What "Having It All" looks like in my life

In keeping with the theme of this month's Feminist Odyssey Carnival, today I am writing about what "Having It All" looks like in my life. I approach the concept of Having It All from my particular set of circumstances, which include the facts that (a) I work outside the home as the primary income earner in my family (I am not in a formal leadership position but am respected as a technical expert in my field), (b) I have a rather crunchy, AP-ish style of parenting, and (c) my husband and I do not have a local “village” of support. I would expect Having It All to look fairly different for a woman with different circumstances.

Given all that, this is what Having It All looks like in my life:

• I am immersed in an imaginative world almost every day, if even for a short while. Sometimes I get to play the role of a dinosaur. Sometimes I get to play the role of a superhero. Sometimes I get to play the role of a train, horse, fairy or any other number of characters my preschooler can dream up.
• I spend a good portion of my days surrounded by really smart, motivated people that, like me, believe in public service and sustainable resource management.
• I get to exchange hugs and kisses with two sweet little schmoos every day.
• I get to nerd out to my heart’s content, studying data and figuring out how to better answer questions and solve problems.
• I get to be as silly as I can and make up songs with the word “poo-poo” in them (yeah, I’m juvenile like that).
• Several times each year, I get to present information to representatives from 7 states and numerous local and regional agencies. It instills a sense of pride to have my organization’s confidence to present high level, high stakes issues to key stakeholders.
• I am challenged to be creative with food in a way I never thought I would be.
• I derive the personal and professional satisfaction of being respected as a technical expert in my field.

Most of the time, Having It All looks and feels pretty great. I am incredibly privileged and my life is full to bursting with laughter and love and pride and accomplishment. Sometimes it looks and feels like complete chaos, but I love that there is seldom a dull moment. That does not mean that it is not hard, or overwhelming or heartbreaking sometimes. This is also what Having It All looks like in my life:

• My house is a mess. Always. Even when it’s clean there are piles of clutter everywhere, and I simply do not have the time and energy to change the average state of chaos.
• Sometimes, my last view of home when I back my car out of the driveway in the morning is my baby crying and reaching for me, trying to swim out of his father’s arms because only mommy will do at that moment in time.
• Sometimes I have to turn down good opportunities for interesting projects that would lead to better exposure and relationships with my organization’s stakeholders – which could lead to better advancement potential - because they involve overnight travel; and with a breastfeeding baby that still wakes multiple times per night and spends a good portion of the night by my side, overnight travel just doesn’t fit into my life right now. (Night weaning, I have my eye on you, but I'm not quite ready yet)
• I have heard my preschooler tell me “I don’t love you when you leave”. I know that kids his age can mix up words like “like” and “love”, and that he really means “I don’t like it when you leave”, but still, ouch.
• When my group manager retires next year, I will probably not be in the running for his replacement. I will likely stand by and watch my (equally talented and deserving) childless male coworker apply for and get the promotion, because I will not be willing to take on the additional hours or travel requirements at that time. It will be a bitter pill to swallow because I do have ambition, but I will have to maintain hope that there will be other opportunities for me at a later date, that my time will come when my children’s need for my presence isn’t so great.

Having it all does not mean having perfection (as if there were such a thing outside of fairy tales and click-bait mommy-war articles). There are always trade-offs and choices to be made. I make the choices that I think work best for my circumstances and my family, knowing fully well that other women might make different choices and would judge me for my choices.  And that is ok with me. Just as there is no single monolithic Woman, there is no single set of life choices that represent Every Woman's personal priorities. 

And really, most of the time I am simply too busy, distracted, or exhausted to care. 

"Do You Have It All?" is the Wrong Question

I have deliberately stayed away from the topic of Having It All during the past months. As you may be aware, there were a number of well publicized articles in the media discussing whether or not women could, or even should endeavor to “Have it All”. At the time there were so many smart, articulate women that wrote on the issue, many articulating my very thoughts on the matter, that I simply left the discussion to their capable hands. Nonetheless, the theme for this month’s Feminist Odyssey Carnival is “Having It All” so I’ve been thinking a bit about the topic lately. You might even see more than one post on the topic this month.

As I was thinking about the question “Do I Have it All?” and what does that mean to me, it occurred to me that the question that we are asking ourselves, I think, is all wrong. The question is not “Do you have it all?” or even “Should you have it all?” The question should be “Are you happy with what you have?” If the answer to the last question is yes, then the answer to the first question is also yes. The problem is that we are up to our eyeballs in click-bait mommy-war articles that tell us that unless we actually live in a perfect fairy tale world (as defined by ???) the answer to this basic fundamental question ought to be “No”.

There are lots of reasons why a woman with a career may not have children. Some reasons are based on choice, and some are not. There are lots of reasons why a woman with children may maintain a paid career. Some of those reasons are based on choice and some are not.

I tend to think that if a stay-at-home mom is happy and fulfilled and feels well balanced in her life, then she has it all because she has everything she wants, or at least everything she needs to be happy and fulfilled. Likewise if a childless, career-driven woman is happy and fulfilled and feels well balanced in her life, then she also has it all because she has everything she wants, or at least everything she needs to be happy and fulfilled.

There is no exact formula for having it all that equates for every woman all the time, because there is no monolithic Woman. A woman should be skeptical of anyone who tells her that she must have A and B and C but not D or else she does not have it all and should feel disappointment with her life.

How Not to avoid talking water policy with a preschooler

As you know, SchmoopyBoy is fascinated with poop. Recently, his interest has taken a scientific turn. He now knows that food goes into our stomachs when we swallow, and comes out as poop. Even more recently, he asked what happens to the poop after it goes into the toilet.

Keeping in mind he is four years old, I tried to keep the explanation at his level. I should also note that he is at the stage of “Why?” Virtually every statement that comes out of my mouth is followed by SchmoopyBoy asking Why? So, with that in mind, here is approximately how the explanation went.

Me: The poop and the water go down the drain when you flush. Then it goes to pipes underground, to the water treatment plant.

SchmoopyBoy: Why does it go down the drain?

Me: To get to the pipes.

SchmoopyBoy: Why are the pipes underground?

Me: Because if they were above ground it would be really stinky.

SchmoopyBoy: Where is the water treatment plant?

Me: On the other side of town.

SchmoopyBoy: Why?

Me: Because that is where the clean water gets put back into the wash, and back to the lake.

SchmoopyBoy: Why is it clean water?

Me: The water gets cleaned at the water treatment plant.

SchmoopyBoy: Why?

Me: The water is dirty. It has poop and pee in it. It needs to be cleaned. Then the clean water goes back to the lake.

SchmoopyBoy: Why?

You can see how these conversations go. So the other day we were at Target and SchmoopyBoy needs to use the bathroom. I took him into the bathroom and he wants more information on how poop and pee are processed at the Target bathroom. He asks if his pee and the water in the toilet are going into pipes. I confirm that indeed they are. He asks if the pipes are underground. I confirm that indeed they are. He again asks why, and I again explain that if poop and pee water went across town over ground it would stink and it would be dangerous because there is bacteria in poop and pee that could make people sick. He continues his line of questioning, but then really wants to know about the treatment plant and the clean water coming out of the treatment plant. He really wants to know why the clean water is returned to the lake.

At this point people in the restroom are beginning to snicker at us – this preschooler barraging his mother with questions about poop and water treatment plants and why is the treatment plant on the other side of town and why does the water go to the lake, and on and on and on… why? why? why?

All this time I’m thinking to myself, He’s four. Keep it age appropriate. Do not start talking about water policy. Do not utter the words “consumptive use” or “return flow credits”. But alas, at this point I’m getting flustered and I'm so accustomed to talking about water related issues with adults in a professional setting that I can't think of how to answer his questions in terms a preschooler can understand, so what comes out of my mouth? The words “consumptive use” of course. I’m mumbling something incoherent about how we divert water from the lake, use what we need, and then return the rest to the lake after it gets cleaned at the treatment plant. And of course he keeps asking why? because I’m so incoherent and I’m using words like “divert” and “consumptive use” and for crying out loud the child is only four so what the heck does all this mean, and finally a woman who was trying so hard not to laugh just said to him “Because otherwise we would run out of water” and at last the conversation was over (for the time being) and we could return to our shopping in peace.  Thank you, kind woman, for summing everything up so succinctly.

Adding to my breastfeeding while working checklist

Well, it seems I can't go a year of pumping while working without an embarrassing incident. During SchmoopyBoy's first year, while pumping in a room with a non-locking door, I got walked in on by no other than the Division Chief. As delightful as that was (NOT), it did provide me with a golden opportunity, and in our new building, I now have a dedicated pumping room, which IS totally awesome.

Now, I've mentioned before that Lil' Schmoo is not the greatest sleeper in the early mornings while I'm trying to get ready for work, so I typically have lots of opportunities to nurse until I am 'empty' before I leave for the day. On Monday, however, he slept uncharacteristically soundly. This was certainly convenient as I got ready, but I did leave feeling a bit more 'full' than usual. Monday mornings are super busy at my office - reports to create and review, weekly staff meetings, etc. I made my way to pump at the usual time, and when I looked down to unbutton my shirt I noticed a sizable wet milk mark on the front. I hadn't noticed feeling a milk letdown, so I have absolutely no idea how long I had been walking around like that. I should also mention that I am the only woman in my work group. And did I mention the weekly Monday morning staff meeting?

When I finished pumping I washed the front of my shirt, which resulted in nearly half my shirt being wet. I thought I was going to have put on the spare jacket I keep at my desk to cover myself for the rest of the day, which, considering how warm it's been in the office, I really wasn't looking forward to. Fortunately it's a dry heat and the fabric of my shirt dried quickly - no more embarrassing milk mark - thank goodness.

So let's see my breastfeeding while working checklist:

• Get walked in on while pumping - Check!
• Pump on the floor of a bathroom stall and have someone call out "What's that noise?" - Check!
• Pump in the car in a Costco parking lot just before an offsite meeting because it was around the corner and seemed to be the most discreet location in the vicinity, and hope no one notices - Check!
• Walk around the office clueless that I've got milk leaking onto my shirt - Check!

Ah, the things we go through for our babies!

Do you have any embarrassing stories to tell about breastfeeding or pumping? Let me know in the comments and we can commiserate together!


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I'm celebrating World Breastfeeding Week with Natural Parents Network!
You can, too — link up your breastfeeding posts from August 1-7 in the linky below, and enjoy reading, commenting on, and sharing the posts collected here and on Natural Parents Network.

(Visit NPN for the code to place on your blog.)

The voice of a young woman on leadership

Forbes recently published an essay by a 19-year old undergraduate student on why Millennial women don't want to lead. I don't interact with many women in this age group these days, so it was an interesting perspective.

Her conclusion:

Ultimately, women equate leadership with perfection in a way that men don’t…

So, why don’t women want to lead? The answer is in the pages of the magazines we read and now even in the news coverage of the political debates we watch, which promote cultural standards that destroy women’s confidence and prescribe unattainable standards in all areas of our lives. In order for women to lead – for women to want to lead, to feel that we are capable of leading – we need to redefine leadership altogether. We need to define leadership not as perfection but as intelligence, honesty and doing the right thing. It is also essential that we question and change a society that sets the standard for achievement impossibly high for women and upsettingly low for men.

I find it a bit problematic that this young woman appears to confuse leadership with political power, a very specific type of leadership. At age 19, she is a published author and the founder of The FBomb.org, which describes itself as "a blog/community created by and for teenage girls who care about their rights as women and want to be heard." In other words, she already is a leader.  White women are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action when considering management positions in the U.S. and it is difficult to believe that this trend will reverse in the coming decades. 

Nonetheless I find her link between the acquisition of perceived physical perfection and perfect life balance with the acquisition of leadership relevant. Additionally, I agree with the premise that the role of media in sending harmful messages to girls cannot be understated. I highly recommend you go to Forbes to read the full article.

A little working mom humor

I recently discovered this great site called Hello Ladies. It calls itself "the intersection of feminism and life". Good reads, check it out. One of the things I found was this little ditty, which I thought was great and wanted to share.

From here, via here, thanks to Pinterest.

Update

I'm still here. I've been working a lot. I've been running around with the kiddos a lot. I've been considering the direction I want my blog to go. I go through periods of being a wannabe food blogger, then a wannabe feminist parenting blogger, then a wannabe positive inspirational blogger, and then I just get busy and uninspired and stop blogging altogether for a couple of weeks.

I was hoping to have a new recipe to share. I tried making individual-sized cherry crumbles using the cherries from my tree. The recipe needs a little more work. And I'm out of cherries. So, that will have to wait another year or I'll have to bite the bullet and actually buy fresh cherries. Poor me, huh?

Lil' Schmoo is pulling himself up to stand as frequently as possible, which makes bedtime…. interesting. It goes like this. After our bedtime routine I put him into his crib awake. He starts crawling around and pulls himself up to stand. He then starts chewing on the rail and 'practices talking' which means he starts blowing raspberries causing spit to get everywhere. He then realizes that he's stuck and requests help in getting down. So I stand up to help him and I realize that I'm standing in a puddle of baby drool. How delightful.

Hope everyone is having a great summer and staying cool! Hopefully I'll get my blogging mojo back soon.

The Problem with Dad

...is that he doesn’t have milk producing breasts.

It’s like this. I get up at 5am and slowly and gently pry my body away from the sleeping baby. About 3 minutes into my shower he wakes up. Sometimes I hear the husband try in vain to calm him as he hollers his disapproval. When I come to him, barely clothed and with my dripping wet head wrapped in a towel, he looks at me with surprise and admonishment. His eyes then turn down towards my chest and you would think it had been 15 hours rather than 15 minutes since he had last nursed.

He latches on, and looks up to my eyes as if to say “How can you possibly expect me to tolerate Daddy? Don’t you know by now I must have my soft pillows filled with warm sweet milk no more than 2 inches from my face at all moments? Duh!”

The Not So Glamourous Life of a Working Mom

"You wear a lot of hats at your house" observes a co-worker. Indeed I do.

That is how I end up, several mornings per week, sitting topless and cross legged on the floor of my bathroom in front of a mirror after a shower, with a baby cradled in my lap, my knees supporting him as he nurses at 5:30 in the morning because gawd forbid the child should sleep more than 15 minutes in the morning without my warm body by his side, my hands occupied with a hairbrush and eyeliner.

I sometimes feel like I live in the Land of Too Much and Not Enough.

Not Enough sleep.... is what I'm getting.

Not Enough milk... is what I'm pumping at work.

Not Enough time... is what I have for each child one-on-one.

Not Enough attention... is what I am giving to my relationship with my husband.

Too Much mess and clutter... is all over my home.

Too Much stress... is what I feel.

Too Much pressure... is what I am under.

"We need lots and lots of Shanas" SchmoopyBoy tells me. When your three-year old thinks you need to clone yourself, you know you're in trouble.

I can't complain because, ultimately this is the life I chose (sort of). Just sayin'... sometimes I'm just hanging on by a very thin thread...

Defining Womanhood

Be honest: are you consciously writing your own definition for womanhood, or are you using a definition that was written for you? And what tangible item most defines what you do or don’t want to become? ~Melissa Ford

This post has taken me over a week to finish because, you know, time and sleep-deprivation-induced brain power are limited these days, but nonetheless I thought it was still worth posting once I finally completed it.

Mel at Stirrup Queens wrote this fantastic article about who defines womanhood in the context of reviewing the movie The Iron Lady. The Iron Lady is about Margaret Thatcher (hmm, this is the second time Margaret Thatcher has come up in a post that fascinated me in a week, is the universe trying to tell me something?)

A few paragraphs worth quoting:

At its heart, the movie is dually about men’s inability to separate women from the adjectives they use to describe women, and the fact that WOMEN can’t separate themselves from the adjectives others use to describe women. That we allow others to define what it means to be a woman, and we go by a long-established, patriarchal definition for womanhood. Yes, we are sometimes conscious of that fact and rail against it, but just as often, men still have expectations and assumptions (popular ones: all women want children, women want to get married, women know nothing about sports) that they then tweak when they get to know the actual person, and women question themselves (even if it’s just in passing) if they don’t fit into these preconceived notions about women.

Furthermore,

...all will walk out of theater wondering if... we are allowing the traditional definition of womanhood to guide our decisions, or if we are eschewing the expectations the world has for women and making our own choices. Are we marrying because we want to or because it’s the next logical step? Same with family building? Same with career choices? Margaret Thatcher is just the receptacle for holding all these enormous ideas.

And moreover, when we write the definition for ourselves and state emphatically in our hearts what we do or don’t want to become, are we staying strong and following our dreams, or are we being sidetracked by self-doubt when others voice their opinions on our choices? How can we tune out the judgment; which when we boil down judgment to its essence is simply other people trying to define our lives for us, to write the dictionary of our selves.

I am a mother. Furthermore, I am a crunchy, attachment-parenting-leaning type mother. I am also the primary income earner in my family, and I work in a male dominated field. As such, I am constantly negotiating and renegotiating gender roles and expectations. My own expectations, my parter's expectations, my co-workers expectations, even my own mother's expectations. These expectations are based on traditional definitions of womanhood and the role of women in the domestic sphere.

My negotiations have not always been pretty. What I'm about to admit will probably piss off everyone - stay-at-home moms and hard core feminists equally. But, it does illustrate the conflict I've struggled with along my journey.

When I was pregnant with SchmoopyBoy, my mother told me with great certainty that I would be quitting my job to stay at home with my child because I "wouldn't want some stranger" to raise my child. Of course the idea that my husband, my child's other parent could possibly stay at home wasn't an option even considered because of her preconceived notions of the male gender role as bread-winners and bumbling incompetents with babies. At the time, rather than engage her in dialogue, I reacted angrily and sputtered that there was no way I was going to give up my education and career to be "some man's scullery maid". Yep, that's right people. Not my proudest moment. How many -isms are implied in that statement? I don't even want to go there now. I am so ashamed I ever used that comparison.

My world got turned upside down once SchmoopyBoy was born. I cried every day for two weeks before my maternity leave ended and it was time to leave my baby and return to the office. Once I returned to work, I judged SchmoopyBoy's development. Every time I observed something that didn't meet with my pre-determined (and completely cluelessly unrealistic) expectations, I blamed my husband. Clearly, I thought, if I were the one at home full time everything about my child would be perfectly in tune with what the books said should happen. After all, I am the mother, no one could possibly know how to do things better than me. When SchmoopyBoy's sleep habits fell apart at about 4 months of age (which is completely normal and common by the way - they don't call it the 4-month wakeful period/ 4-month sleep regression for nothing) I once angrily blurted out "Why don't you be a real man and get a real job so I can stay with him". Yep, that's right people. Another not-so-proud moment.

Traditional definition of (white middle class) womanhood - FAIL.

Feminist definition of (white middle class) womanhood - FAIL.

When it comes to black and white definitions of womanhood, I fail. I end up bouncing back and forth between extremes like a ping pong ball being swatted across a table in a game of Gender Role Dichotomy Table Tennis. I cannot and would not be willing to live like a 1950's housewife, taking 100% of the child care responsibilities and cleaning up after my husband as he lazily sips a frosty beverage at the end of his oh-so-hard-boo-hoo-for-you day. Nor can I be a female version of a 1950's father going off to work and coming home expecting my house to be neat and dinner prepared by my husband who would then of course taken on the role of 1950's househusband. While I do think that redefining manhood is a necessary component in redefining womanhood, trading traditional gender roles is not redefining womanhood or manhood, and is not my idea of what feminism is about.

Defining womanhood for me has involved embracing a traditional definition as nurturing mother, because to some extent I find that role with my children to be very natural. But it also has embraced non-traditional definitions because I find that I am indeed ambitious when it comes to my career, and I find tremendous satisfaction and experience greater mental health and self worth in the professional realm. I do struggle with balancing the domestic and professional aspects of my life, and frequently beat myself up for not performing either role to the best extent that I believe I can and should, but finding balance in life is rarely easy for anyone. So, to answer Mel's question, which I printed at the top of this post, I am creating a definition of womanhood that draws from definitions that have been previously written. That definition continues to evolve as I travel this life's journey.

Next Week

I return to work after over 3 months on maternity leave. I can't believe it's been 3 months already. I'm not ready to leave my baby. He's not ready to be left. The husband isn't ready to take on 2 kids full time.

Everything will be fine, I know. It's just the build up to the inevitable that leaves me feeling such dread.

You know what is totally wacky? In this country, I am so damn privileged to be able to take a whole 3 months off. Thank you, FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act). Plus I have worked for my organization long enough to have built up a stock pile of paid leave so that all three months were paid. I'll be going back with no paid leave remaining, so it will be a month before I can take even one paid sick day, but I'm darn fortunate to have what I have.

So I have no excuse to whine about how I really wish I were living in Canada right now. Or pretty much anywhere else in the developed world. :-f

Today's thought on work-life balance

As I write and post this, I am in Phoenix, Arizona. I am not on a family vacation, but on an overnight business trip. My second since SchmoopyBoy’s birth, and my second in just the past 4 months.

I have mixed thoughts on overnight work travel. On one hand, I used to do a lot of overnight business trips before SchmoopyBoy was born. I work in a field and for an organization where travel is pretty much necessary for certain projects and programs. The fact that I haven’t traveled in 3 years has meant that I don’t get assigned to a lot of the most interesting projects, and it has compromised the advancement of my career. Seeing as I am the primary income earner in my family, this could have real implications for my family’s future. Plus, (yes, let’s go there, shall we?) you don’t see many fathers compromising their future career growth once they have children in order to spend more time at home with their young children.

On the other hand, at this stage of his life, my child needs me. He needs me, Mommy. I started preparing him a few days before my departure. I told him about how he was going to have special daddy time and I wouldn’t be here for one night to put him to sleep. He was not happy. He is, now, not happy with me. Every time I have called since I departed he hasn’t wanted to talk to me. Not because he’s having so much fun that he can’t drag himself away (although when he was visiting and playing with cousins yesterday afternoon that was certainly a good portion of it). He hasn’t wanted to talk to me because he is upset with me for leaving him and he is giving me the cold shoulder. So, I will have quite a bit of reconnection to do when I get back into town.

What complicates things for me even more is my own ambivalence. This business trip, like my previous business trip in May, has been almost like a mini vacation. I’ve gone out to dinner with other adults and had adult conversations for 1-2 hours. I haven’t had to think about what my picky toddler will be willing to eat. I haven’t had to worry about entertaining a young child at the table with books or toys. I haven’t had to get up from the table, interrupting my conversation, to take him for a walk outside when he gets restless so he doesn’t disturb the other customers. I went back to the hotel last night and watched television – things I never watch anymore like CSI and a PBS documentary. I cannot tell a lie. I’ve been selfishly enjoying being away for a night.

But I’ve also missed my little SchmoopyBoy. Each time I call and he pouts that he doesn’t want to talk to me in his ‘upset voice’ it breaks my heart. It makes me want to run home as quickly as I can and pull him onto my lap and hold him tightly, smothering him with kisses so he knows that no one and nothing is more important to me than him.

Balance. It’s hard. It’s complicated.