It’s the topic du jour. Conferences are chock full of panels on the topic, bloggers clamor to take the latest and greatest spin, and an entire industry of consultants and coaches has emerged to serve mothers aching to “on ramp” back into the workforce after years of breastfeeding and dirty laundry.
Ballsy feminists like Linda Hirshman have written popular books making strong cases for how financially and psychologically dangerous it is for women not to work; in short, women who stay home to raise their children become economically dependent on men who may divorce them, get fired, or die (harsh, but true) and women, like men, need fulfilling work lives to be whole human beings.
I wasn’t really one of those young women who needed to be convinced to “stay in the workforce” (do my laptop and I in my cramped Brooklyn apartment constitute a “workforce”?) in the first place, but it’s hard to see how anyone could disagree with their argument. Only 74 percent of stay-at-home mothers who want to return to work land jobs; of these, only 40 percent are able to find full-time, professional employment. And that's after being out of work for an average of just 2.2 years. Half of marriages end in divorce and women outlive men by an average of seven years. Widowed and divorced women make up a
disproportionate share of the elderly in poverty. Should women give up their financial independence lightly? No!
Should they torture themselves by chasing after that panacea of “work/life balance”? Sadly, no again. In today’s world—with the lack of support, policy, and social buy-in—it is more like a mirage.
But there is always tomorrow. Sure, today we must wrestle with inflexible workplaces, archaic policy, and unempathic supervisors in order to protect ourselves from economic ruin. We can’t just throw our hands up and shout “To hell with it all!” when we have children to feed and goals to achieve. But if we just put our noses to the grindstone and keep churning away at the hamster wheel that is the contemporary American workplace, we also won’t change the world. And wasn’t that the point in the first place?
It seems to me that we need a dual approach. On the one hand, we need to be realists. Husbands die and cheat and become alcoholics and get laid off. Marriages dissolve. And, let’s face it, a lot of us ladies really love working. On the other hand, we need to be idealists. Workplaces should be more flexible—adopting job share programs, more telecommuting opportunities, and better day care options. The entire family structure needs to be revised so that women aren’t the ones stuck with the decision of staying home and taking care of kids or working; instead both parents will be equally responsible to configure a style of child raising and work that feels fulfilling and fin
ancially viable. It’s like acting locally, but thinking globally; we need to act realistically, but think idealistically.
For today, keep at least a foot in the professional world, but don’t forget about tomorrow. Do what you can to agitate for maternity and paternity leave, more fair hiring practices, pay equity, on-site childcare etc. Don’t settle for a work place that makes you feel like your life is supposed to be cleaved neatly down the middle—work over here, life over there. Your work should be an organic, fulfilling part of your life, not a punch clock and a cubicle. Envision a family life that honors both partners’ purpose and desires. It is high time that this work/life balance conversation wasn’t just being hashed and rehashed among those of us without a Y chromosome.
It’s not enough to keep ourselves safe. We also have to strive to change the world. After all, how can we claim to be economic providers and role models for our daughters and sons if we aren’t also improving the work place climate they will inherit?
Courtney E. Martin is the author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body.