frankly, to not really be good at any one of them. I’m struggling with this so intensely it’s tragic. I need to think about what you have written, I feel compelled to respond at my place, I hope that I can find the words. Perhaps tonight. Oh, if only we could talk about it in person!
Lindsey, have you read Life Work by Donald Hall? I’ve only read selections from it, but I think his message might resonate with you.
In his memoir, Hall talks about how we define work and how he feels – first as a professor and then as a full-time writer – that he has never had to “work” a day in his life.
I thought of his writing while reading your piece today because both make me wonder about how much satisfaction depends upon finding the work you love, whether that be with your kids, in a professional setting, or some combination of the two.
(For the record, Hall quit a tenured college teaching job to become a writer and never looked back. An intriguing example to consider, no?)
balance? maybe we can imagine it as feeling centered off-balance (as is often displayed by amazing contemporary dancers…lean, fall, walk, spin, soar).
maybe a book? yes, a book… xo
Thought provoking. It’s these words I keep coming back to: “that the note that we seem to resonate on is one of malaise, of fundamental restlessness. I find myself wondering if this is not about the work/life balance mothers are aiming for, but instead about some profound truth about the human condition.” Love it.
and at the risk of sounding completely spoiled and whiney, i, too, juggling caring for my mother. kids. work (but i am a writer and own commercial real estate which means my work is portable which means i don’t really work, right?), 3 siblings that i’m responsible for in several important and tine-consuming ways, my husband’s elderly aunt, AND i’ve just signed up for nano 2010 because dammit, i am moving that to the daylight hours, refusing to continue to write while everybody else sleeps then be ready to go all during the day, accommodating and cajoling, and doing the bidding of so many others. (actually, i think i signed up for nano because i am stark raving mad.) (and probably from reading the disjointedness of this comment, you and others would also scratch your heads and wonder what on earth i’m thinking.)
right now, i feel overwhelmed and woefully behind on every single front, and i know i need to choose, but how? who gets cut out?i
a nap would probably help – say a 30 minute UNINTERRUPTED nap. but in absence of that, i thank you for writing this and for letting me vent off a wee bit of steam.
wish i had more concrete answers. perhaps a chart or checklist to tell us how to accommodate living in multiple worlds. i think we just need a take-a-number machine.
but then ordering and installing the refills would just be one more thing we’d have to do, right?
sigh.
Lindsey, very much enjoy this post, for this is the exact topic i’ve struggled with since the time my son was born (clearly, I am not alone). I feel your last paragraph is spot on. I think we all know, deep in our gut, that this is it, despite our not knowing if we’re ultimately right or wrong in our choosing. In my mind at least, there is this idea of what if, what if i should come upon a day that does in fact reveal to me that I should have chosen differently – lived my life differently. I know that I would be at a loss; the time that has passed is time lost forever.
So many choices, so many paths to choose from…
I am nearing the end of this particular road, as my daughter will be in college before I know it. Your words hold a lot of meaning still, as I think about the choices before me now.
“These fears are about the way we engage with the world and with those we love best, and about the way we spend our only true wealth: our time and our attention.”
Yes, and who and what and where we love.
As always, thanks to you.
Beautifully written, Lindsey.
I’ve been thinking about this post all day. I think there is something compassionate and wise that’s really challenging me, here, in a good way.
I don’t have children, so the specifics of the conflict don’t exactly apply, but the question of impossibly-deep but impossibly-divided loyalties, and too many mutually-exclusive claims on my time is absolutely “up” in my life right now.
Trying to balance all of my time-demands, in a way that seems calm and rational and, well, balanced, seems undoable. On the face of it, it looks simply impossible. So I look for what I can, painfully, regretfully, perhaps let go of. But when I try to do that, those things grab me by the lapel, don’t seem to let me let go of them.
Perhaps just like children.
I don’t know how it would be doable. I don’t think I could do it by staying “in control” of it all – my schedule, my expectations, my accomplishments. But if I just were to simply commit to my life, dive in without caring about the expectations, the accomplishments, the “balance”, maybe it would somehow swing into flow, it would somehow just happen in some tumbled and chaotic and previously-unknowable way.
It would take courage.
I have done some very difficult things before in my life, with nothing more than the courage of my commitment. It was thoroughly scary, and it completely, but completely transformed me. But it did happen, it did flow, it did get me where I was going, even if I had no idea where that was going to be. I just laid into it, girded up my courage, and let it take me where it would.
I hadn’t thought about that in terms of this impossible blend of loyalties and loves in my life, that I am trying to “balance”. I hadn’t thought that the effort to balance them was perhaps the obstacle. I hadn’t thought of perhaps just laying myself into the wild current and seeing what happened, relinquishing my expectations, my control, my ability to keep my head above water.
It’s scary. But it may turn out that if I go under the surface, that the world down there will be rich and bouyant and tumblingly-beautiful, and I will somehow turn out to be able to breathe under water. Perhaps very much as @Melissa says, above, about being centered while yet unbalanced. Perhaps that doing it this way will turn out to be the only way possible.
Thank you, Lindsey.
Being present wherever I am is something I am working on. Technology in particular makes checking out too easy. I saw a quote today from Abraham-Hicks that said something to the effect of “I make decisions all day – and then I make them right”. I think that’s a big part of the answer for me – whatever decision I make, where ever I am, to make it “right” (to keep myself present, to let my instincts guide me as to what the best next action is, to get out of my own way as much as possible). I am tired of the malaise, having spent much of my life there – I am happy to swing between all the emotions as long as a good portion of my day is joyful. I am learning too, to find the joy in what is simple, ordinary, instead of working so hard to find perfect and special.
And a big Yay! at the part where you saw your words in print for the first time. May it happen many times over, and may it never lose its thrill.
I agree with the comment you made, Lindsey, about this perhaps being part of a larger theme of work/life. Since having children I have completely changed how I think about staying at home with the children and paid childcare! I think, for me, that the struggle and confusion around trying to parent and work part-time was inextricably linked to ‘surely we as a society can come up with something better?’
So now I question the whole issue of how our society views the raising of children – i.e. how little value is put on it. But I also sense that there is unease about raising issues like ‘how good is childcare for our children’ in an open-minded way. And how do you ever move this debate into an issue for the whole of society and not just for women? Anyway, off my soapbox. I don’t know the answers, but a healthy discussion is a good start! Julie
Lindsey. I am sorry that I don’t have much to bring to the table.
The more I read on the net, the more I awake to an understanding that you are not alone in your thoughts or feelings. The first thought that had after reading this piece was… ‘ She should read Aidan’s blog ‘ and low and behold, Aidan was first to post a comment.
I look forward to reading more of your journey.
Always, Bumby
I’ve been thinking a lot about quality as a byproduct of quantity. My time with my children right now is not quantity — just the margins of the day. And, as such, with trying to wake up sleepy preschoolers, get out the door, race to make pick up, feed hungry cranky kids, bath, bed (all the while knowing I have to get back on the computer) there is not a lot of quality. At all. And so I’m wondering what I’m trying to accomplish. I’m scared of being a full-time, stay-at-home mom in a way that is more than financial or professional — and now I think I can articulate why. Will I become numb to the moments of divinity, when they do come? I think I’m by nature a grass-is-greener type of person. I’m working, so I want to be home with my kids. But were I home, I’d be worried about whether my career (as it is) is slipping away, never to be retrieved. I feel, however, like I’m on the brink of a big revelation: that just as Gale said and as you, Linds, have been chronicling for yourself over the past few months (as you began to delight in being at home) — that being a SAHM (or whatever) could be something worthwhile in and of its own right. That those moments of divinity are there, in the mundane, day to day. Maybe you have to make space for them, you can’t force them. Are they worth the “price” (so to speak, although I’m beginning to believe that by thinking that I’ll “never work again” I’m just making excuses for myself) of leaving my career, at least for now? This is the precipice on which I teeter at the moment.
Congrats on being in print, that is huge, and I am sure, many more stories are on their way. I’m off to check it out now.